connected

They measure 85 meters, have no anchors and are connected to Starlink: the gigantic "Roombas" sailors who want to save AI from the blackout

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The rise of artificial intelligence is devouring the capacity of electrical grids around the world, skyrocketing consumption and carbon emissions. And this is just the beginning. As Garth Sheldon-Coulson, CEO of the startup Panthalassa, warned, in an interview with CBS News: “We are still at the beginning of this lawsuit.” To solve this bottleneck, the heaviest investors in the technology sector are looking to the sea. Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, just led a $140 million injection into Panthalassa. But what exactly is Panthalassa? To understand it, you have to erase the traditional image of an industrial warehouse full of servers. Sheldon-Coulson described it with a rather peculiar metaphor: “It’s like ‘a giant Roomba,’ an autonomous, self-propelled system that sails without anchors across the Pacific.” The anatomy of a marine colossus. Panthalassa will use this newly raised $140 million to complete its pilot plant in Oregon and accelerate the deployment of its new model, the Ocean-3which will be tested in the North Pacific in 2026 with a view to commercialization in 2027, as detailed ESG Today. We are not talking about small buoys. The proportions are colossal. As explained Financial Timesthese solid steel structures measure about 85 meters long. To give us an idea, they are almost as tall as the iconic Big Ben of London or the building Flatiron from New York. In Xataka There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk The engineering behind. Just as described Tom’s Hardwarethe nodes are shaped like a “lollipop”: a huge white sphere floats on the surface, while a long tubular structure submerges vertically under the water. As the waves pass, the structure rises and falls. This relative motion forces seawater up the pressurized tube into the spherical chamber, where it spins a turbine. Being a continuous cycle powered by an ocean that never stops, the system generates electricity 24 hours a day. But this is where the real twist of the project lies. Historically, the big problem with wave energy has been the enormous cost of laying underwater cables to bring electricity to the coast. According to GeekWirePanthalassa solves this in one fell swoop: it doesn’t send power to shore, but uses it directly on board to power the AI ​​chips. Once the information is processed, the results (inference tokens) are sent back to clients on the ground via low-orbit satellite connections, such as SpaceX’s Starlink network. The end of terrestrial bottlenecks. This approach represents a radical paradigm shift in technological infrastructure. “Panthalassa’s idea transforms a power transmission problem into a data transmission problem,” explains to Ars Technica Benjamin Lee, computer engineer and architect at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to inexhaustible energy, the ocean offers another vital advantage: cold. Traditional data centers spend fortunes and consume millions of liters of drinking water just to prevent servers from melting due to heat. On the high seas, the story is different. As detailed BusinessWirethe ocean provides “free supercooling,” solving one of the industry’s biggest engineering challenges and extending the life of chips. Added to this is the growing citizen resistance. As pointed out Tom’s Hardwarelocal communities are increasingly rejecting the construction of these huge land-based industrial warehouses due to noise, land grabbing and energy diversion. On the ocean, there are simply no neighbors to bother or urban planning plans to navigate. Besides, as highlighted Finance TimesBeing a closed water circuit without external engines or emissions, the impact on marine life is minimal, underpinning its ecological appeal. The challenge of taming the ocean. As revolutionary as the idea may sound, transforming the ocean into a global supercomputer has titanic obstacles: The connectivity bottleneck. As he warns Ars Technicarelying on satellites is fine for “inference” (i.e. returning real-time responses to ChatGPT users or similar), but satellites have limited bandwidth and latency. If multiple ocean nodes are required to coordinate to train a heavy AI model, satellite connectivity simply won’t measure up against traditional fiber optic cables. The fury of the sea. Data Center Dynamics emphasizes that these nodes They will have to survive extreme conditions: hurricanes, corrosive saltpeter and perpetual motion for more than a decade without human intervention or maintenance. They are not alone in the idea of ​​​​wetting the servers. According to Ars Technica, Microsoft has already tested submerging data centers in the seabed with its Project Natickand Chinese companies already operate underwater infrastructure near Hainan Island. However, Panthalassa is much bolder: being floating, autonomous nodes without grounded cables, they completely break the umbilical cord with the continental electrical grid. {“videoId”:”x9sjece”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”CHINA is WINNING the TECH WAR because they planned it that way 10 YEARS AGO”, “tag”:”china”, “duration”:”721″} A bet at the height of desperation. Despite investor optimism, transforming the Pacific into the next computing cloud will not be a cake walk. $210 million (the company’s total funding to date) may seem like an outrageous amount to throw servers into the sea, but it needs to be put into perspective. As highlighted Ars Technicathis figure is anecdotal if we consider that large American technology companies plan to spend $765 billion building terrestrial data centers in 2026 alone. Faced with the desperation of the sector – which has been exploring since reopen abandoned nuclear power plants until setting up servers powered by solar panels in space orbit—the option of floating in the ocean seems reasonable. The ultimate goal of Panthalassa, as shared by its CEOis to deploy thousands of these nodes far from the coasts. If they can tame the waves and satellite bottlenecks, they could have found the Holy Grail of AI: “The cheapest energy on the planet, infinite, clean and beyond the reach of Earth’s bureaucracy.” Image | Panthalassa Xataka | Old chips never die: companies that made “boring” chips are riding the dollar (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news They … Read more

Someone connected an unprotected Windows XP PC to the Internet to see what would happen. The result is not surprising

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When Microsoft ends its support for security updates in its operating systems, it is not usually advisable to use a PC with said system unless it is for a specific and specific case. Eric Parker, content creator specialized in technology, wanted try with an experiment: use Windows XP today connected to the Internet and eliminating all types of protections. As you may have imagined, the PC has become a magnet for malware. In fact, in just 10 minutes, the operating system was completely compromised. Parker also helped make this happen for educational purposes and to demonstrate how dangerous it can be to use an operating system like Windows XP today. Windows XP without firewall and without NAT 10 minutes later: a magnet for malware The expert configured a virtual machine with Windows XP Service Pack 3 on a Proxmox server, also disabling its firewall and NAT (Network Address Translation) settings and replicating the connection conditions common in the early 2000s. To recreate this scenario, the researcher Completely disabled Windows XP firewall and assigned a direct public IP address to the system, exposing the machine without any intermediate protection. As seen in the video, in just ten minutes, the system showed the first signs of infection with the appearance of the “conhoz.exe” process in the Task Manager, which turned out to be a Trojan disguised as a legitimate component of the operating system. After downloading a compatible browser and continued use of the system, in a short time we see how the PC starts to accumulate malware from multiple unknown sources. The system had been a victim of several Trojans and malicious programs running from temporary folders. He was also the victim of a rogue FTP server that allowed full remote access to files, DNS modification to redirect traffic to attacker-controlled servers, and the creation of additional user accounts for attackers to maintain access to the system. A whole string of malicious processes that ended up hijacking the PC. Image: Eric Parker The key factor that allowed the rapid entry of all these malicious components was the vulnerability EternalBluepresent in unpatched Windows XP SP3. This security breach, which was later used by the famous ransomware WannaCryallows attackers to execute remote code without any user interaction. Parker explains that tools like Nmap allow cybercriminals to scan the network for vulnerable systemsquickly identifying exposed and unprotected Windows XP computers. A system that was crying out to be violated and a Windows 7 stronger than it seems The content creator himself admits that the conditions were as optimal as possible to get malware: disabled firewall, direct connection without NAT and unpatched system. Under normal circumstances, with a basic home router and the firewall activated, Windows XP would be significantly more protected. However, the risk does not disappear completely. The use of outdated browsers and the ease of privilege escalation on this operating system remain serious problems. And as shown in the experiment, once infected, The malware was able to automatically close security tools like Malwarebytes. To contrast the results, Parker performed the same test with Windows 7 under identical conditions. Surprisingly, after ten hours of exposure, the most modern system showed no signs of infectionevidencing the significant security improvements implemented in later versions of Windows. Now that official security update support for Windows 10 is ending soon, it’s good to take a look back and see how an outdated system can easily become compromised. Fortunately, today we have many more alternatives if we do not want to update to Windows 11. Cover image | Eric Parker In Xataka | FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 This article was originally published in Genbeta in June 2025 and is part of Genbeta’s “greatest hits” that we will discover here in the coming weeks.

Chips connected by laser instead of cable. It seems like science fiction, but it aims to revolutionize data centers

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If you have ever mounted a PCSurely one of the points on which you have had to pay the most attention is the connections. Because understanding the power of the processor, the GPU or the speed of the RAM is “easy”, but the motherboard is what allows us to interconnect all these components with ‘highways’ in which the data speed can be maximum. In the data centers and serversthis is the same: the better the connections between chips and equipment, the lower latency, higher bandwidth and better performance. These connections are made physically, but there is a French startup that wants to change the rules of the game with NVIDIA. As? Connecting the chips by laser. Chips connected by laser and NVIDIA taking out the wallet Improving interconnection speed is no small feat or a whim. NVIDIA has begun manufacturing its next generation platform, the one named Vera Rubin. It is a system that can be combined with others to multiply benefits. That union, as we say, is physical, but there comes a point at which physics is no longer enough. When that arrives, NVIDIA wants to be ready and, a few days ago, Reuters reported on a $4 billion investment by NVIDIA in two companies that are aggressively researching new technologies to help increase that interconnection speed: Lumentum and Coherent. This is a rack and the nightmare of those of us who hate cables. Specifically, that of the Wikimedia Foundation. Well, imagine that a large part of those cables go outside because the systems are connected by electricity Another of the companies in which they have invested is Scintil Photonics. It is a French startup that this in the testing phase of a technology that, if the industry adopts it, will mark a before and after in this connection on a team scale. The LEAF Light Evaluation Kit is, as detailed, the first dense wavelength division multiplexing single chip to go from theory to practice. It’s like another language, I know, but it’s basically what we were talking about: an optical chip interconnection system instead of copper. And that is the main advantage. With copper reaching physical limits of speed and density, optics are emerging as a solution when connecting clusters of thousands of processors. Each chip has an optical system that is responsible for emitting and receiving light, and in that light goes the data that is currently traveling through cables. The one from the French company it is not the first chip based on photonic communication, but they claim that their technology reduces the energy necessary for them to work by 50%, as well as latency. Results? Well we’ll see. The startup’s CEO, Matt Crowley, has commented that he has “six or seven companies interested in implementing the technology by 2028,” but that due to confidentiality agreements, he cannot name names. The Scintil Photonics prototype The complication in this will be that they get supply of the photonics systems, since the data center racks are built with the idea that they are scalables. That is, it is no longer just power, but how many tens of thousands of units you can interconnect, and a bottleneck in the manufacturing of any of the parties involved in optics would be equivalent to a lack of supply for their customers. At the moment, some prototypes have already been served to select companies for testing, but certainly, using light pulses instead of electrical signals is something that is very interesting in superclusters focused on huge data centers that can scale without the limitations of the physical connection. Images | Victorgrigas, M.I.T., GlobeNewswire In Xataka | Huawei no longer competes: it is building its own parallel reality

Having a mini PC connected to the TV is something I have always wanted. This has everything I’m looking for at a reasonable price (for now)

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Since I bought the Mac mini M4 I put aside my previous computer, a fairly large piece of equipment that at specific times I have connected to the television to play or simply to browse the Internet without having to use my cell phone or sit at the desk. That computer is not exactly small and I prefer to avoid using it in the television area because, basically, it does not fit. To this end, I have been considering buying a mini PC for a few weeks, and the Blackview MP60 It is one of the ones that interests me the most right now. It can be found at PcComponentes for a price of 295 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A mini PC to work or as a multimedia center The RAM memory crisis has affected many devices, and the Blackview MP60 is no exception. It has risen in price in recent months, but it is still interesting for everything it offers in terms of hardware and software, since it comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalledwhich prevents us from having to install it ourselves. Taking into account how much I liked the format of the Mac mini M4, I am interested (and not a little) in having a similar computer for how multimedia center on the tvwhether to watch content from streaming platforms or simply to browse the Internet, so I take advantage of the fact that I bought the keyboard a while ago Logitech K400 for TV and I have a mouse Logitech MX Vertical. At the hardware level, it comes with an Intel Celeron N150 processor, which is normal for computers at this price. But it also includes 16 GB of RAM (DDR4) and 512 GB of internal storage, more than enough for the use I would give it. It is also worth mentioning that it comes with four USB ports, a pair of HDMI 1.4, an Ethernet port and another 3.5 mm Jack. Of course, seeing that the price of this mini PC has risen a little in recent months, it is possible that it will continue to do so in the coming weeks, so in that case it may not be such an attractive purchase. The RAM that has increased the most in price is DDR5, although DDR4 has not been far behind. This entire mini PC is practically the same as RAM alone, or even cheaper. For work or as a multimedia center still maintains a fairly reasonable priceat least taking into account the moment we are experiencing with the price of RAM. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: Blackview MP60 ✅ THE BEST It comes well equipped: Unless we want to use it more demandingly, it is ideal for working from the sofa or as a multimedia center to watch movies and series or surf the Internet. Its format: It is small, so it is interesting to have it placed next to the television. ❌ THE WORST Its price: The RAM memory crisis is affecting the price of many devices, and this mini PC has not been spared. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are looking for a good mini PC to work with or as a multimedia center taking into account that the price has increased, but may increase further in the coming weeks. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You want a more powerful device that allows you to run demanding apps or play games sporadically. You may also be interested ACEMAGIC Matrix Mini M1 Mini PC, Windows 11 Pro, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (8C/16T, up to 4.7 GHz), Mini Computer with 32 GB LPDDR5 1TB M.2 SSD, Triple 4K Screen, WiFi 6/BT 5.2 for Games and Office The price could vary. We earn commission from these links ACEMAGIC Kron Mini K1 Mini PC, Windows 11 Pro, AMD Ryzen 5 7430U (6C/12T, up to 4.3 GHz), Mini Desktop Computers 16GB RAM DDR4 512GB M.2 2280 SSD, BT 5.2/WiFi 6/for Office, Small Computer 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 | Laura LopezBlackview In Xataka | What mouse do Xataka editors use? 13 recommended mice for work and play In Xataka | What keyboard do Xataka editors use: 15 recommended keyboards for productivity, writing and playing

Scientists have connected 200,000 human neurons to a chip. And he made them play ‘Doom’

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If they tell us that human neurons are playing ‘Doom’, the first thing we would think of is science fiction. However, that is exactly what the Australian company Cortical Labs has shown with your CL1 system: about 200,000 live neurons grown on an array of electrodes on a chip, capable of receiving information from the game and responding through electrical patterns. We are not talking about conventional artificial intelligence, but rather biological tissue interacting with software through an interface designed for that purpose. Human neurons and ‘Doom’. The demo isn’t just launching the game and letting something random happen. In the material shared by Cortical Labs, those responsible explain that the system receives signals from the video game environment and generates electrical patterns that translate into the character’s actions. This is a form of learning in which the system modifies its response depending on the result obtained. The key here is not skill, but the ability to adapt, which, according to the company, they are managing to train and mold in real time. How the interaction loop is established. For the experiment to work, it is not enough to display images on a screen. According to CTO David Hogan, an independent developer managed to convert the game’s visual signal into “electrical stimulation patterns” that are applied directly to the cell culture. These stimuli provoke electrical responses in neurons, and certain firing patterns translate into specific actions within ‘Doom’. In this way, the system creates a closed loop in real time in which each decision has an immediate effect on the virtual environment. look back. In 2021, the same company managed to make a system based on more than 800,000 neurons play ‘Pong’an experiment that required years of scientific work and specific training. That precedent laid the foundations for what would later become the CL1, the equipment presented at the Mobile World Congress in 2025 as the world’s first commercial biological computer. As we explained at the time, the system combines neurons grown on silicon with software called biOS, responsible for exchanging electrical information with living tissue. It is advisable to adjust expectations. The system, it should be noted, falls far short of advanced human performance. Brett Kagan of Cortical Labs emphasizes that the experiment is not intended to replicate a miniature brain, and rejects the direct comparison: “Yes, it is alive, and yes, it is biological, but it is actually used as a material that can process information in very special ways that we cannot recreate in silicon.” The emphasis, therefore, is not on skill, but on the type of processing that this biological substrate allows. Starting point. In the video, the team encourages researchers and developers to interact with the CL1 open API. Cortical Labs hopes to address progressively more demanding tasks than a classic video game, although the video itself also recognizes that there is room to fine-tune the feedback of successes and errors. For now, what we have is a proof of concept that shows potential, but whose path will depend on what others manage to build on this platform. Images | Cortical Labs In Xataka | Sam Altman has spent his entire life saying one thing and doing exactly the opposite. And this time it didn’t even take 48 hours.

The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it

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It has been at the bottom of the sea for more than two decades, forgotten. But now, finally, the TAT-8, the first fiber optic cable that crossed the Atlantic and connected us to the Internet, is being removed from its place. And to understand the importance of this, it is worth telling its story, since perhaps the Internet would not be as we know it without this cable. The cable that started it all. On December 14, 1988, AT&T, British Telecom and France Telecom developed TAT-8, the acronym for Trans-Atlantic Telephone 8. It was the eighth transoceanic cable system between Europe and the United States, but the first to use optical fiber. Before him, transatlantic cables ran on copper, with very limited capacity. With the TAT-8, voices and data traveled converted into pulses of light through glass threads thinner than a hair. Just like account Wired in its report, at the inaugural event, writer Isaac Asimov connected by video call from New York with audiences in Paris and London to celebrate, in his own words, “this inaugural voyage across the sea on a ray of light.” Why was it so important? When it came into operation, the Internet was still too technical a concept for the general public. But the TAT-8 literally built the highway on which everything later circulated. The curious thing is that in just 18 months it already reached its maximum capacity, so this forced new cables to be laid as soon as possible, especially after the outbreak of the world Wide Webelectronic commerce and in a context in which the Internet became increasingly relevant. By 2001 the TAT series had already reached 14. Disconnection. Just like account In the middle, in 2002, the TAT-8 suffered a breakdown, and repairing it was not worth it, it was that simple. With more modern and higher capacity cables already operational, it made no sense to invest in their recovery. It went offline and was abandoned at the bottom of the Atlantic, where it has remained for more than two decades. Now they are taking it out of the sea. According to collect Wired, a specialist company called Subsea Environmental Services is physically recovering the cable with its vessel MV Maasvliet. It is one of the few companies in the world whose entire business consists of recovering and recycling retired submarine cables. The operation involves dragging a flat hook across the seabed, waiting hours until tension is felt in the cable, and then hoisting it aboard meter by meter. The workers they explain As the ocean floor is an increasingly crowded space, and recovering old cables frees up routes for new ones. What is done with the remains. The TAT-8 is not thrown away. Fiber optic cables contain high purity copper, steel and polyethylene, all recyclable materials with market value. Copper, especially, is a valuable resource and may become scarce in a few years. And according to the International Energy Agency, in less than a decade could be scarce if the industry does not find new sources. On the other hand, the steel of the cable will end up being converted into fences, and the plastic, processed in the Netherlands, will be transformed into pellets to manufacture non-food packaging. In fact, just as they count At Wired, you may soon be using shampoo in a bottle made from remains of the first fiber optic cable to cross the Atlantic. Sharks. Curiously, the TAT-8 is at the epicenter of one of the legends that has lasted the longest in this sector: that sharks bite internet cables. Just like share In the middle, it all started with a test prior to the TAT-8, the Optican-1, which ended up failing due to problems in its insulation. A Bell Labs engineer appeared at a conference with shark teeth that had supposedly been removed from the damaged cable. The story spread instantly. As well as point At the time, AT&T even included four pages on protection against shark bites in its press kit for TAT-8. Actually, there has never been consensus about whether the sharks really caused that damage. Subsequent tests in aquariums, where they were starved to see if they would bite into wires with electric fields, did not yield any clear patterns. At least the outcome of all that testing and debate was positive, as engineers added a layer of steel between the insulation and the fibers, which improved the cable’s overall resistance to abrasions and damage of all kinds. Cover image | What’s Inside? In Xataka | In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

There is an unexpected victim of the rise in RAM memory prices: the very modern connected cars

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Which what’s happening with the RAM memories is making one thing clear: the best time to buy memory modules is yesterday. The price increase is so extraordinary which is already affecting other classic components of our PCs such as SSD units or graphics cards. However, the crisis that these components are generating goes further. Much further. Data centers devour memory. The AI ​​fever, we already know very well, has generated a voracious hunger not only for cutting-edge AI chips, but also for RAM and HBM memories that accompany these chips. As indicated in The Wall Street Journaldata centers (both conventional and those dedicated to AI) will consume more than 70% of the high-end memory chips that manufacturers produce in 2026. And if they could take more, they would take them. This is not (only) about PCs or mobiles. It is evident that the first affected by this problem are conventional desktop and laptop computers, as well as our mobile devices. Hundreds of millions of them are sold every year and they all have a certain amount of RAM that is now more expensive than ever. The shock wave is already causing other components such as SSD drives or graphics cards affected, but in reality memory chips are everywhere. And above all, in one. From TV to car. The frenetic rise in memory prices is certainly going to affect other segments that we had not thought about soon. Of course it will do so on other consumer electronic devices, and this certainly includes Smart TVs, which They have their own processor, memory and storage to offer us its functions. But the problem may be even more critical for cars, which for years were already computers with wheels and which are now even better and more powerful computers (and with more memory) with wheels. Memories of all kinds. Although car electronic systems have traditionally used RAM, the latest in most cases was not needed. But that was in the cars of a few years ago, because the arrival especially of the electric car and the fever for screens in our vehicles has made these needs different. Now our cars need various types of memory, but in some cases those modules are as good (or better) than the ones we have in our cell phones and computers. The ECUs. A modern car makes use of so-called ECUs (Electronic Control Units) for issues such as controlling the transmission, the airbag system or the engine itself. It is normal for them to have between 50 and 150 of these control units or microcontrollers, and almost all of them contain RAM for temporary data and a ROM for firmware and software. Infotainment systems. The most obvious component that surely comes to mind as that “car computer” is the infotainment system, which usually consists of a touch screen, navigation functions, support for CarPlay and Android Auto systems, and voice assistants. Although in many cars these systems use 1 GB or 2 GB of DRAM memory, there are more modern cars that They reach 4 GB and even 8 GB of LPDDR4 memory. And if we talk about some manufacturers like BYD or NIO, there are models in which They use 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory. The Ford SYNC 5 system, for example, is based on a Qualcomm SoC with 16 GB of RAM. Driving assistance requires memory. In addition to these components, there are others that also require the use of RAM. Advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) allow you to activate functions such as adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, automatic emergency braking or parking assistant. And to achieve this they use RAM with high bandwidth, which allows working with real-time images and processing of sensor signals. Samsung knows this well and in fact manufactures modules specifically oriented to this market. Tesla’s well-known autopilot hardware, Hardware 4 (currently used) makes use of 16 GB of RAMFor example. Micron already warned. In December 2023 Micron already indicated that “a car needs more memory than a (space) rocket.” The firm, an absolute protagonist in the field of RAM memory module manufacturing, indicated how in 2023 the average vehicle used 90 GB between RAM and NAND, but in 2026 that figure was estimated to be 278 GB and would reach 2 TB in high-end vehicles. That was good news for it and other manufacturers, and even then it pointed to how “generative AI is transforming automotive.” What they probably didn’t realize is that this revolution was going to need many data centers, and those data centers were going to need a lot of memory. And this is where we are. In Xataka | “Not a phone, it’s a car”: Volkswagen believes that screens in cars are going too far

welcome to connected straws

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Imagine that you have just bought a sex toy and you are about to use it for the first time. It cost you more than 100 euros, but you wanted to treat yourself. You open the box, start reading the instructions and see that it has an app to control it. Well, well. You install it and then It starts bombarding you with permissions: location, telephone, photos… Is it really necessary? It’s time to admit that connected devices it’s gotten a little out of hand. There are many devices where it makes perfect sense to be able to control them remotely, but there are others where it seems totally unnecessary to me, such as a vibrator. Connected straws Lelo, SatisfyerWe-Vibe… many sex toy brands have their apps. The main function is to be able to control them from your mobile and play as a couple (or in a group) even if they are at a distance. If each person has a toy, you can synchronize them with each other and have them control the other’s. Some brands like We-Vibe or Satisfyer even offer the option to make video calls from the app itself. There is an app called joyhub that takes remote sex to another level. It is almost like a social network where there is a list of friends and you can create chat rooms to enjoy as a group. And at the next level we have Lovense Remotewhich has an option to connect you with strangers so they can control your toy and “explore the unknown.” Lovense has “Control Roulette”, to connect with strangers. Most apps give you the option to set custom vibration patterns, but some go further and have functions such as synchronizing vibration with music. And be careful because Satisfyer has a mode called High Touch Meditations which is basically like a guided meditation while you give yourself pleasure. One of his meditations is called Lullavulva Deep Sleep. No comments. Permissions and privacy Obviously all these extra functions mean that the apps need access to many functions of our phones, which is what I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Below these lines you can see an example of everything that the We-Vibe app asks for, one of the ones with the most functions and, therefore, that more permissions ask. One of the permissions that these apps always ask for is location, but there is a reason. Just as Lelo says in the description of his app in the Play Store: Since Android 6.0, Google forces all Bluetooth devices to also have access to the location. It also makes sense to access the camera and microphone if they have a video calling function, or the storage if it allows you to take and save photos. But even if everything has an explanation, they are still very sensitive data. The apps know how much we use the toy, at what intensity, who we use it with if we connect with more users and they can even know where we are. It is always important to check if any app collects data and for what purposes, but in the case of an app of this type even more so. In the Play Store, the data that is collected appears in the ‘Data security’ section. This is what each app collects: Satisfyer: They collect information about error logs and “in-app activity” for statistical purposes. Lelo– Collects error logs, device ID, name and email. We-Vibe: photos, although it says it is an optional feature. Lovense: crash logs, photos and videos (optional), activity in the app (optional), name and email address. joyhub: does not collect data. They count in this Wired report, that most apps collect information as a market study; For example, if they detect that people use one type of vibration more, they can design future toys taking this into account. However, data theft occurs and as we said, this information is very sensitive. As far as we know, there has not been any security breach related to one of these apps, but there is a striking case from a few years ago. It was starred by the manufacturer Svakom when it launched a vibrator with a camera on the tip. We don’t judge people’s tastes, the problem was that The password that protected the toy’s WiFi was “88888888” and it was also in the toy manual. A disaster. We return to the question at the beginning: are so many functions necessary in a sex toy? For most people, they probably aren’t, but perhaps for very specific cases of long-distance relationships it makes sense. In addition, you have to understand two things: on the one hand, most of the toys that work with these apps They cost more than 100 euros and we must give them added value beyond “look, vibrate”. On the other hand, sex toys have come out of hiding, especially with the Satisfyer boom and the competition is tight. You have to differentiate yourself. Image | Anna Shvets, Pexels In Xataka | Sex has entered a crisis in the West. If we want to save it, we already know how: by reading romances and

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe has been connected to diesel generators for a month. It’s as encouraging as it sounds.

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Europe is once again walking a nuclear tightrope. After more than three years of war, the largest atomic plant on the continent —the Ukrainian Zaporizhia plant— has gone from being an industrial symbol to becoming at a point of friction capable of triggering an emergency of continental reach. In parallel, other plants in the country operate at reduced power after attacks on the electrical grid. The situation is so unstable that the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, recently traveled to Kaliningrad, Russia, for emergency talks with the head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, according to the Anadolu agency. It is a gesture that reflects the extent to which the risk is real. An attack that left two centers at minimum. According to a statement from the IAEAa military attack during the night of November 7 damaged an electrical substation critical to nuclear security. This incident left the Khmelnitsky and Rivne plants disconnected from one of their two 750 kilovolt lines and forced the electricity operator to order a power reduction in several of its reactors. Ten days later, one of the lines was still out of service and three reactors continued to operate at limited power. The agency emphasizes that these substations are essential nodes of the network: they allow the voltage levels that feed the security and cooling systems to be transformed and maintained. Without them, plants cannot guarantee safe operation. One month depending on diesel generators. The situation in Zaporizhzhia is even more critical. According to an opinion column by Najmedin Meshkati, professor of engineering and international relations published in the Financial Timesthe plant spent a full month without outside power after its two main lines were cut. During that time it survived solely on diesel generators, a resource that the industry considers strictly temporary: they are designed to run for around 24 hours, not for weeks. Technicians were only able to repair the lines under the protection of localized ceasefires negotiated by the IAEA, according to NucNet. Even so, one of the two restored lines was disconnected again on November 14 due to the activation of a protection system. Grossi summed it up like this: “The electrical situation at the plant remains extremely fragile.” The condition for a shut down reactor to remain safe. Although Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors have been on cold shutdown for more than three years, the plant requires a constant three to four megawatts to maintain cooling pumps and other essential systems, according to Meshkati. The professor emphasizes that even huge emergency batteries require external electricity to stay charged. It is a vicious circle: without the electrical grid, batteries are used, but without external electricity, these batteries cannot be recharged and, without both, the cooling systems fail. And without cooling the risk of nuclear fuel melting or overheating increases. The University of Southern California professor warns that this scenario reproduces the conditions that transformed Fukushima into a global disaster: “What turned an earthquake into a catastrophe was the total failure of the electrical system.” And he adds that, unlike 2011 in Japan, this time the risk comes from deliberate human action. A network reduced to its minimum expression. Before the war, according to the Kyiv Independentthe Zaporizhia plant was connected through ten power lines. Today it only has one or two operations and has lost all connection ten times since the beginning of the invasion. The IAEA itself has described the situation power plant as “extremely precarious” and “clearly not sustainable” when it depends for long periods on diesel generators. Short and medium term risks. The notices in the last report on Ukraine by the IAEA point in the same direction: the main danger is not a Chernobyl-type explosion, but a prolonged cooling failure. This scenario could cause overheating of the reactors in cold shutdown, damage to the spent fuel pools and a possible localized or regional radioactive release, with the consequent need to create an exclusion zone in the heart of agricultural Europe. For its part, according to Meshkatiadds two other relevant elements. On the one hand, it points out that a serious accident will exceed the economic impact of Fukushima, estimated at about $500 billion. An incident of that magnitude would affect agriculture, transport, supply chains and the European insurance market. On the other hand, he maintains that if Russia manages to consolidate the precedent that an occupying army can take control of a nuclear power plant and connect it to its own network, the global nuclear security architecture would be seriously compromised. It would be a precedent without equivalent since the creation of international standards that regulate the civil use of atomic energy. Is there a meeting point? The IAEA has acted as an intermediary between Moscow and kyiv on multiple occasions. According to the Anadolu agencyGrossi traveled to Kaliningrad to meet with Likhachev, director of Rosatom, in order to directly discuss the situation in Zaporizhzhia and the minimum conditions to guarantee nuclear safety. At the same time, the agency is trying to technically shore up the Ukrainian electrical system. According to their own statementshas so far coordinated 174 deliveries of essential equipment – ​​switches, electrical cabinets, radiation monitoring stations, vehicles and computer equipment – ​​worth more than 20.5 million euros, intended to sustain nuclear security in Ukraine during the war. Nuclear security supported by fragile cables Europe breathes thanks to a handful of cables repaired under fire and diesel generators that have already proven to be well beyond their limits. As the Financial Times explainsthe continent’s security depends on electricity continuing to arrive and on the parties respecting the fragile ceasefires needed to repair lines when they go down. Grossi summed it up with a mix of relief and alarm after the restoration of one of the lines: “It is a good day for nuclear security, although the situation remains highly precarious.” And the precarious thing, in this case, is that a new attack, a mechanical failure or a downed line is enough to bring … Read more

The connected home is chaos. IKEA’s solution is 21 new devices compatible with Matter

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IKEA has been wanting to be the protagonist of the connected home for years. In its catalog we have motorized blinds, door sensorswater leak detectors… The problem was getting everything to work cohesively and without friction. It is just what IKEA wants to change and to do so it has completely renewed its range of smart devices. with a total of 21 products, all compatible with Matter. Goal: full compatibility The promise of the connected home sounds great on paper, but the reality is that, if you have many devices at home, friction between them is the order of the day and in the end it is a chaos of different apps and hubs to be able to control them all. In statements to Wiredthe director of home electronics at IKEA confessed to having “more than 100 smart devices at home, but I also have like 10 different hubs. I hate it.” IKEA has been launching connected devices for many years and has a fairly large offering, but this launch is the recognition that Their offer was quite chaotic. For example, the first light bulbs and their controllers are compatible with the Zigbee standard, but later they launched the hub DIRECT Matter compatible. What they are looking for with this renewal of their offer is to get closer to that total compatibility and for everything to work with everything. To achieve this they have chosen mattera standard that was launched in 2022 and is present in devices from the main home automation platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung Smartthings or Apple HomeKit. Despite many devices already integrate itthere is still the problem that many older devices do not offer itbut it is undoubtedly a step in the right direction to solve this chaos. Lights, sensors and more IKEA’s new home automation range consists of a total of 21 products grouped into three large categories: lighting, sensors and control. First of all we have a new range of light bulbs called KAJPLATS. It consists of eleven different models. They will be dimmable and will also come in various shades of white, warm and colored light. In the case of sensors, there will be five models aimed at different use cases. They are the following: MYGGSPRAY: a motion sensor for both indoor and outdoor use. It is designed so that lights turn on automatically. MYGGBETT: It is a sensor to detect door or window openings and allows you to configure notifications. TIMMERFLOTE: to measure the temperature and humidity inside the home. ALPSTUGA: is the new sensor that measures air quality using CO2, temperature and humidity measurements. KLIPBOK: to detect water leaks. You can notify us with a beep or with a mobile notification Finally, BILRESA will be your new remote controls to control lights and GRILLPLATS will be the new smart plug. They will be available from December at prices yet to be confirmed, although IKEA claims they will be more affordable. Images | IKEA In Xataka | There is a new fever among the ultra-rich: fed up with technology, they want houses that are as “dumb” as possible

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