expected

The US built a futuristic destroyer that did not turn out as expected. The rescue arrives at hypersonic speed

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He USS Zumwalt was designed to represent what naval warfare of the future would be like, but its story ended up telling something quite different. The US Navy reduced the class from 32 planned units to just three, while costs grew and several of its original capacities were reduced. From the outside, the ship still seemed like a break from everything that had come before; In practice, it accumulated technical problems and systems that were difficult to sustain. That distance between what was promised and what was built is what the US is now trying to correct. The return of the Zumwalt. Of the three units of the class, the immediate novelty affects the first. The US Navy plans rejoin the USS Zumwalt into the fleet by September 2026, equipped with four tubes capable of holding three fast attack missiles each, up to 12 in total. It will be the first ship of the Navy prepared to fire hypersonic weapons. The other two units will receive the same configuration: work on the future USS Lyndon B. Johnson is already underway, while the modernization of the USS Michael Monsoor will arrive later.A destroyer for another war. The original bet was not limited to making it less visible to the radar. The Zumwalt was built around a hybrid electric system that powers both the propulsion and its equipment and can generate approximately 78 megawattsalmost the same as a nuclear aircraft carrier. Even at 20 knots, the Navy attributes 58 megawatts of reserve power. What promised scope for incorporating advanced capabilities also created a dependency on proprietary systems that were complex and expensive to maintain within such a short series. Two cannons without a clear mission. The problem was not only technical, but also operational: the Zumwalt had been surrounded by doubts about what role it could reasonably fulfill within the fleet. Its two 155-millimeter advanced weapons systems have been dismantled to free up space for hypersonic launchers, while other advanced capabilities of the class have already been reduced. Hence, questions about its possible tasks persisted over the years. The new weaponry does not simply add firepower: it attempts to give the ship a more concrete strategic mission. Speed ​​to break through. What the CPS attack system provides is not only speed, but a trajectory that is more difficult to anticipate. A multi-stage rocket propels an unpowered hypersonic glider vehicle to the necessary conditions and, after separation, it advances into the atmosphere while maneuvering towards its target. Compared to a traditional ballistic missile, this combination of speed, relatively straight trajectory and maneuverability poses more detection and interception problems. The design took its toll again. The modernization forced essential systems of the ship to be shut down and restarted for the first time since its delivery to the Navy, an operation during which failures appeared in its complex electrical network. Added to that was another problem:During the installation of the pipes, more wiring was removed than expected and it was necessary to add additional wiring to adapt the new configuration of the boat. In August 2025, the Navy added 230,000 hours of unplanned work to the $20 million contract. Three ships, same delay. What started as a delay in the first unit has spread to the entire program. The GAO estimates that the modernization of the three ships is 24 months behind schedule, despite the fact that the USS Zumwalt had reached 94% progress in January 2026. The first sea launch test has also been postponed, which moved from 2025 to 2027. The schedules of the USS Michael Monsoor and the future USS Lyndon B. Johnson have not been left out either. The bottleneck is on land. The Department of Defense plans to invest more than $50 billion in the various programs necessary to develop, test, produce and deploy this capability, including destroyers, future Virginia-class submarines and the Army land system. However, the contractor’s facility can only produce between six and seven missiles per year, compared to the 12 per year that, according to data collected by the GAO, would be necessary to stabilize production. In April 2026, the estimated average cost per unit was around 67 million. A rescue with conditions. The USS Zumwalt will return with a more defined mission: attacking high-value, heavily defended targets at long range. That does not, however, make modernization a complete solution. What we have seen is a powerful capability, but limited by the scarcity of missiles, their high cost and the difficulties of sustaining such a unique class. The US has found a clearer use for the destroyer, although it has not yet resolved all the problems it has had since its origin. Images | National Museum of the United States Navy In Xataka | Germany wanted to armor its army with a volunteer military. He has encountered a boom of conscientious objectors

The last thing we expected to see in the “war on the wolf” was this: armored sheep

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The image of a sheep equipped with plastic armor full of spikes seems straight out of a medieval fantasy film, but it is the last story we have known about the complex coexistence between livestock and large predators. However, beyond the ingenuity of individual solutions, scientific literature has spent decades analyzing which non-lethal measures are truly effective in protecting livestock that do not involve covering a sheep with armor as if it were a medieval soldier. The armored sheep. Recently, different media echoed the story of Rudolf Schaubach, a 72-year-old rancher from Villach (Austria) who has come to the fore for registering with the European Patent Office an unusual invention which consists of a plastic net with sharp spikes that surrounds the animal, imitating the defense mechanism of a hedgehog. And desperation in the face of the economic losses caused by large predators destroying his sheep pushed this rancher to make this decision in order to ultimately protect his animals. The result. Equipping a single animal took about an hour, which makes this idea a logistically unaffordable process for an entire herd, since equipping them all would require even more workers. In addition, animal organizations they ended up denouncing the initiative for possible non-compliance with animal welfare regulations when seeing that the animal could suffer with that plastic armor on top and also for the damage to predators. What science says. When experts analyze the conflict between ranchers and predators, they warn that the evidence available is heterogeneous and that we should avoid absolute statements that a measure is magnificent and always works. Here they point out that the effectiveness of the measures taken depends enormously on the geographical context, the type of exploitation and the pressure from predators. We have an example in 2018, where a scientific review exhaustively reviewed the state of livestock protection. Their first conclusion is a slap on the wrist for research, since they pointed out that strong experimental evidence is still lacking in many of the methods that are applied. Despite this, the study did manage to identify which tools have better support highlighting the use of guard dogsthe fences and the fladry, which is nothing more than a line of ropes with colored flags that flutter in the wind, acting as a visual deterrent for wolves. More conservative. One measure that can be considered in response to these problems is to kill the predator, but here science indicates that lethal control is not the most consistent response in the long term. In fact, they insist that the solution is to change the way herds are managed. We have the best example in a 2017 study where different scoldings from the United States were analyzed for seven years. The research showed that implementing an adaptive strategy of non-lethal measures dramatically reduced sheep losses to wolves in the protected area compared to areas where such management was not applied. That is why prevention is not about putting up a fence and forgetting about it, but about evaluating, adapting grazing, moving flocks strategically and keeping dogs alert. Images | LT1 OÖ In Xataka | Galicia lacks shepherds to clean the mountains. So he has done the most logical thing: create a school for shepherds

The ‘Improved Games’ wanted to show that the future of sport is doping. Things didn’t go as expected

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It is still too early to know if the Enhanced Gamesthe famous ‘Enhanced Games’ that were held this weekend in Las Vegas with some rules on doping infinitely more lax than those of any competition recognized by the IOC, will achieve their commercial objectives. Whether or not it has been an effective marketing campaign. What is already clear is that they have deflated at a sporting level. Its organizers promised an evening full of heart-stopping records and marks by athletes ‘enhanced’ with steroids, EPO or testosterone, but they have obtained only one record. The question that remains is… And now, what? Doped athletes? To the Enhanced Games Many things may be blamed on them and their philosophy will be more or less convincing, but there is one thing that cannot be blamed on them: going head-on. The event, held over the weekend in Las Vegas with the pomp of a great showadvanced its objective already in its name: ‘Improved Games’. Its purpose was to organize an athletics, swimming and weightlifting competition in which athletes could doping almost without restrictions. The only limit was that they did not use illegal drugs and the drugs had been prescribed by a doctor. From there, wide Castilla: anabolic steroids, testosterone, EPO… The use of prohibited equipment was even allowed, such as polyurethane suits similar to those that the International Swimming Federation (FINA) banned years ago. The idea was very simple: to prove that, in order not to remain “stuck” and allow athletes to give “the best version” of themselves, official sport must rethink its vetoes. @enhanced_games A $1,000,000 WORLD RECORD SWIM! Kristian Gkolomeev wins the Men’s 50m Freestyle in 20.81 and takes home $1,000,000 bonus + 250,000 first place finish and reclaims his 50M Freestyle world record. ♬ original sound – Enhanced Games The value of a good show. Although the idea is provocative and has earned it enormous media exposure, the organizers of the Enhanced Games wanted to give the event the appearance of a great show. The competition was held at Resorts World in Las Vegas, in a stadium with capacity for 2,500 people and after months of a speech measured to the millimeter to generate expectation. In his favor he had two great claims, beyond the controversy. The first, a team of media athletes. Among the athletes who agreed to participate, Olympic medalists or podiums from world tournaments such as Leidy Solis (silver in Beijing 2008), Fred Kerley (silver in Tokyo 2020), Kristian Gkolomeev (silver at Gwangju 2019) or Hafþór Björnssonweightlifter who reached a world record in 2025 and is famous above all for playing “the Mountain” in ‘Game of Thrones’. And that among a wide etcetera. 42 athletes. In total, 42 athletes (sprinters, swimmers and weightlifters) participated in the Enhanced Games, the vast majority of whom were doped. Guardian precise that of all of them there were only three people who chose to participate in the tests in a ‘clean’ way, without consuming chemical substances that would be equivalent to a disqualification in any official tournament. Their participation in the event gave an extra point of epicness to the Enhanced Games and reinforced its main challenge: Can the consumption of testosterone, EPO, steroids or polyurethane suits really make a difference? Don’t say sport, say money. The second claim that we referred to before explains what Gkolomeev, Björnsson and many other athletes who agreed to participate in the Enhanced Games were doing yesterday in Las Vegas. Beyond their greater or lesser harmony with the underlying message, if they decided to compete it was because the organization promised great awards: $500,000 per test, half of it for the winner. If he also managed to set a world record in one of the “definitive tests” (100 m dash and 50 m freestyle) he could earn an extra one million. And how was it? Not as good as the organizers (probably) expected. Despite the expectation generated, the advertisements who claimed that records were already being broken in training and throughout the hype generated around the use of chemicals, the reality is that the first Enhanced Games only managed to crown a world record. The Greek swimmer did it Kristian Gkolomeevalmost in extremis. Under the watchful eye of the organizers, he managed to complete the 50 meter freestyle in 20.81 seconds, slightly lower than the 20.88 official record achieved by the Australian. Cameron McEvoy in March. Proof of the relief that this meant for those responsible for the Enhanced Games is that, after the race (and in further demonstration that the tournament was more intended as a show than a sporting event), the executive director of the ‘Games’, Max Martin, he knelt before Gkolomeev to proclaim his victory. The mark of 20.81 will not be officially valid, but it will allow the Greek to pocket the bonus of one million dollars. “Maybe next year I’ll beat it again,” he said. A pyrrhic victory. Martin did not save on superlatives when evaluating the competition and went so far as to celebrate that the Enhanced Games have “changed the world”. “We have seen how records were broken and how 12 athletes broke personal bests,” celebrated. The reality is that the balance of the first ‘Improved Games’ has been discreet and has certainly fallen far below the expectations generated by the organization itself. Beyond the consumption of doping substances allowed in the event, Gkolomeev, for example, scratched his record with the help of a ‘supersuit’ banned by FINA. Doped vs ‘clean’. Apart from the fact that there were athletes who broke their “personal records” thanks to doping, as the organization claims, in some cases the competitions were won by the few athletes who claimed not to use drugs. This was the case, for example, of Hunter Armstrong, who won the 50 m backstroke against two doped rivals, or the sprinters Tristan Evelyn and Fred Kerley, who in addition to taking the winner’s check he threw a jibe to their opponents: “They have to train a little harder, … Read more

the outcome has come sooner than expected

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There are few recent stories in technology as fraught with contradictions as that of OpenAI. It was born with a mission linked to the general interest, but ended up occupying a key place in an increasingly competitive industry. Elon Musk was at the origin of that story, then he left and later built his own artificial intelligence company. From there it led to OpenAI, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to court. The underlying question, at least in the story that Musk tried to take to court, was who could claim the original version of what OpenAI promised to be. The legal term. Before the trial could become a full review of OpenAI’s evolution, the case became bogged down in a temporal issue. The jury in Oakland, California, deliberated for about 90 minutes and concluded that Musk had filed his lawsuit too late. That left their claims blocked by the legal limit to take action in court. The jury’s decision was advisory, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she accepted its conclusions as her own and that there was a substantial amount of evidence to support them. Musk’s accusation. The demand presented in February 2024 He tried to place the conflict on a very specific ground: that of a supposed breach of the founding pact. Musk accused Altman, Brockman and OpenAI of having “stolen a non-profit entity” and of having been unjustly enriched by the company’s evolution towards a structure that incorporates a for-profit arm. His reproach, brought to court, was that the project had ended up looking too much like what he said he did not want to be. OpenAI’s response. The defense tried to dismantle the lawsuit in two ways: deny the underlying betrayal and underline the calendar. OpenAI’s lawyers maintained that the organization’s mission had not changed and that the company remained governed by a nonprofit foundation board. They also focused on the moment chosen by Musk to sue: after founding xAI. The jury accepted that reading of the calendar and concluded that Musk had known about the events that he later took to court since at least 2021. The scope of the lawsuit explains why the case was followed so closely in the industry. Let us remember that Musk asked the court for measures of enormous impact: that OpenAI return more than $130 billion to its non-profit arm, that Altman and Brockman be removed from their positions and that the corporate restructuring that turned the company into one of the most valuable technology companies in the world be undone. A trial with many layers. Beyond the result, the process left something that is usually difficult to see from the outside: fragments of the internal workings of the company. During the procedure, private emails, text messages, meeting notes and much more were presented. They also declared relevant names, such as Ilya Sutskever and Shivon Zilis. Among what came to light were conversations about financing formulas, infrastructure needs, among other issues. End of the case? The ruling leaves OpenAI and its leaders with an important victory, but does not turn the confrontation into a closed story. Elon Musk’s main lawyer, Marc Toberoff, announced that they plan to appeal. The case therefore ends this phase before entering into the merits, but the dispute between the parties will apparently remain alive. Images | Gage Skidmore In Xataka | The funniest reality show of the moment is not broadcast on Telecinco: it stars the trial of Elon Musk and Sam Altman

To no one’s surprise, companies that lay off employees for AI are not seeing the benefits they expected.

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We have been hearing for years that artificial intelligence was going to transform the labor market as we know it. Apparently, companies that bet heavily on automation would gain productivity, save costs and leave the competition behind. And yes, many technology companies they have taken that path: dismiss employees to finance your leap into AI. A new report from the consulting firm Gartner has just poured cold water on that strategy. The research, based on surveys of managers of large organizations with income exceeding $1 billion annually, reveals that staff cuts They are not producing the economic benefits that many expected. The most striking thing is that the figures are practically the same among the companies that They fire and those who don’t. Gartner numbers. The consulting firm found that around 80% of large companies that are implementing autonomous AI technologies have reduced their workforce to a greater or lesser extent. As and as highlighted Fortunethese personnel cuts in some cases affected up to 20% of employees. However, when analysts looked at who was obtaining better economic results, the data indicated that there was no appreciable difference in the return on investment of those companies that had laid off a good part of their workers and those that had kept them on staff. As Helen Poitevin, distinguished vice president and analyst at Gartner, noted, “There is no connection or correlation between those achieving ROI and layoffs.” The substitution fallacy. According to the authors of the report, the logic that has dictated the strategy of many technology companies is that, if AI can do the work that was previously done by a human, dispensing with that human will reduce costs, and that savings automatically becomes profit. The problem is that this equation is not being fulfilled. Gartner notes that companies that opted for workforce cuts to use AI ended up at the same point as those that did not. Poitevin warned that this approach could be “very damaging in a broader sense,” noting that some organizations that cut staff were forced to rehire employees shortly after. Amplify people, not replace them. Gartner data revealed that the companies that are achieving the best results are those that They don’t use AI to replace peoplebut rather they incorporate AI into production processes so that their employees perform more. In fact, one of the risks posed by the strategy of replacing personnel with AI is that the company stops investing in the medium term in improving its operations and loses productive capacity. The report notes that companies that use AI as a co-pilot for their workers tend to invest in training programs, create new roles to oversee the implementation of AI and redesign workflows, making their employees increasingly autonomous and productive. The future of work: transformation, not apocalypse. Gartner projects that by 2029 the number of jobs created thanks to AI will exceed those lost, thus coinciding with other previous analyzes such as that of the World Economic Fundwhich point towards a shift in labor profiles, not towards a balance of net job destruction. Between 2023 and 2029, approximately 6 million jobs will be automated worldwide, a small proportion of the nearly 2 billion jobs available globally. Still, the impact of AI is real. Gartner estimates that about 32 million workers a year will see their jobs automated. The author of the report assured that AI “is not causing a workplace apocalypse, but it is unleashing chaos and changing the way people work.” In Xataka |“They blame AI for layoffs they would do anyway”: Sam Altman confirms that AI has been used as an excuse to lay off Image | Unsplash (Raj Rana)

a primitive galaxy that has stopped spinning much earlier than expected

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When we think of a spiral galaxywe normally imagine it in rotating motion. It is logical that we do it. After all, that’s what most people do. Only some may have stopped their spin due to collisions or interactions with other galaxies. It is a process that takes many thousands of years. Therefore, when a team of scientists from the University of California Davis came across a very young galaxy completely still They didn’t believe what they were seeing. “Only” 2,000 million years. The galaxy in question, XMM-VID1-2075, formed 2 billion years ago after the big bang. It is a very primitive galaxy, but the light that reaches us is from a young galaxy, which has not had time to stop its spin as planned. The James Webb Space Telescope has observed her along with two other galaxies with similar characteristics, but those do move. Therefore, this must have something special that intrigues scientists a lot. Different movements. Both this galaxy and the other two had been detected and described for the first time thanks to the WM Keck observatory, located in Hawaii. The James Webb intended to study them in more detail and focus attention on their movement. It has been seen that one of them moves normally and the other in a somewhat disordered way, but both rotate. Only XMM-VID1-2075 has stopped spinning. Yes, it has some very chaotic internal movement, but no circles. Important data. Thanks to these observations it has been seen that this galaxy is very massive, one of the most massive primitive galaxies that have been detected so far. It has also been observed that new stars are no longer forming inside it. All this data leads us to think what could have happened to stop its rotation so soon. An unexpected merger. The authors of this research believe that, instead of many collisions over a long time, this galaxy experienced the early merger of a single galaxy that was spinning in completely the opposite direction. This offset his movement and caused him to stop. It is a hypothesis that is also supported by the fact that there is a large concentration of light on one side of the galaxy. Possibly where the merger occurred. Very few. According to the simulations carried out following this study, there should be very few galaxies like this in the universe. However, it will be interesting to find them, in order to understand what the dawn of the universe was like and the different galactic behaviors that have occurred since then. Sometimes exceptions can help us understand the rule much better. Image of Andromeda (not the galaxy in the article) | Adam Evans In Xataka | These real images were unthinkable before the Webb telescope: they are planets orbiting other stars 130 light years away

Some Swedish scientists decided to drug salmon with cocaine and then release them. It happened just what was expected

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There is more than just fish and algae in the world’s rivers. More or less diluted amounts of chemicalsincluding pesticides, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs. He checked it a few years ago a team from King’s College that, after taking samples in various parts of the county of Suffolk, in England, found cocaine and ketamine residues. Researchers have long known that wildlife is exposed to these compounds, but one question remained: How do drugs affect them in their natural environment? To find out in Sweden have drugged to dozens of salmon. Drugging salmon? That’s how it is. It sounds strange, but it is exactly what a group of scientists from Griffith University, the Zoological Society of London and the Max Planck Institute, among other organizations, have done. They basically took 105 salmon (salmo salar) from a fish farm, they divided them into several groups and added implants that supplied them with drugs. Then they released them. More or less as in the famous case of Cocaine Bearbut in a planned way. How did they do it? 35 of those salmon were implanted with a special device that slowly released coca into their bodies. A similar system was incorporated into others, although modified to provide benzoylecgoninethe main metabolite of cocaine. The third group did not receive any substance to act as a control. Once prepared, the salmon, all young specimens, were released into Lake Vätternsouth of Sweden. For eight weeks the researchers dedicated themselves to finding out how each group behaved. The specimens in the experiment wore a special tracking device, so (with the help of sensors installed around the lake) scientists could follow their trail and calculate how far they swam. And what did they find out? That the drugged salmon behaved very differently from the ‘sober’ ones. Especially those who received benzoylecgonine. After releasing the fish on the southwest bank of the Vättern, the researchers found that the salmon exposed to coca swam on average five more kilometers than the ‘clean’ ones, a considerable difference that falls short, however, when the specimens to which the metabolite was supplied are analyzed. They swam almost 14 km more, which led them to enter the northern area of ​​the lake. “The team found that fish exposed to benzoylecgonine swam up to 1.9 times farther per week than those not exposed and dispersed up to 12.3 km farther,” duck Griffith University. The agency also clarifies that the changes “became more evident” as the days passed, which shows that exposure to coca alters the behavior of fauna. Why is it important? Let the drugged salmon swim more kilometers and cover more space than others without ‘doping’ is more important than it may seem. These behavioral changes influence aspects such as what places the fish occupy, where they feed or the risks they face. More kilometers also translates into greater physical effort, which forces the salmon to look for more sources of nutrition to recover energy. “Where fish go determines what they eat, what eats them, and how populations are structured,” comment Dr. Marcus Michelangeli. “If pollution is driving these patterns, it has the potential to affect ecosystems in ways we are only beginning to understand.” But that was already known, right? Yes. And no. We knew that aquatic fauna is exposed to the drugs that we consume. The 2019 study in Suffolk and others, such as the made in 2016 in Puget (Washington), during which researchers detected traces of Prozac, Lipitor and cocaine in the body of salomes. We also knew that these substances alter the behavior of wildlife. In fact, scientists they already checked how water fleas exposed to coca swim faster or crabs are more reckless. The really interesting thing about the study carried out in Sweden is that it has allowed us to go one step further: to leave the laboratories, which were the isolated space in which these types of experiments had been carried out until now, and carry out research in natural environments and the same conditions that fauna is found. It hasn’t been easy. Although the team guarantees that the entire experiment has been done in safe conditions for the ecosystem and humans. Obtain all necessary permits, they confess researchers, it was “a tedious process.” And what to do now? Dr. Jack Brand, from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, recognize that more studies are needed to fully understand the consequences of pollution in rivers, lakes and seas. It is an important issue, among other reasons because the substance that has most altered salmon is benzoylecgonine, which has a special impact. “It was the metabolite, which we know is found in higher concentrations in nature, that had a much more profound effect on the behavior and movement of the fish,” warns in statements to Guardian. “This suggests that if we perform evaluations without including compounds such as these metabolites and their derivatives, we could be overlooking an important part of the environmental risks to which we expose these animals.” Images | Colin Davis (Unsplash), Katmai National Park and Preserve (Flickr) and Scazon (Flickr) In Xataka | In 2001, a yacht took refuge on a remote island in the Atlantic. Days later its inhabitants breaded fish with coca

The bet of “Everything on subscriptions” has not turned out as Microsoft expected

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Microsoft bought Activision for almost 70,000 million with a clear and undisguised idea: put the successive installments of ‘Call of Duty’ in Game Pass from day one. A strategy that, on paper, would boost the service’s subscribers and change the tides of the industry. Eighteen months later, perhaps the numbers have not turned out to be so favorable and the company is rectifying that strategy at full speed. The most curious thing? After some changes, users end up paying more for a service that offers less. Price changes. Six months ago, Game Pass Ultimate cost 17.99 euros per month and included from day 1 the latest ‘Call of Duty’ to date, ‘Black Ops 6’. In October 2025 Microsoft raised the price to 26.99 euros, 50% hitjust two weeks before the premiere of ‘Black Ops 7’. Now on April 21, 2026 announces which lowers it to 20.99, but without the future ‘Call of Duty’ on day one. PC Game Pass, in parallel, goes to 12.99 euros from the previous 14.99, although it is also above the 11.99 it cost before the last increase in price. Not so discount. Despite the apparent discount, the April subscriber pays three euros more than the subscriber in September of last year, but also renounces the main claim for the service. Future ‘Call of Duty’ will arrive on Ultimate and PC Game Pass “during the following holiday season, approximately one year after” their commercial release, while ‘Black Ops 6’ and ‘Black Ops 7’ remain in the catalog. Only half a year has passed after the total restructuring with the purchase of Activision… but with the rate somewhat more expensive than it was not too long ago. Why it didn’t work. The strategy made sense: if ‘Call of Duty’ is the most profitable franchise on the market, offering it on the first day within the subscription would make Game Pass an almost impossible proposition to refuse. The numbers did not match. A report last October estimated that Microsoft had missed out on $300 million in revenue by including ‘Black Ops 6’ on the service in 2024. That same report noted that 82% of the game’s full-price sales occurred on PlayStation 5. Things got worse with ‘Black Ops 7’. Due to its presence on Game Pass from day one, the game’s launch sales fell more than 60% in some marketsand in the United States it ended 2025 as the fifth best-selling title of the year, the lowest position for a franchise game in almost two decades. Subscription was cannibalizing sales without growing enough to make up for it. The accounts don’t work out. Perhaps Microsoft’s accounts collided with an indisputable reality: there is not enough Xbox to support the expenses of a blockbuster of the caliber of Call of Duty, mainly with subscriptions. In November 2025 Calculations placed Xbox Series X/S at 34.10 million units sold compared to 86.12 million for PS5. Of course, the difference grows quarter by quarter. Giving away a game on day one that still costs $69.99 on PlayStation meant giving up margin in the most profitable territory to monetize Call of Duty. What point are we at? Christopher Dring, editor of The Game Business, pointed that the decision has also been made due to an imminent launch: ‘Forza Horizon 6’ arrives on Xbox in May and is, right now, the third most desired game on Steam, with nearly 2.7 million people who have included it in their wishlists. It is a good asset, with its previous arrival on the console, to increase the subscriber base, and the price drop may interest more than one player with doubts. In Xataka | Game Pass is already an unsustainable investment: more than 2,000 euros for each generation of console and without anything owned

Quantum computers are going to overthrow classical cryptography sooner than expected

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Just two weeks ago a group of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of California at Berkeley and the emerging company Oratomic published a scientific article preliminary in which they explore the capabilities of quantum computers of neutral atoms. These machines are an alternative to quantum computers with superconducting qubits and ion traps, and are still in an experimental phase. However, these scientists have estimated that Shor’s algorithm can be implemented using a quantum computer equipped with between 10,000 and 20,000 qubits of neutral atoms. In fact, in their article they even propose a design with which in theory it would be possible break bitcoin encryption in a few days using 26,000 qubits of neutral atoms. In any case, these researchers are not the only ones who in recent weeks have alerted us to the ability to violate classical cryptography that quantum computers will acquire in a relatively short period of time. At the end of last March, Google’s quantum artificial intelligence group published a study in which he demonstrates that the elliptic curve encryption used by Bitcoin or Ethereum, among other cryptocurrencies, can be overthrown using far fewer resources than initially estimated. According to these researchers, a quantum computer with less than half a million physical qubits will be able to decipher the algorithms used by current cryptocurrencies in a few minutes. In short, the scientific community has agreed that classical encryption technologies will be vulnerable before the arrival of large-scale quantum hardware. The first steps to protect ourselves have already been taken Quantum computing experts have known for several years that quantum computers they will end classical cryptography. That moment came in May 2024. A team of researchers from the University of Shanghai (China) led by Professor Wang Chao used a D-Wave quantum computer to successfully break SPN encryption (Substitution-Permutation Network), which is a cryptographic algorithm used to encrypt information. This encryption is the cornerstone of, for example, the AES standard (Advanced Encryption Standard), which is used a lot. These scientists published the results of their research in an interesting article titled “Quantum Processing-Based Public Key Cryptographic Attack Algorithm with the D-Wave Advantage.” However, this is not all. And in mid-May 2025, several Google researchers posted an entry in the blog dedicated to the security of this American company in which they maintain a crucial premise: an RSA integer (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) 2,048 bits can be factored in less than a week with a quantum computer of less than a million qubits. A 2,048-bit RSA integer can be factored in less than a week with a quantum computer of less than a million qubits Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and the other modern cryptocurrencies use a cryptography technique known as elliptic curve that is more robust, efficient and difficult to break than RSA, but its mathematical foundations are similar to those of the latter encryption algorithm. In fact, according to the Google scientists who authored the article I mentioned above, if future quantum computers will have a harder time breaking RSA encryption than initially expected, elliptic curve cryptography will also fall relatively easily. So far we have talked about cryptocurrencies, but it is crucial that we do not overlook that encryption technologies play a fundamental role in our daily lives. In fact, WhatsApp and Telegram use them to encrypt our messages; banks turn to them to protect our transactions and every time we buy something on the internet it is encryption that is responsible for protecting our credit card information. These are just some of the applications of this technology. The threat of quantum computers to encryption technologies is very real, but we have no reason to panic because many researchers have been working on the solution to this challenge for several years. In fact, most of the theoretical work has already been done. In 2024, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published an initial set of standards that includes a post-quantum key exchange mechanism and several post-quantum digital signature schemes. The work that has already been done invites us to foresee that the moment relevant quantum computers appear from a cryptographic point of view, the technologies that will be able to protect our information will already be ready. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | arXiv | Google In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

engineering challenges are greater than expected

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That Apple is going to launch a foldable iPhone It’s a rumor that has been circulating for yearsbut it does not materialize. According to the latest information available Nikkei AsiaApple is already doing engineering tests with its foldable mobile phone, but they are not going as expected. First tests, first problems. According to sources in Apple’s supply chain, the foldable iPhone has already begun the testing phase necessary before mass manufacturing can begin. However, more failures have appeared than initially anticipated and they will need more time to adjust the design and manufacturing processes. critical moment. April and May are an “extremely critical” period to pass these engineering tests. Currently, the foldable iPhone is in the engineering validation testing phase (EVT) and is a crucial step in ensuring they can be mass produced smoothly and without problems. According to Nikkei, Apple’s plan is to produce between 7 and 8 million foldable iPhones, which represents 10% of the total volume of the new range, and launch it this year, but if it does not pass this phase in time, it could put the entire calendar at risk and push the launch to next year. The market is eagerly waiting. They started out as niche devices, almost a rarity, but the foldable market has been growing year after year and, according to IDCin 2026 it will grow 30% year-on-year. One of the arguments that IDC gives to support that figure is, precisely, the launch of the highly anticipated folding iPhone. According to the firm’s head of devices, “This launch is likely to boost awareness of the category and generate interest among consumers. Apple is often a catalyst for widespread adoption of new categories.” Maybe they have to keep waiting another year. The promise that never comes. As we said, the rumor of the folding iPhone has been circulating for years. It started around 2021 when, Analysts said it would arrive in 2023. This never happened, but nothing quelled the rumors. Along the way, Samsung, Huawei, Honor and OPPO have already launched several generations of their folding phones, perfecting the design to achieve ultra-thin bodies and better quality screens. In this sense, the longer the foldable iPhone is delayed, the higher the bar is. What we think we know about the foldable iPhone. There have been many leaks, but a few months ago one of the largest to date occurred. According to leaked data, the folding iPhone will have a book format (like the Samsung Fold) with a 7.58-inch internal screen and a 5.25-inch external screen. The design will be ultra-thin and will eliminate FaceID in favor of TouchID on the side button so that it can be unlocked whether open or closed. In Xataka | iPhone 17e, analysis: the best and the worst of Apple in a mobile that is not only contained in the price Cover image | Concept of Ben Geskin

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