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Fed up with paying almost 8 euros for a Guinness, someone thought of setting up an index to find cheap beer

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How delicious is that little beer that you drink right after leaving work or after a paddle tennis game and how angry it is when you find out that they have raised the price. Matt Cortland He paid €7.80 for a pint of Guinness in Dublin in March 2026 and didn’t like it one bit (the price, not the beer). So instead of criticizing the waiter or posting a review on Google complaining like some people do, he adopted another strategy that was slightly more laborious but much more effective (judging by its results): a very complete price index where he would know where to drink the best and at what price. Because revenge, like beer, is served cold. The project. Is called Guinndex and is independent of the very famous Irish beer brand. You go to the website, enter a pub, a city, a county or a postcode in the box and it returns pubs and the cost of a pint, as well as useful information such as its location or its score. Or you zoom in on the map to see with a traffic light map which taverns look cheaper than others. A good way to save if you travel to Ireland and fancy a pint of Guinness. In fact, it has very diverse rankings ranging from how long it takes to earn a pint (depending on salary) to pubs named after animals or the best pub names (praise be the “Hairy Lemon”). Today it has almost 6,500 registered pubs in the 32 counties of the country and almost 1,300 prices verified and rising thanks to anonymous contributions from users. The price index for Dublin. Guinndex Why is it important. Because the Irish Central Statistics Office stopped tracking the price of a pint since 2011, leaving a data gap of more than a decade in a country where Guinness is much more than a beer. And although Guinness is almost a religion in Ireland, it is the same everywhere: no one knows for sure if they are overcharging you compared to the standard price or how much extra. The Guinndex fills that gap with real, verified data, not estimates. Furthermore, it does so publicly and for free, so that it allows obtaining an objective reference so that consumers have information and can put pressure on prices. It’s the market, friend. On the other hand, and leaving aside the anecdote of finding where to drink cheaper, what it shows is relevant: that the cost of carrying out a complex idea has plummeted and streamlined so much that a single dev is capable of setting up a project of this magnitude in just 48 hours when before it took weeks of work, a certain budget and a team. Context. Matt Cortland likes AI, data and Guinness, as he himself admits on the project website. He is an American engineer based in London with strong ties to Ireland: his partner is irishlived and trained there with the George Mitchell scholarship and course the Creative Digital Media master’s degree from TU Dublin. He is not just a tourist they are trying to scam. The project came at a critical time: Diageo, the company that owns Guinness, had applied several price rises in a row and some pubs had taken the opportunity to inflate margins. If you’re not careful, you can pay up to €11 for a pint, although the average price in Dublin is €6.94 and €6.06 nationwide. How has he done it. With an AI agent named Rachel who looked human, understood Irish humor, and had a Northern Irish accent (after several tests, she concluded that this worked best), as its author tells. The task was simple and quick: call, ask the price of a pint of Guinness, say thank you and hang up. Few people discovered that it was a chatbot and there were all kinds of responses, even waiters who offered to buy him a round. During the St. Patrick’s weekend he called 3,000 pubs, answered more than 2,000 calls and more than a thousand pubs provided a price: he already had the Guinndex base. The technical stack was jack, knight and king: the Google Maps API, ElevenLabs for the voice and agent logic, Twilio for making the phone calls, and Claude for extracting Guinness prices from the transcripts. Cortland explains What cost him the most was time, since he only invested about 200 euros. The consequences. The most immediate impact is behavioral: Cortland account that the owner of a pub lowered the price of his Guinness by 0.40 euros and then updated the information in the Guinndex himself. When there is price transparency and it is available to everyone, it is capable of changing behaviors. However, the biggest consequence is the technological moment in which we live: three APIs, 200 euros and a weekend are enough to build a project from scratch, with real utility and that is already changing prices. The bottleneck is no longer money or infrastructure: it is knowing what problem is worth solving. In Xataka | Spain can tell itself as many times as it wants that it hates Cruzcampo. The figures say a very different thing In Xataka | We humans like beer. The big question is whether we like it enough to have invented agriculture Cover | Guinndex and Christopher Zapf

What did Nietzsche mean by “we contradict an opinion when in reality what we find unpleasant is the tone”

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I’m not sure how to write this so as not to be unpleasant, but Nietzsche was right. Yeah, he had a weird mustachehe was loaded with opium and loved to take long walks in the Alps; but he was right. At least when it comes to one of his most apparently innocuous, but most radical ideas: that it often doesn’t matter if someone is right or wrong, that we make the decision to agree with them beforehand, that what matters most to us is the tone, the forms. The rest, although it doesn’t hurt to admit it, doesn’t matter. 150 years after Nietzsche, cognitive science has proven him right. What did Nietzsche mean…? In 1878, in the midst of a break with Wagner and Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche published ‘Human, too human‘. It was his first book of aphorisms and in it he abandons romantic aesthetics and sets out to find a new way of observing the world. In that book, the Austrian philosopher makes a complete x-ray of the psychological junk of human beings. “Opinions are born from passions,” he says in aphorism 637. “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of the truth than lies,” he writes in 483. But the one that interests us is 303. Where Nietzsche discovered confirmation bias. “Often, we contradict an opinion when in reality what we find unpleasant is only the tone in which it was expressed,” says that aphorism. And that sounds a lot like what modern cognitive science calls ‘confirmation bias‘: the tendency to search for, interpret and remember information in such a way that pre-existing beliefs, expectations or hypotheses are reinforced. First we form an idea from the tone of the person speaking to us and then we justify it. Simple, clean and perfectly confirmed by the evidence. Ultimately, what Nietzsche did is anticipate many of the ideas that Kahneman and Tversky They earned him the Nobel Prize. But that matters little, what matters is what we can learn. And, under that sullen and savage reputation, Nietzsche has a lot of useful ideas. This intuition, without going any further, has a direct and everyday application: when someone addresses us with a tone that we perceive as aggressive, condescending or arrogant, our brain activates defense mechanisms that prevent us from rationally processing the content. We do not evaluate what they tell us, we evaluate how they tell us. Reactanceconfirmation bias and post-hoc rationalization: the perfect combo to act automatically without paying attention to reasons or consequences. In the same way, Nietzschenian reflection helps us think about how we address others. And that is worth it. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “A place of joy with pain”: the phrase that summarizes the Aztec philosophy to be happier in this life

This planet is too big for its star. When we tried to find out the reason, we found something even more disconcerting.

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The universe is so immense that it should not surprise us that it is full of exceptions. But even so, there is still such disconcerting findings that obsess astronomers. This is, for example, the case of TOI-5205 b, an exoplanet that attracts attention due to its size, too large for its star. That alone would be truly exceptional, but a new study has found that, if that were not enough, it also has a very unusual atmosphere. Too big for a red dwarf. TOI-5205 b is a gas giant, slightly larger than Jupiter. But only a little. While Jupiter orbits the Sun, this exoplanet orbits a red dwarf. That is, a relatively cold and very small star, with a mass ranging from 7.5% to 50% of the mass of our Sun. Typically, stars are MUCH larger than the planets that orbit them. However, the radius of this red dwarf is only four times that of TOI-5205 b. To continue with the comparisons, our Sun has a radius approximately 10 times larger than that of Jupiter. And it’s not just a radio issue. The mass of this exoplanet is also striking, as it is equivalent to 0.3% of the mass of the red dwarf. Jupiter’s mass is approximately 0.095% of the Sun’s mass. All this tells us that TOI-5205 b is too big for its star. An even more disconcerting clue. Recently, a team of scientists from NASA and the Carnegie Science Institute decided to study the composition of the atmosphere of TOI-5205 blooking for clues about its origin that explain why it is so big. However, what they discovered was even more disconcerting. They carried out the analysis of the atmosphere studying the transit of the planet. That is, analyzing the changes in the light of its star when the planet passes in front of it. When light interacts with the planet’s atmosphere, it interacts with the molecules found in it. Each element reflects light in different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, so, with the help of a spectrograph, you can know which elements the light has interacted with and, consequently, what the composition of the atmosphere is. Astronomical metals. For astronomers, any element other than hydrogen or helium is considered a metal. Just for them, chemists don’t like this. The point is that this decision the concept of metallicity arises. It refers to the proportion of metals that a planet or star has in its atmosphere. When a star forms, it is assumed to take most of the hydrogen and helium present in the stellar nursery with it. Therefore, when a planet later forms around it, it is normal for its atmosphere to have a higher proportion of metals. For this reason, it is said that the metallicity of the planets is higher than that of their stars. But with TOI-5205 b that does not happen. According to analyzes of its transit, its metallicity is lower than that of the red dwarf. hidden metals. To verify what this phenomenon is due to, the authors of the study that was recently published carried out a series of mathematical models. With them, they wanted to check how the atmosphere of this exoplanet could have evolved under different scenarios. This allowed them to verify that the current situation is consistent with their metals having been buried inside the planet. It is true that when it was formed absorbed a greater amount of metals, since the star had taken more helium and hydrogen. However, these metals did not remain in the atmosphere, but were they saved inside TOI-5205 b. In the atmosphere, however, there is some helium and hydrogen, but also other compounds, such as methane and hydrogen sulfide. What this exception teaches us. As explained in a statement One of the authors of the study, Anjali Piette, “these findings have implications for our understanding of the process of giant planet formation that occurs early in the life of a star.” Sometimes, it is the exception to the rule the one that can provide us with the most data. There’s nothing like thinking outside the box. Image | Katherine Cain (Carnegie Science) In Xataka | Since we were children we have been told that Jupiter is enormous, colossal, exaggeratedly large. It is 8 km smaller and that changes everything

Touristification has made Mercadona find itself with a rival in Barcelona: 24-hour supermarkets

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Mercadona maybe is taking over of the retail at a national level, but in Barcelona there is another phenomenon that seems to advance even faster than it grows the business fee of the Valencian chain: 24-hour supermarkets. They grow. A lot. Lot. So much so that according to the latest data of the County Council during the second half of 2025, almost a hundred were put into operation, which translates more or less into one opening every two days. There are so many that even they have sneaked in in public debate. Super 24 hour drip. The data has disclosed them The Vanguard and they are to say the least surprising. During the first half of 2025, 92 24-hour supermarkets opened in Barcelona. If we go back further, to the period between October 2020 and the end of last year, the number of activated businesses is even more significant: the total amounts to 643. The Catalan newspaper speaks of “openings” or “start-ups”, not of net growth in supply (it is likely that there are also stores that close), but even so the data is striking. It shows that on average they are activated 3.5 business every week. Is it that striking? Yes. And not only because of the figure itself. Data from the City Council confirm that, far from showing signs of saturation, the sector continues to expand with the sixth production. In autumn 2025 it was already spoken that between 2020 and 2024, 686 licenses had been granted for these premises, which translated into three openings a week. Now the rhythm has increased. The records The City Council also reflects that this expansion has not been uniform nor is it affecting the entire city equally: although openings have been noted in Sant Andreu or Nou Barris, the majority are concentrated in El Eixample and Sant Martí. Between them they have close to 140 openings in just a few years. Two suspects: tourists and expats. At this point, the question is obvious… What is the reason for this super 24-hour boom? Why does the phenomenon seem to be affecting the Catalan capital above all? To answer these questions, you just have to visit one of these places. In most of them there are two characteristics that attract attention, as mentioned recently Luis Benvenuty, reporter for The Vanguard. The first is the prices. The second, the assortment they offer. Customers find drinks, sausages, sweets, pasta… but also items that are more difficult to buy in traditional supermarkets, such as souvenirs clearly focused on tourists. As for rates, the prices are also significantly higher than those found in conventional stores. For example, a can of Coca Cola can cost €1.5, the same as a bottle of water. It is not strange that the prices in this type of business are above those applied by the rest of the sector, but also there are those who see in these rates an offer aimed primarily at tourists and expats with high purchasing power. And the controversy broke out. The problem is not the proliferation of this type of establishments itself, but how it is developing. In September The Catalan Newspaper revealed that in just two years the inspection of 209 premises had revealed 2,700 violations. The majority (more than 1,400) were by activity, although many were motivated by the impact on the landscape (600), public health issues (243), waste (157) or non-compliance with the Treasury (113) or in the workplace (118). In total they resulted in more than 500 files. Commercial fabric earrings. Although there are dozens of stores in which inspectors found no anomalies, the violations pose a problem for the group. The SER specifies that on average each of these supermarkets commits around 13which explains why there are professional groups in Barcelona that already warn of the risk of degradation of the commercial fabric. “Betting on public-private collaboration and promotion to attract certain demand would bring us much closer to a solution. In this way we would transform our commercial hubs,” advocate Barcelona Open. From the streets to local politics. Proof of the extent to which 24-hour supers are expanding in Barcelona is that they have already entered the political debate, covering the entire ideological spectrum. The PP for example has claimed greater control and the application of “exemplary” sanctions to those who break the law. Meanwhile, ERC warns of “the substitution” of native businesses. The Consistory already has been proposed improve the regulation and control of this type of business. In fact they claim that since mid-2024 its inspectors have opened almost 300 sanctioning files and more than 450 restitution files, but the doubt remains as to what extent it will affect the expansion of a business model that (as suggested by the municipal records) generates more and more interest. Images | Sandor SAmkuti (Flickr) and Google Earth In Xataka | After decades committed to being a tourist power, Barcelona already surpasses Paris or New York in something: overcrowding

The biggest find in twelve years of GTA archeology came from an Edinburgh flea market and a used Xbox 360

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It’s fascinating when we discover details years (even decades) after a game’s release that hadn’t come to light before. Secret levels in classics that everyone had examined from cover to cover, unrevealed meanings, unsolved puzzles… and sometimes, versions of the games that should never have seen the light of day and that give clues about the ideas that were considered in the development process. The latest case in that sense: ‘GTA IV’. What has happened? Last weekend, a user of GTAForums known as janmatant He paid £5 at a flea market in Edinburgh for an Xbox 360 in not very good condition. At home he discovered that the console was running Xshell, the operating system for Microsoft development kits. The 120 GB hard drive contained a single game: a beta version of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ dated November 2007, several months before its commercial release. The treasures he found were poured into the thread GTA IV Beta Huntwho has been tracking unreleased content from the game since 2014 (and which has generated 14 new pages of comments since posting janmatant). GTA IV on the trail. That the discovery occurred in Edinburgh is not at all coincidental. Rockstar North has been based in the capital since it was DMA Design, in 1987, and that is why the console ended up in the hands of a scrap dealer, a process that clearly should not have happened. Development kits are proprietary hardware that Microsoft distributes exclusively to studios (and in those days also to the press) to run games in conditions close to the final hardware. In theory, at the end of a project cycle, those units are returned or destroyed, but this was not the case. 118 gigabytes of Liberty City. After confirming by the serial number that the devkit was authentic, janmatant uploaded the content to the Internet Archive under the title “Great Stealing of Vehicles four XDK”. The 118 GB file is it executable on a real Xbox 360 with debugging tools, although a fully playable version is not yet ready. The most immediate find was the Liberty City ferries. The barges appear in the game’s first trailer and in some cutscenes, but in the final game they are just a set piece. The realistic ‘GTA IV’ opted for a world focused on cars and taxis and in its day, Obbe Vermeij, former technical director of Rockstar North, counted that the shuttles were removed late in development, with models already finished. Zombie mode. There had always been rumors about a zombie mode for which we had never had solid evidence. Herein build We find hospital beds with direct references to zombies, early models of infected characters and several animations associated with this variant. The Cutting Room Floorthe wiki dedicated to documenting cut content in video games, had already listed the project as “Z: Resurrection” based on code fragments found in the final version, but without visual material to support it. A former Rockstar developer It has taken away some of the epicness of the matter: According to him, zombie mode was simply an “experiment” that artists and programmers played to develop in parallel, not a formal production line. That doesn’t mean the discovery is minor, but rather that the creative leeway within Rockstar North in 2007 allowed a team to test out survival horror mechanics during development. Other divergences. The build includes other substantial differences from the final game. The silenced pistol is in this version’s arsenal, along with other unfinished weapons and a notable number of incomplete animations and unreplaced audio markers, as is the case with any half-developed game. The models of some NPCs are different from the final ones, and the character of Michelle, the FIB informant who appears as Niko Bellic’s early romantic interest, has a look here that forum users describe as strangely disturbing. What may be most surprising to any fan of the game is that about half of the radio stations sound completely different. ‘GTA IV’ has one of the most elaborate soundtracks in the saga, with dozens of real music licenses distributed on thematic stations. That half of that content changed between November 2007 and the April 2008 release says a lot about the licensing negotiation process in the final phases of development. What does Rockstar do? After everything that happened, Rockstar Games and Take-Two have not issued public statements. Although companies have a reputation for relentlessly pursuing leaks, the author of this leak purchased the console legally. In any case, he has put the devkit up for sale on eBay for £800. It’s not too much for material of such magnitude, but the truth is that, once on the Internet, access to these secrets is universal. In Xataka | The best video games of 2026 and the most interesting ones to come

more job offers but it is more difficult to find work

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The technology sector has never had so many open vacancies and yet finding a job there has become a task harder than ever. This apparent contradiction is not just a feeling: the data confirms it, and it has everything to do with how AI is redrawing the map of who has a place and who does not in technology companies. A detailed analysis by Lenny Rachitsky, expert in the technological labor market and host of the popular Lenny’s Podcastoffers an image that invites reflection. The figures are the most optimistic that has been recorded in its four editions of the report on the state of employment in the technological product sector, but the reality of many professionals who looking for a new job contradicts that optimism on paper. Numbers are deceiving (or at least, they don’t tell everything). According to the collected data by Rachitsky through TrueUp, a platform that tracks job offers in more than 9,000 technology companies in the world, there are more than 7,300 vacancies open for profiles Product Manager At a global level, 75% above that recorded at the beginning of 2023 and almost 20% more than at the beginning of this same year. In engineering, the figure is even more striking, with more than 67,000 active offers worldwide and 26,000 in the US alone. However, more vacancies do not automatically equal easier finding a job. Rachitsky himself acknowledges in his report that there are many people having a hard time searching, and that this does not change because the overall numbers are good. He labor market growsYes, but it doesn’t do it at the same rate for everyone. not even for all profiles. The boom in roles linked to AI. The great catalyst for this growth is AI. Jobs related to its development and implementation are skyrocketing compared to other technology roles, something Rachitsky describes as a hockey stick-shaped growth curve. This profile demand of software engineering reaches both native AI companies (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Cursor) and non-technology companies, which looking for product managers specialized in integrating these technologies into their processes. a report of the London School of Economics confirms that more than 76% of product managers expect to expand their investment in AI in 2026, which has triggered demand for managers capable of translating the capabilities of AI models into concrete products. The profile that companies are looking for, however, is very specific and not just any candidate with AI on the resume is worth it, but experienced professionals in implementation and with the ability to make decisions in environments where AI is already part of the development process. Side B: junior profiles are left out. This is where the other side of the paradox comes in. The report by Anthropic ‘Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence’reveals that overall unemployment among workers most exposed to AI has not increased significantly since the arrival of ChatGPT, but there is a worrying sign in the data from hiring the youngest. Specifically, the study detects that, since 2024, workers between 22 and 25 years old have increasingly less likely to be hired in jobs most exposed to automation. The incorporation rate for these positions has fallen approximately half a percentage point, reducing by up to 14% the probability that a young man finds a job in those occupations, relative to levels prior to the launch of ChatGPT. For workers over 25 years of age, however, that same drop is not observed. Design, the great forgotten of the recovery. There is another profile that the recovery of employment in the technological labor market seems to have left aside: the design one. While product and engineering roles have been growing for two years, vacancies for designers have practically stagnated since the beginning of 2023, with around 5,700 global offers compared to more than 7,300 for product. The analysis firm Humbl Design confirms in its January 2026 report that design roles oriented toward routine execution will barely grow between 2% and 3% until 2034, while profiles specialized in strategy and problem solving project an increase of 16% in the same period. AI has a lot to do with this stagnation. Its ability to accelerate the work of engineers has reduced dependence on traditional design processes, especially in the prototyping and generation of visual variants phases. That is, AI has assumed that role and is now executed from the development departments, so companies They don’t need so many designers anymore.. In Xataka | “The world is in danger”: Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry Image | Unsplash (Mimi Thian)

Mercadona wanted to find out in Portugal if its business formula works outside of Spain. You already have the answer

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Your bet on the white labelthe short assortment, ready-to-eat foods and territorial expansion has allowed Mercadona to gain almost 30% of the Spanish market, far surpassing its competitors in the retail. That’s nothing new. What is curious is that this same bet seems to be giving good results also in Portugal, a country in which the chain premiered in 2019 with a first store in Vila Nova de Gaia. Since then the Valencian company not only he got sixth in your expansion lusa, has also expanded its business quota. And it doesn’t seem to be going bad at all. Beyond Spain. The percentage may vary depending on the period or region being analyzed, but for some time now studies on retail show that Mercadona is (by far) the chain that takes the largest part of the distribution business in Spain. In January, the consulting firm Nielsen presented a report on “mass consumption” that it assigns to Juan Roig’s chain 29.5% of the marketwell above direct competitors such as Carrefour, Lidl or DIA. This footprint is explained by a strategy that dates back (at least) to the end of the 80s, when the Valencian company made the leap to Madrid. On the other side of ‘la Raya’, however, its history is much more recent. Mercadona did not put its head into the Portuguese market until 2016when it decided to bet on its internationalization, and its first store in the neighboring country is even more recent: a 18,000 m2 supermarket in Vila Nova de Gaia opened in 2019. Chain Distribution share in Portugal (2024) Distribution share in Portugal (2025) Continent 26.6% 27.5% Pingo Doce 21.7% 21.7% Lidl 13% 12.9% Mercadona 7.0% 7.2% Intermarché 6.6% 6.4% Auchan 4.4% 5.3% aldi 2.7% 2.9% Miniprice 23% 0.8% Leclerc 0.8% 0.8% And how is it going there? We knew that the company was expanding for Portugal, which in 2024 achieved a positive net result and that in 2025 its profit in the neighboring country amounted to 26 million of euros; What we have just discovered is that this data is largely explained by its share of business. The Economist just published a report from Worldpanel by Numerator (formerly Kantar) that shows that the Valencian chain has established itself in the ‘TOP 5’ of the most important firms in the Portuguese distribution sector. A percentage: 7.2%. To be more precise, in 2025 its quota rose to 7.2%two percentage points more than in 2024. It is a much lower percentage than in Spain, but it draws attention when analyzed in its context. First, because Mercadona has gained that 7.2% gap in just five years, a time in which it has overtaken firms such as Intermarché, Auchan or Aldi. Second, because it is already the fourth distribution chain in terms of business footprint. It is only surpassed by Lidl (12.9%) and above all Pingo Doce (21.7%) and Continente (27.5%), the undisputed leaders of the retail in the neighboring country. Gaining weight. Mercadona has not only increased its share of the pie in the Portuguese business. It has also expanded its territorial footprint. And clearly. When it opened its first store, in the summer of 2019, the firm has already advanced that its landing did not only include the supermarket in the Porto area, it also contemplated a logistics block, offices and plans to open nine other stores that year. In his last annual reportpresented just a few weeks ago, Mercadona specifies that it closed 2025 with 69 stores, 7,500 employees and a turnover of 2,092 million euros in Portugal, which contributed to closing the year in green. If nothing goes wrong, the company plans launch another five super soon. “Since 2019, the company has invested a cumulative total of 1,230 million euros and, in this second year in which it registered a positive result in the country, it achieved a net profit of 26 million,” explains. According to his calculations, he already monopolizes 3.5% share in total sales area in Portugal. Are they all advantages? Not at all. If Mercadona has managed to establish its business share in Portugal, it has been largely thanks to its investment, the opening of new stores and the creation of a ambitious logistics block in Santarém. However, the Worldpanel by Numerator data that confirms its growth also reflects that it will not be easy if it wants to continue growing. The Valencian firm has Lidl ahead of it, but above all Pingo Doce and Continenttwo chains with decades of history and a very wide presence in Portugal. Between them they add up hundreds and hundreds of points of sale spread across the country and a market share that the old Kantar figure at 49.2%. Images | Continent and Mercadona Via | elEconomista.es In Xataka | Mercadona and the rest of the supermarkets have realized something worrying: they spend a million dollars on printing paper

must find a way not to die of success

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The latest generation GPUs for artificial intelligence (AI) that are being designed by NVIDIA, AMD or Huawei, among other companies, They are a technological prodigy. However, their performance is deeply conditioned by the performance of the memory chips with which they coexist. And the most advanced GPUs are so fast that they often they are forced to wait until the memory gives them the data they need to be able to continue performing calculations. HBM4e memory chips (High Bandwidth Memory) seek to end this bottleneck in AI hardware once and for all. The three largest designers of this type of integrated circuits (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technology) are working on their HBM4e solutions, and the two South Korean companies will presumably deliver the first samples to their customers during the second half of 2026. The American company Micron will arrive a little later: in 2027. SK Hynix currently leads this market with a share close to 70%so that the remaining 30% is shared between Samsung and Micron Technology. However, the future of your HBM4e memories is not only in your hands. To sustain its current market share SK Hynix must produce its future HBM4e memories on a cutting-edge lithography node, so, according to DigiTimes Asiahas decided to bet on it safely: it is evaluating the possibility of TSMC being in charge of manufacturing the core of these memories in its 3nm node. SK Hynix and TSMC alliance is a seismic movement in the AI ​​industry Traditionally, memory chip designers have also been responsible for manufacturing their own integrated circuits. However, SK Hynix has three good reasons for leaving the production of its HBM4e memories in the hands of TSMC. The first of them is that this Taiwanese company manufactures the GPUs designed by SK Hynix’s main clients, so if it is also responsible for producing the memory, the final assembly of these two components using COWOS advanced packaging (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) is much simpler. HBM4e memory must be produced using extremely small and fast transistors Additionally, HBM4e memory must be produced using extremely small and fast transistors, and SK Hynix management knows that its current integration technologies are not as advanced as TSMC’s more sophisticated lithography. Finally, HBM4e memories will not only be responsible for storing information; They will also be able to carry out basic operations with the data before delivering it to the GPU in order to optimize hardware performance for AI. In some sense these memories will be more like processors than ever, and TSMC has much more experience than SK Hynix in manufacturing these chips. Be that as it may, this alliance poses a problem: TSMC’s N3 node is absolutely saturated. NVIDIA, Apple and other clients of this company monopolize it, so TSMC is having very serious difficulties to meet the demand. In fact, it has faced this problem since it started manufacturing 3nm chips. Their second generation of this integration technology, known as N3E, refined N3B lithography enough to make its per wafer yield significantly higher. In fact, N3E eliminates some of the transfer process steps of extreme ultraviolet lithography and reduces transistor density in order to minimize manufacturing costs and improve per-wafer yield. The third generation of lithography TSMC’s 3nm is called N3P. It is characterized by increasing the density of transistors by 4% and their speed by 5% while their consumption is reduced between 5 and 10% at the same clock frequency. It’s not bad at all. Additionally, N3P lithography is fully compatible with N3E lithography design rules, so NVIDIA, Apple, and TSMC’s other customers can move their designs from N3E to N3P with virtually nothing done. However, despite the improvements that TSMC has made to its 3nm manufacturing nodes, there are not enough wafers for everyone. It is currently unclear how this Taiwanese company is going to resolve the arrival of SK Hynix to this node. Presumably you will have to maximize yield per wafer and increase your production capacity, but doing so is by no means a piece of cake. This is undoubtedly the biggest challenge TSMC faces because it cannot leave its best customers hanging. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | DigiTimes Asia | SemiAnalysis In Xataka | The Government of Taiwan warns a TSMC in full international expansion: its best technology will stay on the island

OPPO Find N6 – Features, price and technical sheet

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This year is going to be one of the most important in the folding mobiles. If everything indicates that Apple will present the iPhone Foldthe rest of the brands are not lagging behind: from Motorola with its recent Motorola Razr Fold to the Honor Magic V6. And the one that concerns me, the OPPO Find N6, a mobile that I have been testing for two weeks and that I loved for an aspect that perfectly sums up its character: does not require sacrifices despite being foldable. The phone has just been presented worldwide and comes with a drawback for Europeans: OPPO is not going to distribute it here. And it’s a shame, because I think the Find N6 is the favorite for the throne of Fold-type mobiles. Above all for a characteristic that underlines the absence of sacrifices that I mentioned: his wrinkle is almost imperceptible. OPPO Find N6 technical sheet OPPO Find N6 OUTDOOR SCREEN Exterior: 6.62-inch LTPO OLED Panel Resolution of 2,616 x 1,140 pixels LTPO refresh rate 1-120 Hz 1,800 nits maximum brightness 3,600 nits peak brightness indoor screen 8.12 inch LTPO OLED Panel Resolution of 2,480 x 2,248 pixels LTPO refresh rate 1-120 Hz 1,800 nits maximum brightness 2,500 nits peak brightness DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT Folded: 159.87 x 74.12 x 8.93 mm Unfolded: 159.87 x 145.58 x 4.21 mm 225 grams PROCESSOR Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 RAM 16 GB LPDDR5X STORAGE 512GB UFS 4.1 FRONT CAMERA Exterior and interior: 20 MP, f/2.4 REAR CAMERA Main: Samsung ISOCELL HP5, 200 MP, f/1.8, OIS Wide angle: Samsung ISOCELL JN5, 50 MP, f/2.0 Periscopic telephoto: Samsung ISOCELL JN5,50 MP, f/2.7, OIS Multispectral True Color camera, f/2.4 BATTERY 6,000 mAh 80W fast wired charging 50W wireless charging OPERATING SYSTEM Android 16 ColorOS 16 CONNECTIVITY 5G Dual Nano-SIM and eSIM NetworkBoost S1 Chip GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, NavIC USB 3.1 OTHERS Side fingerprint reader IP56, IP58 and IP59 certification Zero-Feel Crease Hinge Dual stereo speakers PRICE Unspecified A foldable screen without the worst of folding screens OPPO highlighted zero wrinkles (“Zero Crease”) several times in the presentation of its foldable. The mobile has been developed with a new titanium hinge with a drop-by-drop printed polymer finish that stabilizes the flexible panel in the folding line to smooth its surface. These are the sales pitch and the technical specification. I had to check it. I have tested several folding phones and I know that the wrinkle is something that is already present on the phone even during unboxing. Although it has not yet been used, the small valley through which the fold runs is visible to sight and touch. It then deepens as the phone is used. When I opened the OPPO Find N6 I was surprised to find a practically smooth central surface. The wrinkle was not zerobut the lightest I had ever tried. And it has remained that way during these two weeks: the engineering work carried out by OPPO is impressive. The crest does not disappear completely, the “Zero Crease” thing is somewhat exaggerated. Without being able to ignore the obvious: the wrinkle is almost imperceptible, both to sight and to the touch. The wrinkle is minimally noticeable when you run your finger along the center line. When holding the phone straight there is no visible defectyes a small vertical mark when looking at the screen from the sides. The light creates a slight distortion, but not much more. It doesn’t even affect the content being played. It is very difficult to distinguish the wrinkle from the fold. From the front you can’t even see I have tested most Fold and Flip type foldables, I used the Honor Magic V6 – another of the phones that boasts a minimal folding brand -, and I can say without a doubt that the OPPO Find N6 takes the lead. trophy for best folding panel for its almost missing crest. It represents an improvement in use. It’s not a dramatic improvement, but it is notable. To the touch it is not very noticeable either. The hinge built by OPPO with a titanium base provides an extra addition to the reduction of the fold line: allows you to put the screen at almost any angle. The deployment is firm, offers resistance and does not lose position. Not everything is a screen: power counts The OPPO Find N6 has an 8.12-inch folding panel that not only reduces wrinkles to almost an anecdote, it also allows it to be viewed in all types of conditions, including outdoors. In addition, the body is as thin as it is solid: once folded it looks like an ordinary mobile phone. I have used it as such. Within the sheets of only 4.21 mm, OPPO has snuck the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Elite16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. The Find N6 is well served in performance, on par with the best of this year. Without experiencing excess temperature, neither playing nor charging the phone. Because what a battery: 6,000 mAh carbon silicon They go away after two days with moderate use. Even when regularly displaying the mobile phone, with the extra energy consumption that a panel twice as large implies. It is very comfortable to use, somewhat complicated to unfold (it is so compact that it makes it difficult to put your fingers in to open the phone), it comes with the software updated to Android 16 and ColorOS 16, does not miss the opportunity to show off AI (with its dedicated button) and even includes a practical infrared emitter to use the OPPO Find N6 as an improvised remote control. The fact that it is a folding mobile phone does not detract from its capabilities, but rather adds to it. A very solid photographic set OPPO maintains the round-shaped photographic module and the collaboration with Hasselblad of the Find N5. The combination is still a triple camera, although now we have a fourth as support for color calibration in shots. This … Read more

The electric rental car still cannot find its place. Hertz tried it and it cost him 4 billion to discover it

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In October 2021, Hertz announced with great fanfare that bought 100,000 Teslas worth 4.2 billion dollars. It was the biggest bet by a vehicle rental company on electric vehicles. He didn’t know what he had gotten himself into. And four years later, that bet has ended up becoming one of the most expensive lessons in history, because between 2023 and 2025, the company has accumulated losses of more than 4.5 billion dollars, a good part of them directly linked to that decision. What went wrong from the beginning. The business of a car rental company is not just renting, as they also need to sell the vehicles when they are paid for at the best possible price. And that is where the electric became a basic problem. electric cars They depreciate faster than combustion ones in the first three to five years, something that Hertz saw firsthand. When the fleet of Teslas began to lose value, the company was unable to place them on the second-hand market at a profitable price. The final blow came when Elon Musk decided reduce the price of new Teslaswhich automatically dragged down the value of the used cars that Hertz had in its fleet. In detail. Added to that were other problems that were not in the script. Electrical repairs they were more expensive Compared to combustion vehicles, tires wore out faster and many drivers simply did not want to rent an electric car. In addition, it should be noted that the charging network in the United States was (and partly still is) insufficient for travelers who do not fully know the specifics of charging an electric car. According to MarketWatch, electric cars in the United States they are not popular among rental customers precisely due to the scarce network of charging points in the country. And a car stopped in the parking lot does not generate income, but it does generate costs. The numbers of the disaster. In 2024 alone, Hertz registered a net loss of $2.9 billionafter having closed the first nine months of the year with 1,332 million in the red. The company rapidly sold the 30,000 electric vehicles that it planned to liquidate, and in 2025 it closed the year with a net loss of 747 million, although with an improvement of more than 2,000 million compared to the previous year. The results of 2025 We met them precisely a few weeks ago, in their financial report. The numbers are improving, but right now Hertz’s stock is trading near historic lows and the market does not quite believe the recovery. It’s not just Hertz. The company has not been the only one that has gone through this bad experience, in fact it has been a warning sign for the rest of the competitors. Avis Budget Group, the second largest global vehicle rental group, closed 2025 with losses of nearly 1 billion dollarsthe main reason being its electric fleet in the United States. The company had to register more than 500 million in asset impairment by reducing the estimated useful life of its electric cars, which caused them to plummet in the stock market by more than 20% in a single day after presenting results. Avis CEO Brian Choi even publicly acknowledged to investors that the quarter’s results were “unacceptable,” according to picked up SherwoodNews. Between the lines. A McKinsey report from April 2025 pointed out that only one in ten American consumers is considering going electric with their next purchase. If the customer who rents a car does not want an electric one, because he does not know where to charge it, because it generates range anxiety or simply because it is not comfortable, the rental company has an expensive vehicle that depreciates quickly and that spends too much time without generating income. Therefore, the equation does not work. And now what. Hertz has promised that 2026 will be the year of the turning point. The company anticipates revenue growth of between 4% and 6% in the first quarter of this year and has once again placed the depreciation target below $300 per month per vehicle, which was the figure it always indicated as the profitability threshold. Avis is also looking ahead cautiously. Both companies hope to improve results in 2026, relying on younger fleets and managing its electric cars more conservatively, adapting its presence in markets where there is a more mature charging infrastructure, as is the case in California. What is clear is that the great bet of massive electric rental in the United States has failed, at least in its first version. The electric car may have a future in rental fleets, but not at any price, not in any market and, of course, not without the customer being willing to get into it. Cover image | Ernie Journeys In Xataka | No matter what you do: the wheels of your car are revealing your position to anyone who wants to monitor you

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