hard

a very hard summer marked by the weather, bans and toxins

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As summer approaches, more and more people think of the estuaries of Galicia as a place to spend time. a few weeks of relaxationbetween beaches, good food and a tolerable heat. What is much more difficult (even demoralizing) these months is to think of the Galician estuaries as pantries of seafood. The brotherhoods that work in the area have encountered a perfect storm which has complicated their work and has forced the Xunta to come to his rescue. This reality is already being noticed in the markets. What has happened? These are not good times for the shellfish harvesters who dedicate themselves to combing the Galician estuaries in search of clams or cockles, nor are they good times for the fishermen who they catch fresh octopus or companies that operate mussel trays. The most curious thing is that it is not due to a single factor, but to a sum of conditions, a challenging scenario for the union that The Confidential recently summarized (with a good eye) like the particular “Via Crucis of Galician shellfish.” Toxins, bans and storms seem to have joined forces to complicate life for the sector. looking back. To understand the situation that the union is going through, you have to go back at least a few years, to 2023when the heavens rained down (literally) the shellfish harvesters’ business. In 2023, the sector first encountered an unusual heat wave that was followed, in autumn, by a succession of intense rainfall that they wreaked havoc among bivalve populations. In 2025 things seemed to improve, but the outlook became complicated again at the beginning of this year. “Last year there were signs of recovery with a significant pre-commercial stock that could not withstand the impact of the train of eight consecutive storms that hit our coast between January and February of this year,” they explain from the Consellería do Mar de Galicia. The logic is simple: it rains heavily, the flow of the rivers increases, the reservoirs open their floodgates and all that mass of fresh water ends up flowing suddenly into the estuaries, affecting, among other things, the salinity of the seabed and affecting its fauna. And that impacts catastrophically in the work of those dedicated to collecting cockles, clams or razor clams. Is it that serious? Yes. Both for its consequences on marine fauna and for its economic and social implications. In fact, in 2023, faced with a similar scenario, it was already warned that the high mortality rate of shellfish was leading thousands of families to a “very distressing situation” and an “uncertain future.” For reference, in March the biologist Liliana Solís shared with elDiario the results of the first sampling carried out on the banks of the Muros and Noia estuaries after the storms at the beginning of 2026: in the case of the cockle the mortality was 89%, in the case of the japonica clam 66%, in the slimy clam 96% and 31% in the fine clam. “Pesca de Galicia” graph showing the records of bivalves in the fish markets. The quantity is reflected in blue, in kilos. The golden line shows the price, in €/kg. “The worst crisis”. Shortly after, in April, The Voice of Galicia did a review through the different sandy areas of the community that he headed with an eloquent headline: “Galician estuaries: I check one by one in the face of the worst shellfish crisis.” Their analysis indicated that the most affected areas were those of Arousa, Vigo and Muros-Noia, although the outlook was not very encouraging in the estuaries of Pontevedra or A Coruña either. The ‘photo’ has chiaroscuros (in Vigo and Baiona, clam captures from boats alleviated the decline in shellfish harvesting on foot), but in general it shows a complicated panorama. So much so, that the Xunta has already made a move. This same week the Minister of the Sea, Marta Villaverde, explained in the Parliament of Galicia the measures deployed to “reverse the effects of the storms on the shellfish banks.” Its “central piece,” he defended, is a plan of almost 23 million euros to regenerate sandy beaches and support families in the union. Shellfish harvesters who participate in recovery tasks actually receive compensation of up to 700 euros per month. Do we have data? Yes. The Pesca de Galicia platform, which basically works with “first sale” data in the fish markets, shows a noticeable fall in bivalves during the first months of the year. For example, if in April 2025 it registered 238,544 kilos, in the same month of this year there were only 147,730. Something similar happens with crustaceans. This same week Vigo Lighthouse revealed that until May, 788 tons of mollusks valued at 9.7 million have been shipped in the markets, which translates into falls of 29 and 26%, respectively, and the worst start to the year so far this century. The ‘prick’ of the japonica clam, cockle and fine clam stands out above all, with declines that are around or even exceed 50%. The economic balance for the sector is compensated, in part, by the increase in the price of certain species, which in the face of a shortage have seen their price was shot in wholesale channels. Something more than storms. We said it at the beginning of the report: the big problem in the sector is that does not deal with a single challenge. The adverse weather of 2026 may not have made it easy for Galician shellfish harvesters, but that is not the only headache for the sector. In May the markets saw how it was activated a ban for the fresh octopus that will continue for another month, until july. All with the aim of recovering a species that has also gone through low hours in the estuaries of Galicia and meets increasing competition arrival from other regions. If that were not enough, add the “red tide”which has forced the closure of some 3,400 punts of mussels, the pressure exerted on prices by merchandise arriving … Read more

Neither Robotaxi nor Cybercab. Elon Musk is having a hard time naming his autonomous taxi, and now it’s French sparkling water to blame

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It will soon be a year since Tesla’s first autonomous taxis began to roll And to this day the creature still does not have an official name. AND not because Elon Musk hasn’t tried. First it ran into the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and now it has been a French sparkling water company. rookie mistake. Tesla may have the technology of the future rolling on the streets, but when it held the ‘We, Robot’ event in 2024 in which it presented the Cybercab, it forgot a small detail: it announced the name without having officially registered the brand. This is where Unibev comes into play, a French beverage company, which saw the perfect opportunity to troll the richest man in the world. The patent troll. What Unibev did is a clear case of patent thief (or troll, as they would say in ‘Silicon Valley’). Taking advantage of Tesla’s oversight, six days after the announcement, the company registered the name Cybercab and it doesn’t seem like it’s because they want to call their sparkling water that way, but rather to simply be annoying. The company already had a history of trolling Musk and in addition to Cybercab they also registered Cybertaxi, Robocab Systems, XCab, Cyber ​​Diner, Teslaquila, Teslaquila Hard Seltzer and With a Touch of Musk. Some horny ones. The answer. The USPTO suspended Tesla’s application because Unibev had beaten them to it, but Tesla did not sit idly by and filed a lawsuit of more than 150 pages in which they accuse Unibev of bad faith and having acted as a patent thief. Having registered before is not synonymous with victory, since simply proving that Unibev does not manufacture vehicles the authority should rule in favor of Tesla. In their application, Unibev said they could use the name for “a car, a ship or a plane.” It seems easy enough to dismantle, the problem is that the litigation could extend until 2027. If Unibev wins the dispute, Tesla could be forced to negotiate the use of the name outside the US and even have to use another name in certain markets. And ‘robotaxi’?. Tesla too tried to register the trademark ‘Robotaxi’but the USPTO told them that nanai. The reason had nothing to do with any patent thief, but because it is “used to describe similar products and services of other companies. (…) This expression appears to be generic in the context of the applicant’s products and/or services.” The USTPO comes to say that it is too standard a name, it would be like registering the ‘taxi’ trademark. There is still more. The organizational chaos does not end with taxis, the same thing also happened with its autonomous minibus, presented with great fanfare as “Robovan.” The problem is that Tesla announced it without first having verified that the brand was already registered by an Estonian delivery company. Tesla has had to look for less attractive alternatives such as “Robobus”, “Robus” or “Cyberbus”. About launching autonomous vehicles with super-advanced technology, well, that’s all the paperwork. Image | tesla In Xataka | Tesla robotaxis are autonomous, except when driven by a man from Texas

AI has skyrocketed Nokia shares by 140%. Now comes the hard part

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For years, Nokia seemed to be trapped in our memory as a company from the past: indestructible mobile phones, the ‘Snake‘, recognizable tones and a fall which ended up becoming a warning for the entire technology industry. But that image is somewhat unfair. Nokia did not disappear when it lost its step in the smartphone market. The company continued to exist, far from the consumer’s showcase, in a less visible and much more difficult to explain business: the networks, the infrastructure for operators and the technology that allows modern communications to work. And now, suddenly, AI has put it back on the map. The stock market turn. According to BloombergNokia shares have risen more than 140% so far this year, a move that has made it the fourth best value in the Stoxx Europe 600 and has taken its shares to levels not seen since 2008. The key is that investors are beginning to read the company in a different way: less as a traditional supplier of telecommunications equipment and more as a piece of the infrastructure that can sustain the rise of AI. Not for phones, but for their optical equipment for data centers. The important clarification. The signature of the rise is Nokia Oyj, not to HMD Global. The difference matters because HMD is the company that has marketed mobile phones under the Nokia brand under license, while Nokia Oyj is the listed Finnish company. The separation point came in 2014, with the sale of the mobile division to Microsoft. From then on, the Nokia name continued to circulate on two different levels: as a recognizable brand for many consumers and as an industrial company within the global telecommunications market. An assessment that becomes complicated. The stock market euphoria has left Nokia in a delicate position: the more a stock rises, the harder it is to justify what comes next. Information from the American economic media places its 12-month forward P/E, the relationship between the share price and the expected profits for the next year, at about 36 times, more than double the approximately 17 times at the beginning of the year. The data that cools the enthusiasm is another: the part linked to AI and cloud, which is fueling much of the new narrative, barely represented 8% of the group’s sales in the first quarter. The technical piece. Nokia’s appeal lies in a layer that often falls beneath the more visible narrative of AI. While much of the conversation revolves around chips, models and applications, data centers also need optical networks to move information quickly between computing systems. The purchase of Infineraa company specialized in optical networks, gave Nokia more muscle in that field and now seems like a particularly timely operation. Added to this are three signals collected by Bloomberg: sales linked to AI grew by 49% in the first quarter, the company raised its forecasts in April for segments exposed to cloud clients and NVIDIA made an investment of 1 billion dollars. The bottom ballast. The enthusiasm for optical networks does not erase the size of the business that Nokia already had before investors began to read it in terms of AI. The mobile networks division still contributes more than half of total sales and, according to the information cited by the American economic media, works with lower margins than the part more linked to cloud and artificial intelligence. That weight conditions any optimistic reading. Operators have reduced spending in recent years and Nokia has also suffered important contract losses in the United States, so the company is not starting from a blank slate. The real test. For years, the big question around Nokia was whether anyone would look at it again as anything more than a memory of another technological era. That part, at least in the stock market, has already happened. The problem is that investors do not forgive second chances when they become too expensive: after a rise of more than 140%, the company no longer only has to prove that it has exposure to AI, but that that exposure can be converted into orders, revenues and margins. The story is attractive again. Now the most difficult thing remains: for the numbers to be up to par. Images | NOKIA In Xataka | Huawei has found a way to counteract US sanctions: overcoming Moore’s Law

If your hard drives disconnect on their own, an underpowered USB Hub may be to blame. With these you won’t have that problem

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If you usually use a hub to connect hard drives, mice, keyboards and other accessories or peripherals, perhaps at some point it has happened to you that they disconnect randomly. That’s especially worrying with hard drives, because you can lose data. Today we are going to tell you why the problem is not the hard drive, but surely the hub USB you have. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links How does a hub Hub without external power. The hubSpeaking of models that do not require external power, they are accessories that generally have fairly low prices, although it depends a lot on the brand. They act like port multipliersince connecting them to a single port on the computer (generally USB-A or USB-C) allows us to connect two or more devices to the hub. They are usually quite cheap, small and there is a wide variety to choose from, with different formats (elongated, square and even round). To use them you only have to connect them to a USB port on your computer, without the need to also connect them to a power outlet. AND here is its main limitation. The energy required to use it comes directly from the computer, so the power will be limited to what the port offers. Furthermore, the maximum power is always divided by the hub (so that it can work) and the number of devices that we connect. To give you an idea, a standard USB 3.0 gives 900 mA. A mechanical hard drive can require almost all of that to boot. If you add a keyboard with lights, the system collapses. How does a hub with external power Hub with external power. The hub with external power they are less frequent, more expensive and often larger. Here we can identify the hub assets, which are usually cheaper, and Docking Stationwhich are larger and come with more ports, including some video ones. With this type of hub We are not so limited to the power that the computer’s USB port can offer. In practice, this means that in many cases the power does not have to be divided when connecting two or more devices, although there are exceptions: some USB ports of the hub Active devices require so much energy that they prioritize these ports, something that we can see in those USB-C (Power Delivery) that are aimed at charging devices such as mobile phones compatible with fast charging. It is worth mentioning that the hubs assets come with a USB-C PD (Power Delivery) port. They don’t come with a transformer, but if you connect the laptop charger to them, they become “powered.” And… what are they for? Both the hub assets like Docking Station They are ideal if you are looking to connect devices that require high power, such as mobile phones, monitors or hard drives and SSD drives. By way of differentiation: It’s a hub passive if: It just has a short cable coming out of it and nothing else. It’s a hub active if: It has an extra port that says “DC 5V” or “USB-C Power Delivery (PD).” It is a Docking Station if: It is large, heavy, has its own power brick (like that of a laptop) and has video connectors such as DisplayPort or several HDMIs. The good and the bad of both options, face to face Hub without external power hub with external power THE GOOD 🟢 They are cheaper, more compact and lighter. They offer better stability when connecting many devices and usually have a greater number and variety of ports. THE BAD 🔴 The power is limited to what the computer’s USB port offers, so you may experience power outages in certain cases. They are more expensive and tend to be larger and heavier. Ideal for: Keyboards, mice, microphones or flash drives (pendrive). Mobile phones with fast charging, hard drives and SSD drives and monitors. We do the math to see which one can compensate you more. Both options have their positive and negative points, so the choice lies in how we are going to use them. If it is still not completely clear to you, let’s see it with an example. If you want to use a hub sporadically because you are not going to connect many devices at the same time, it may be worth it to buy a hub without external power. Actual use: Let’s say you want to connect two low-power devices. The accounts: You save between 70 and 80 (or more) euros between the cost of a hub without external power and another with external power. Also, if you chose this second option, you would not be squeezing it, since you are going to connect low-power devices. So? If you want to connect a mouse and keyboard (because they are wired or because you want to recharge them) and you still have a free USB port on your computer to connect a hard drive, this type of hub It can serve you very well. However, if what you want is to connect several devices, low or high power, and you do not have any more free USB ports on the computer or they are in an area that is not easily accessible to use them, it will be more useful for you to go for a hub with external power. Actual use: Let’s say you want to connect many devices to the hubsome need more and others less power. The accounts: You pay more for this type of hubbut it allows you to connect practically any device. So? You can have a greater number of connected devices (depending on the hub), and it will give you “the same” what to connect, whether it is a keyboard or a hard drive because it will offer a stable connection. Also, as a utility, if you have the computer under the desk or in some area that is difficult to access, you will not have to bend down to … Read more

The first hard drives in history were gigantic. Then a miracle happened: miniaturization

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Nowadays it is normal to have 32 or 64 GB of capacity on our mobile devices, and that capacity is usually multiplied by several orders of magnitude on our PCs and laptops. Storage technology has advanced incredibly in all these years, and to appreciate this evolution it is not a bad idea to take a short trip to the past and see how decades ago hard drives were heavy and cumbersome monstrosities that also had very limited capacity and features. The first example of that evolution we have it in the IBM RAMAC 305a monster that appeared in 1956 and was capable of storing 5 MB thanks to a system with 50 24-inch “platters”. That device rotated at a speed of 600 revolutions per minute and generated such a quantity of heat that it was necessary to enclose it in a large “refrigerator” with two cooling systems. Another curious fact about this product is that IBM already thought about a subscription model to make it profitable: clients who wanted to use this product had to pay $3,200 per month at the time, which would be equivalent to almost $30,000 today with inflation. Miniaturization would still take years to reach an industry that was trying to advance especially in the area of ​​storage capacity: customers demanded more capacity, and those 24 inch plates wereAs seen in the image, huge. In this case these models reached 10 MB capacity per disk. The giant of the time, IBM, dominated the sector for years, and in 1962 the company created the first “removable” drives. The IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive made use of IBM 1316 “disk packs” that allowed the company’s customers to expand their needs to suit. From the 24 inches of the previous disks it went to 14 inches, with 2 Mbytes for each “pack”. The path to smallness Another of those storage devices It was UniDisc.a storage expansion that appeared in 1962 for the Univac 1004/1005 computers. That “flexible” disk similar to those used by IBM had a diameter of 14 inches and was capable of holding 2 Mbytes of information. The drive the disk was inserted into was about the size of a washing machine. At that time, several manufacturers tried to be leaders in a promising sector, and among them was Burroughs, a mainframe manufacturer that, for example, launched this unit of 250 MB in 1979. A true marvel that used, pay attention, regenerative braking: when it was turned off, the motor became a magnetic brake: otherwise the discs continued spinning for an average of 4 hours. A few years earlier IBM had already launched its new hard drive technology, the so-called “winchester“. The IBM 3340 drive had a smaller, lighter read/write head that had a design that allowed it to move across that surface at a tiny distance. Things would advance from that moment even more rapidly, especially in the field of miniaturization (more or less) and the capacity of units that, for example, in 1980 already reached the gigabyte with the IBM 3380 unit. From that year 1980 is also the Memorex Mark XIV “disk pack” in the header image that was advertised as an “error-free” system. It had a capacity of 80 MB and was intended for Memorex disk drives that were again the size of a washing machine. 5¼ units would soon give way to 3.5-inch oneswhich would arrive first from the Rodime company (with former Burroughs employees, by the way). Their devices were capable of storing 6.38 and 12.75 Mbytes and would start a real trend in the PC and laptop market. User needs continued to dictate smaller formats, and this led to 2.5-inch drives that are currently especially widespread due to their use in the solid state drive segment. The rest, as they say, is history: 3.5-inch drives are still widely used today, but that revolution would be followed a few years ago by that of solid state drives or SSD (especially in M.2 format) that have allowed us to achieve reading and writing speeds that were unthinkable just a decade ago. In the area of ​​capacity and cost per gigabyte, yes, those traditional hard drives continue to be (for now) the kings of the market, but if we want examples of miniaturization, the 1 TB drives that SanDisk presented at CES seven years ago made things even better. And what remains. In Xataka | Sandisk has risen 1,000% in the stock market since the summer. Its advantage is called Kioxia In Xataka | The computers of the future have found an unexpected ally to store information: fungi

Europe produces more clean electricity than fossil electricity for the first time. The hard part starts now

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For years, the European energy transition advanced without completely displacing fossil fuels. Last year marked that turning point. According to the report European Electricity Review 2026wind and solar generated 30% of EU electricity in 2025, surpassing coal, gas and oil combined for the first time, which fell to 29%. As Dr. Petrovich explains by Emberwe are facing record growth. It is not normal to go from a 20% to 30% quota in just five years, but the numbers are there. The energy map is changing: there are now 14 EU countries where wind and sun generate more than gas or coal. In this scenario, Spain, Greece or Hungary already play in the league of solar powers. Beyond statistics. The milestone does not imply that Europe has left fossil fuels behind or that gas has disappeared from the system, but rather that it changes the hierarchy of the electricity mix. For the first time, variable renewable energies come to occupy the center of the electricity mix, while fossils are relegated to a technical and security support role. According to Emberrenewable energies as a whole contributed 48% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, practically half of the total, a figure that remained stable even in a year marked by adverse weather conditions, with less wind and less rain than usual. Coal, the most polluting fuel in the system, continues its withdrawal. In 2024 it fell to 9.2% of the European electricity mix, a historical minimum compared to the almost 25% it represented a decade ago. Gas, for its part, rose slightly compared to 2024, although it is still 18% below its 2019 maximum, confirming that its role in the system is increasingly residual. This rebalancing has consequences that range beyond the energy mix: Dependence on imported fossil fuels continues to be the main source of price instability and strategic vulnerability in Europe, even outside the climate debate. Five years that changed everything. The sorpasso – as it has begun to be called in the sector – is not the result of a mild winter or a stroke of meteorological luck. It is the consequence of sustained growth, especially in solar energy, during the last decade, accelerated very notably in the last five years. According to the reportsolar generation grew by 20.1%, this being the fourth consecutive year with increases of more than 20%, an unprecedented growth rate in European energy history. In absolute terms, solar reached 369 terawatt hours (TWh), more than double that of 2020, and the annual increase in 2025 alone is equivalent to the electrical production of three French nuclear reactors. A dizzying growth. This expansion responds mainly to the installed capacity. In 2025, 65.1 GW of new solar power was added in the EU, distributed almost equally between large plants and self-consumption on rooftops. All community countries increased their solar production, and in several of them—Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands—the sun already provides more than 20% of national electricity. As for wind power, although more affected by the weather conditions at the beginning of the year, it remains the second largest electricity source in the EU, with 17% of the total, above gas. The system, therefore, begins to rely structurally on variable renewables, something unthinkable just a decade ago. The reverse of success: when gas continues to set the price. Despite the historic advance of wind and solar, 2025 made it clear that gas continues to have a disproportionate weight in the European electricity system, especially in price formation. According to the think tank, gas-fired electricity generation increased by 8% in the EU, mainly to compensate for the drop in hydroelectric energy caused by the drought, and this greater use of gas raised the electricity sector’s import bill to 32 billion euros, 16% more than the previous year. The impact was especially visible in the electricity markets. Ember detects that price spikes They are concentrated in the hours with the highest gas use, while the hours with abundant solar and wind tend to make electricity cheaper. In 21 European countries, wholesale prices rose in 2025, driven almost exclusively by these fossil time slots. This is where the paradox of the current system: although gas no longer dominates by volume, it continues to set the marginal price of the market at critical moments. In other words, despite the oversupply, the price structure continues to be conditioned by fossil fuel when there is a lack of wind or sun. The new energy frontier. Ember’s report devote an entire chapter to what it considers the next big front of the transition: storage and system flexibility. Without these pieces, he warns, the sorpasso runs the risk of remaining a statistical victory. This was one of the large deficits of the European transition: investing massively in generation without doing so at the same pace in networks and storage. Batteries are now emerging as the piece that connects renewable success with stable prices and security of supply. Last year, the EU exceeded 10 GW of large-scale batteries in operation for the first time, more than double that of 2023. In addition, there is a portfolio of projects that could raise that figure above 40 GW if fully implemented. The first signs are already visible in countries like Italy, where batteries have begun to cover part of the demand during peak gas hours, reducing prices and displacing fossil generation. Physical bottlenecks: European infrastructure. It is not just a question of how much energy is generated, but where it enters and how it circulates within the continent. Europe has reduced its direct dependence of Russian gas, but continues to face physical limitations in terminals, transportation networks and cross-border connections. This substitution of Russian gas has been slowed by the slowness in the construction of critical facilities, such as regasification terminals and high-capacity networks, and by the insufficient interconnection between national electrical systems. This bottleneck explains why countries with abundant renewable production, like Spain, often cannot easily export that surplus, or why the European … Read more

almost no one wants a computer with AI no matter how hard the industry tries

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Dell is clear that its products in 2026 will no longer be “AI-first.” That absolute focus on promising the gold and the moro in the new generation of PCs thanks to the virtues of artificial intelligence is disappearing and the reason is obvious: almost no one cares if their PC has AI functions or not. what has happened. Kevin Terwilliger, chief product officer at Dell, said in a recent interview with PC Gamer that the AI ​​fever on PCs has ended up causing a lot of disappointment among users. “In fact,” he explains, “I think the AI ​​probably confuses them more than it helps them achieve a specific result.” Dell no longer believes (as much) in PCs with AI. This manager showed surprising honesty when talking about how this absolute commitment to AI has not convinced either users or companies. The company has taken a step back, and although they will continue to pay attention to these AI options, they will no longer be the priority because they have discovered that people don’t care too much about those options: “We’re very focused on leveraging the AI ​​capabilities of a device – in fact, every product we announce has an NPU – but what we’ve learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is that they don’t buy based on AI.” Although the monkey dresses in silk, the monkey stays. Our dear PC knows it well, that in the last two years wanted go from being a Personal Computer to a Personal Companion with the help, of course, of AI. All manufacturers started to brag about TOPS on powerful NPUs and how instead of using our computer with a mouse and keyboard we were going to use the voice. The promise has dissipated and what has happened to the PC is that everyone keep using it the same way you used it. At least, for now. Dell lowers the bet. Dell was one of Microsoft’s initial partners in the launch of Copilot+ PCs in 2024, and even added variants of its popular Dell XPS 13 and Inspiron with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chip. They even added Cloud AI chips of this manufacturer in its high-end chips last year to try to reinforce the execution of local AI models, but that has not convinced users. That manufacturers like Dell change the discourse is significant and dangerous for Microsoft’s ambitious plans. Microsoft is left alone. The company led by Satya Nadella has been flooding us with new AI features in Windows for a long time, but the problem is that most of these features are being received with indifference… or with total rejection. The Windows Recall example is the clearest: the feature seemed promisingbut its launch was involved in a great privacy controversy and its availability was delayed and currently it is an option that is barely talked about. Thank you for your sincerity, Dell. Dell’s speech is surprising and appreciated. Especially after that continuous trickle of releases in which AI seemed to be the salvation of the PC and the key to a new golden age. These functions can end up being valuable, without a doubt, but what users continue to look for in their laptops, for example, is reliability and great autonomy, for example. That’s what still matters. The PC faces a complicated future. Jeff Clarke, COO of Dell, participated in a media meeting at CES 2026 and also mentioned how in this industry “We have this unfulfilled promise of AI and the expectation that AI will drive demand from end users.” It is clear that Dell now has a different vision, but both it and other manufacturers face a very difficult few months because as Clarke said, “we are about to enter 2026 with a quite significant memory shortage“. In Xataka | Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google) believes that ‘Her’ is inevitable: “there will be people who fall in love with an AI and we should prepare ourselves”

How to use your old hard drive on Android TV or Chromecast to give it new life

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If you have an old hard drive at home, there are several ways you can use it. For example, you can use it on your Android TV devicewhether it is an HDD or an SSD. You will always need some type of adapter to connect it via USB, but when you do, the possibilities are many. In this article we are going to summarize the things you are going to need, and everything you need to take into account for this, to convert an HDD or SSD to an external hard drive that you can connect and add photos or videos to your Android TV, be able to play them on the TV, device connected to it or Chromecast, and much more. Know your hard drive, buy an enclosure If what you have is an old external hard drive, everything will be easy, and at most you will need to buy a cable that connects it via USB type C, or that converts USB-A to USB-C to adapt it to an Android TV if it does not have a large USB connector. But If it is a computer hard driveone of those wireless ones where you have the disk and that’s it, then you are going to need to buy a kind of case that has the necessary internal components and programs to be able to connect it to a device like Android TV. Come on, to turn it into a portable drive. But before looking for a case, you should know a couple of things. First you have to know if it is a HDD or SSDa large mechanical disc in the first case or one of the finest in the second. You also need to check if the connection is IDE as in the older ones, or SATA. You also have to know the size of your hard drive, which can normally be 2.5 or 3.5 inches depending on whether it is an SSD or HDD. These are data that you need to check on your own, since you will need all of them to later get the external adapter casing that suits you. Once you have everything clear, for non-external hard drives you only have to buy the case with the features you need. They are very cheapand depending on what you need, they can cost you from 8 to 20 euros depending on how you want them to be, although it is advisable to buy them in stores with free returns in case you make a mistake about something. Once you buy the one you want, you will only have to connect the hard drive into the caseand then connect this to your Android TV or your Chromecast. These are our recommendations: BENFEI 2.5″ Hard Drive Enclosure, USB C/A to Sata for 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 to SATA SSD (Optimized for SSD, Compatible with UASP SATA III) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Hard Drive Enclosure – 2.5 Inch IDE Parallel Port Mobile Hard Drive Enclosure High Speed ​​Hard Drive Enclosure Screwless External Storage The price could vary. We earn commission from these links AISENS USB 3.1 GEN1 EXTERNAL 3.5 BOX FOR SATA III HARD DRIVES BLACK ASE-3530B The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Tooq TQE-3520B – Enclosure for 3.5″ HDD Hard Drives, (IDE, SATA I/II/III, USB 2.0), Aluminum with plastic support, LED indicator, Black, 350 g. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Format your hard drive When you connect your hard drive directly to your Android TV or Chromecast, the first thing you see is a message asking you to format it to be able to use it. This is something that is important to do, and if the device does not allow you to do it you will have to go by hand by connecting it to the PC and doing it there. When formatting it, it is advisable to choose the formats FAT32, NTFS or exFATwhich are the most popular. exFAT may not be compatible with some televisions, so if you want to watch large files such as movies it is best to opt for NTFS. What can you do with this hard drive Now you just need to start taking advantage of this disk to use it. To start, you can use it to store series, movies or music. You can save files directly to disk, and then access them from the native Android TV player or any player application you install. You can also do the same with photographs. Some set-top boxes or Android TV devices allow you record programs or broadcasts directly. In these cases, one of these hard drives will considerably increase the space you have available to do so. On Android TV you can also find the option to format this hard drive as internal storage. It is not an option always available, but when you have it, its storage will become like the internal one to install more applications or games inside, although these will go more slowly. Some apps will also allow you use the disk as a drive for downloads. This can happen to you in download managers or emulators, and in these cases you can take advantage of this disk. In fact, if you are going to use emulators it will be useful to save the ROMs to disk. In Xataka Basics | The computer does not recognize an external hard drive: what to do and how to solve it

I had a 1TB hard drive collecting dust in a drawer. With a cheap case I have resurrected it for my Chromecast

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I have a Chromecast with Google TV in the salon for three years and I love it, but it has died of success. Among the system updates, the basic streaming apps (Prime Video, Netflix, Crunchyroll…), and many others that I install to customize it and squeeze itthe device lives permanently drowned. This is what has its biggest flaw: a scant 8 GB of storagewhich in practice come to nothing. While cleaning, I found an old 1TB hard drive from an old computer that I dismantled. I decided that before it continued to collect dust, I would have a use for my Chromecast. And yes, it is very easy use external memory to expand your storage. These were my steps to achieve it. Identify the hardware. The first thing was to know what he had on his hands. It was an internal hard drive (HDD) of a desktop PC, so its size was 3.5 inches. When I looked at the connector I found a SATA (not as “relic” as I thought), the interface of the last decade. With this information, I already knew I needed to convert it to an external drive. Two essential components. The Chromecast with Google TV only has one USB-C port that it uses for food. Therefore, it is not enough to buy a case to put the HDD in: a USB-C Hub was necessary. This hub is key and must have at least one port with Power Delivery (PD) to continue powering the Chromecast, and a USB-A to connect the hard drive. I bought a case compatible with my drive (3.5″ SATA) and the assembly was as simple as possible: remove screws, fit the hard drive into the internal port, and close it. Here’s a note: if your old hard drive is from a laptop (2.5″) you will save a cable bothering with this DIY tech. The casing will not need an independent power supply, although it is ideal to avoid problems. Important step: formatting. Here I had two options: connect it to the computer and format it in exFAT or NTFS or to the Chromecast itself. I ruled out FAT32 because of its 4GB per file limit. This would first make it a unit suitable for storing content and thus playing it, but I opted for the second so that my Chromecast could install apps on it. To do this, I connected the entire set (hub, power and hard drive) and turned on the TV. Maximum volume size Maximum file size Chromecast compatible FAT32 8TB 4GB Yeah NTFS 16 EiB (1,845^7 TB) 16 EiB (1.845^7 TB) theoretical In practice the limit is around 256 TB Requires software exFAT 16 EiB (1,845^7 TB) 64 ZiB (6.4^10TB) Yeah Convert hard drive to “internal” storage. As soon as the device booted up, it detected the new disk. As easy as going to “Settings” > “System” > “Storage” and clicking on “Delete and format as device storage” to leave everything almost ready. This process takes a few minutes and is essential: it prepares the HDD so that Google TV understands it as an extension of its own memory. You can even use the hard drive to record live content. The Chromecast has it among its options Result. The change is substantial. I have been able to install heavy apps like kodi with plugins, VLC, and various light games without the repetitive “memory full” warning. The system still uses the internal memory for essential data, but everything “heavy” goes directly to the hard drive. Extras. Although I stopped at this point, a USB hub provides more possibilities to give more power to the Google Chromecast. Have you bought or have one with a Ethernet port? You can use a cable to avoid Wi-Fi signal problems and never see the buffer of a loading video again. Or you can also use a keyboard to browse the web. Cover image | Pepu Ricca for Xataka Android In Xataka | Best streaming devices: the main alternatives of 2025 for your television

Summer has been so hard that it has taken to the most summer ingredient in the salad: tomato

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The arrival of the rains this year seemed to bring a thread of hope to a battered agricultural sector for drought months. The news that comes to us could not be more different: grapes, citrus, bananas… For one reason or on the other, the crops are not fulfilling expectations, and the most recent example has been put by the tomato. 76 million. The tomato sector in Extremadura He has taken stock This year’s harvest and has not been precisely optimistic: a “ruin” is like the union of small farmers and ranchers from Extremadura (UPA-UCE) defined it in a Recent statement. The Extremadura Agrarian Organization figure at 76 million euros the annual losses of tomato producers after this year’s harvest. Double problem. The Sector Association points to A double problem: On the one hand, “ruinous prices (taxes by) the industrial sector”. Prices that, according to the association do not allow to cover the costs associated with production. The price problem is linked to the second of the problems of this campaign: that of production. According to association data, for this campaign the hiring for this campaign was based on an expected productivity of 93 tons per hectare on average. In Extremadura, real productivity has ended up being lower, about 82 tons per hectare. Lower productivity, lower production. This has been reflected in a bad harvest, with a production remarkably lower than that originally hired, 20% lower, according to UPA-UCE data. The main reason in this fall in production is for the sector, in meteorology. A climate not so propitious. Everything seemed to indicate that the meteorology would be favorable this year: months of elevated rainfall or, the less normal, they served not only to conclude the dry episode that affected our environment for several years; The hydrological bonanza also served for reservoirs to recover filling levels that had not been seen in years. However, the summer of 2025 was not consistent with what was seen in the previous months, but it brought us a Dry and very warm summera summer with two heat waves especially severe both in intensity and in duration. The result: weaker plants. And with more problems, they explain from UPA-UCE. Echoes from other fields. The story is repeated in several sectors. The arrival of the rains seemed to bring new hopes to the agricultural sector, however, the expected increase in harvest has also been translating into lower prices In origin, something that already supposed in itself a problem for many farmers. The problem has been even greater in sectors like grapeswhere expectations are not being met and now producers must face the low prices of a high offer, but with a lower production to the expected. In Xataka | During centuries Galicia was a thriving land of olive groves with unique varieties in the world. What changed it is still a mystery Image | Czapp ÁPád

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