invisible

make it so cheap that it is “invisible” to the user

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DeepSeek is the spearhead when we talk about artificial intelligence from China. Not only does it have a great performancebut the own Microsoft has raised the alarm by pointing out that its policy is allowing it to gain users in markets in which others such as OpenAI has it more difficult. Other companies like Tencent or Alibaba are taking giant steps in the fight for AI, and a few days ago ByteDance –TikTok– presented a Seedance 2.0 which is impressive… and now it’s giving you headaches. But the great ones are not the only ones, and with a China focused on the development of robotics and AIwe must talk about other smaller ‘players’. Zhipu AI and MiniMax are two of the “tigers“that, in just a few years, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars and that have models that have a radically different philosophy to that of OpenAI and other Western giants. Their models are sold as life companions, tools that people can use on a daily basis without worrying about the price. And, within that speech, MiniMax just launched the M2.5, a model that wants to become a “digital employee” and that its managers have classified as its first “frontier model” so cheap that it is not worth measuring the price. AI too cheap to worry about price M2.5 is now official and, as stated South China Morning PostMiniMax did not want to waste the opportunity to launch it in a hectic week for the AI ​​industry in China. Technically, M2.5 is an LLM – large language model – that can handle about 230 billion total parameters, but only uses 10 billion per token. Being a Mixture of Experts system, each call only involves the experts directly necessary to resolve the request. Bringing the figure down to earth, that means that it is a capable model, but by user request does not use its full potentialwhich implies low inference costs and very low prices for users. Those responsible for it claim that the price is just one dollar per hour of continuous operation, spending 100 tokens per second. This means that you can have an “agent” working continuously throughout that time at a price between 10 and 20 times lower than other models such as Opus, Gemini 3 Pro either GPT-5. Such an aggressive policy makes M2.5 a model “too cheap to quantify,” according to those responsible. facilitating that mass adoption because the user can stop optimizing each order he gives to the AI. That phrase “too cheap to put in” it’s a wink to the historic comment that electricity from nuclear energy would be too cheap to measure. Internal score in different tests | Image: MiniMax And something important is that M2.5 is not a simple chatbot. It is available on platforms such as Ollama, HuggingFace, ModelScope in China or GitHub, and MiniMax itself points out that 30% of the company’s internal tasks are already carried out by M2.5 itself. Furthermore, 80% of new code is generated by the model. That is, it is more optimized for working alone than for chatting. This code created by code thing is not unique to M2.5, and Codex and Opus is also in this boat. The model has already been put to the test and, although in some tasks it achieves notable results, especially compared to other models open-weightits score is far from that of the closed models. In the results internal from the company itself, managed to double the score of the previous model, the M2.1, but as SCMP points out, these internal benchmark scores are difficult to verify independently. Internal benchmark in coding | Image: MiniMax But, in the end, whether more or less capable compared to other models, MiniMax M2.5 is another example of the strategy that China is pushing with artificial intelligence. While the United States is striving to demonstrate that it has increasingly powerful and capable proprietary models, AI is in a narrative in which aims to promote cheaper and more useful models for the user. This implies not only that they have a good performance/price ratio, but also that they can run on everyday devices without enormous computing power. And now that, supposedly, certain Chinese companies You will be able to get your hands on some of the best GPUs of NVIDIA to train AI, the boost to that strategy may be notable. Images | MiniMax (edited) In Xataka | There is another race equally important as the one for chips to win AI and in that China takes the lead

We believed that imagination was exclusive to humans. Kanzi, the bonobo who drinks “invisible coffee”, has just proven the opposite

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For decades, cognitive science has drawn a firm red line between us and the rest of the animals that is the imagination. Although animals can use tools and even solve complex problems, the ability to disconnect from immediate reality and imagine a scenario that does not exist was considered something exclusive to humans. Until Kanzi arrived. Kanzi. A bonobo that is world famous for its mastery of lexigrams to communicate and that has now starred a published study this week in the magazine Science that could rewrite the books of evolution. And it is no wonder, since Kanzi not only knows how to order food, but also knows how to pretend to eat it when it’s not there yet, and being completely aware of what it does. The tea party. The study published earlier this month presents the strongest evidence to date for the representation of pretend objects in a great ape. And for a human Pretend you are drinking coffee by imagining you have a cup in your hand It is something very simple to do. But until now in apes it was something unthinkable. But to prove us wrong about our exclusive quality, the studio designed an experiment where they sat Kanzi down and interacted with empty objects. Specifically, they pretended to pour juice from an empty bottle into a juice or eat “grapes” that did not really exist. But the best thing is that it was not a simple imitation, but Kanzi followed the game with astonishing precision as if he really imagined it. The juice trick. The objective here was to rule out that Kanzi was simply copying movements without understanding the basic concept, and to do this the team designed three tests. The first of them began with the researcher pretending pouring juice into one of several empty glasses. Kanzi was then asked to interact with them by picking one up. In this case, in 68% of the 50 tests, Kanzi chose the glass that “contained” the imaginary juice, ignoring the other identical but “empty” glasses. Fact versus fiction. This is where the crucial point of the investigation is, since if Kanzi were confused, he would treat real and imaginary juice the same. This was not the case, since when given a choice, Kanzi preferred the real object in 78% of the cases. Something that may seem insignificant, but that shows that it maintains two simultaneous mental representations: the physical reality of the empty glass, and the fake reality where we play that the glass has juice. The same thing happened when imaginary grapes were used instead of juice, where Kanzi maintained a 69% success rate in identifying the location of the pretend food. Decoupling reality. The technical term being discussed here is decoupled secondary representation, which is the brain’s ability to hold an image of the world that contradicts direct sensory information. That is, what is being seen or heard. Until now, it was debated whether this ability emerged with modern human language, but Kanzi’s results suggest that this “spark” of imagination was already present in the common ancestor we share with bonobos and chimpanzees. between 6 and 9 million years ago. This is something that also changes our understanding of childhood play, since when a two-year-old takes a banana and pretends it is a telephone, he is exercising a cognitive muscle that evolution has been refining long before telephones or cultivated bananas existed. Exception or rule. It must be taken into account that these experiments have not been done with just any bonobo, but rather an “enculturated” ape since it has spent its life surrounded by humans and trained in the use of lexigramsmaking it have extraordinary capabilities. This gives rise to some critics, such as comparative psychologist Daniel Povinelli, who usually argue that these results could be the result of intensive training that “humanizes” the ape’s mind, rather than a natural capacity in the wild. Although it is something that the investigation tries to counteract with rigorous controls to ensure that Kanzi was not responding to human clues. Images | Will Rust In Xataka | Humans are evolving live on the Tibetan plateau. And understanding what happens there will be essential in space

Tesla popularized “invisible” car door handles. China has just handed down its death sentence

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In China they have been wanting for a long time ban retractable handles of the vehicles, a design commonly popularized by Tesla. It is no wonder, since over the last few years we have witnessed serious fatal and safety incidents involving this type of handles. The regulations will force many of the best-selling models on the market to be redesigned. what has happened. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has approved a new safety regulation that will come into force on January 1, 2027. The regulation prohibits door handles recessed in the body and requires that all vehicles have visible handles and a mechanical opening system on each door, according to they count from Financial Times. Why is it important. The hidden handle design has become popular in recent years in electric cars. In China they had been following Tesla’s example for a long time, looking for a more minimalist aesthetic and small aerodynamic improvements. Virtually all of the major electric car manufacturers in China have models with retractable handles. However, these designs have proven to be dangerous in emergency situations. The trigger. A fatal accident in 2024 with Aito’s M7 SUV was one of the main triggers. Three people, including a two-year-old child, died after a crash. Videos shared on social media showed rescue teams breaking windows to try to save victims. As Aito explained in a statement, “the power and signal cables were immediately cut, preventing the handle controller from receiving the ejection signal.” The concern continued after two accidents with the Xiaomi SU7whose videos showed people struggling to open the vehicle doors to rescue those inside, without luck. What the regulations require. Just like they explain from CarNewsChina, the ‘GB 48001-2026’ standard states that each door must have a mechanical exterior handle located in specific areas of the door surface, with sufficient space for manual operation in emergencies such as deployment of restraint systems or battery problems. Electric handles must include independent mechanical mechanisms capable of withstanding forces of at least 500 N. On the other hand, inside, each side door must have at least one mechanical opening handle with graphic symbols of at least 100 mm × 70 mm and clearly visible instructions or pictographic symbols. Impact on the industry. The regulations will affect numerous models from manufacturers such as Xiaomi, BYD and others that have adopted designs similar to Tesla. Bill Russo, founder of Automobility, counted to FT that the standard will require changes to some models but not a complete redesign. “Many manufacturers already design alternative handle solutions for export markets with different regulations,” he explains. “With the new regulation, we will be ready to change any handle as the government wants,” Stella Li, executive vice president of BYD, told Bloomberg TV. Outside China. Perhaps the most notorious case is in the United States, where the issue of hidden handles is also being investigated. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened investigations on Tesla Model Y and Model 3 over concerns about the accessibility of their vehicles in emergencies. A particularly serious accident in California that caused the death of three teenagers in a Cybertruckwhere neither the occupants nor anyone close to the incident could open the doors through the hidden handles and reinforced glass, prompted Congress to take action and Tesla to announce a redesign of its handles. Cover image | Eyosias G In Xataka | Putting solar panels on an electric car sounds like a total win-win: the reality of extra autonomy is a bucket of cold water

The most famous bridge in the US recorded more than 2,000 suicides. Until in 2024 they found an “invisible” solution

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When the golden gate Opened almost a century ago, it was celebrated as an architectural triumph of engineering and modernity. It happens that the history of many of the great works has had a second reading. Sometimes they have failed due to technical problemsand others have ended up marked by uses that no one foresaw. Over time, a bridge can become something very different from what its plans imagined. The bridge and its dark history. The Golden Gate Bridge, inaugurated in 1937 between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific, has been for decades one of the places most associated to suicide in the United Stateswith a rate of more than 2,000 jumps confirmed and a real figure surely higher because not all cases are seen nor all bodies are recovered. In 2006 there was one of the worst years, with at least 34 deathsand that was also the turning point in which relatives of victims, as Paul Mullerdecided that it was unacceptable to continue living with that routine of tragedies without a physical and effective response on the bridge itself. The barrier that changed destiny. The solution ended up being a deterrent system “invisible” installed along both sides of the bridge, one based on stainless steel cables of marine grade placed about six meters below the pedestrian walkways. It is not something that can be seen from afar or from normal traffic, but it is evident to those who look over the edge. The idea is simple and tremendous at the same time: if someone tries to jump, they fall on that structure, are injured or shocked, and the possibility of completing the fatal fall into the water is cut off. The barrier created to prevent suicides The effectiveness of the new impact. For many years the Golden Gate recorded an average of about 30 deaths annuallya figure that seemed entrenched and almost impossible to break. However, in 2024, with the facility entering its final phase and with adjustments still underway, the deaths they went down to eight. Last year, in 2025 and with the system already operating for twelve months, there were only four and there were no falls between June and December, a stretch that could be one of the longest without suicides on the bridge, although old records are not always complete. By the way, from the beginning of 2026 there is already a casewhich reminds us that there is no such thing as zero risk. That said, the general decline is so evident that even its promoters see it as clear proof of effectiveness and a mirror for the rest of the hanging architectures. Surveillance and intervention. The barrier does not act alone, because the bridge maintains an electronic surveillance system and a team of agents whose task is to detect and stop attempts before they occur. In the last year, 94 successful interventions were achieved, about half of what was normal before full installation, suggesting that the problem does not disappear suddenly. In fact, there are still people who come with the idea of ​​jumping, but now the margin of action is greater and death is no longer as immediate or as certain as it was for decades. Installation of anti-suicide barriers, February 2020 Against inertia and cost. The truth is that the installation of the barrier came after a very long road full of political blocks, doubts about aesthetics, discussions about price and debates about if it would really work. Already in 1939 it was recommended to raise the railings, but for decades measures were avoided while the death count rose from 500 to 1,000 and it continued to grow with chilling regularity. The organized pressure from family and professionals ended up crystallizing at the Bridge Rail Foundationand after years of paperwork the work started in 2018. The project also became very expensive, going from an estimate of 76 million dollars to a final cost of 224 million dollarsand even took longer to install than the bridge itself to build. The “invisible” barrier Why it saves lives. One of the central ideas is that reducing easy access to a lethal method works, even if it sounds too simple. A 1978 study by Richard Seiden, at the University of California at Berkeley, followed 515 people who had gone to the Golden Gate with the intention of jumping and were deterred, and concluded that 94% were still alive or had died of natural causes. This reinforces the idea that many suicidal crises are acute and not permanent, and that placing a specific obstacle at the exact moment can make the difference between dying and surviving. Bridges and the same problem. There is no doubt, the Golden Gate incident was not an isolated case, and there are other iconic bridges that have ended up with a similar reputation by becoming recurring scenes of suicides. In the United States, the royal gorge bridge next to Hoover Dam, or the Chesapeake Bay Bridgethey have had known histories and episodes that have fueled debates about surveillance and barriers. In Canada, the Bloor Viaduct in Toronto was for years one of the most problematic points until it was installed a great prevention structureand something similar happened in the United Kingdom with the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, where the combination of height, accessibility and symbolism forced action and reinforce early intervention. Also in Australia, the Sydney Harbor Bridge has been targeted of concern and initiatives preventive, and in Europe there are numerous cases on urban bridges and high-rise viaducts that share the same pattern: very busy and at the same time very exposed. The same idea is repeated in all of them, when a bridge becomes a known point, it is not just a problem of physical security, it is a social phenomenon that feeds on itself, and the more famous it is, the more important it becomes to cut that inertia before it becomes part of your identity. The legacy. The Golden Gate had been in operation for decades … Read more

the secret was an invisible ice “blanket”

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For decades, planetary geologists have faced a paradox that didn’t quite add up. On the one hand, the missions like Curiosity in Gale Crater show irrefutable evidence that there were lakes of liquid water for thousands or millions of years. On the other hand, climate models insist that ancient Mars It was a cold place.with temperatures well below freezing point. A new paradigm. The question in this case is quite clear: how can there be stable liquid water on a planet where the thermometer barely rises above zero degrees? A new study led by Rice University and published in AGU Advances seems to have found the missing piece in the puzzle: seasonal ice shields. The LakeM2ARS model. To solve the mystery, the team of researchers developed a specific model called LakeM2ARS. This model included everything we know about terrestrials, but adapted to the extreme conditions that existed on Mars 3.6 billion years ago. That is, a climate with less sunlight due to a younger Sun, an atmosphere with much more carbon dioxide and much more aggressive freezing and thawing cycles than those on Earth. Using these models, the researchers began to apply different climatic situations, covering a period of 30 Martian years, which is equivalent to 56 Earth years. The results in this case pointed to something quite fascinating: the water in the lakes only froze on their surface, creating a shield of ice. A natural “blanket”. The research introduces the concept of “ice shield” or “natural blanket.” Instead of being a solid block of ice, the Gale Crater lakes they would have been protected by a seasonal ice sheet thin enough to allow dynamic processes beneath it. In this way, this “blanket” acted as a thermal insulator, since ice has a low thermal conductivity. The good thing about this is that once a layer forms on the surface, the liquid water underneath is “trapped” and protected from the frigid air, maintaining a stable temperature even if the thermometer plummets outside. Another advantage. Beyond this we can see that the low Martian pressure causes liquid water to tend to sublimate quickly. The ice thus acted as a physical plug, conserving the water inventory for decades or even centuries. But it is not that the water underneath was completely cold, but rather that since it was a thin layer, sunlight could pass through it (similar to what happens in the lakes of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica), generating a slight internal heating. The missing piece. One of the biggest criticisms of the cold Mars hypothesis was the absence of geomorphological traces. The big question we can undoubtedly ask ourselves is that if Mars was a freezer, where are the large moraine deposits and the scars left by the glaciers as they advance? The Rice University study gives an elegant answer: the ice was too thin. Since they were not massive glaciers, but rather thin and seasonal layers, they did not have the weight or dynamics necessary to erode the terrain drastically. This fits perfectly with Curiosity’s observations, which show fine-grained lake sediments, typical of calm waters, and not the chaos of rocks that a glacier would leave behind. Microscopic life. This discovery changes the rules of the game for astrobiology, which wants above all to search for evidence of life on the red planet. In this case, the theory is put forward that if Martian lakes were sealed by ice, they became extremely stable environments. Under the ice, life would have been protected from harmful UV radiation and extreme temperature fluctuations. This is why Mars did not need to be a tropical paradise to be habitable; It was enough for him to have a good “armor” of ice that would keep his liquid oases safe from the icy vacuum of space. Images | BoliviaIntelligent In Xataka | China has just resolved one of the biggest doubts about going to Mars with the birth of six space mice

There is an invisible chip in every USB-C cable that decides whether your phone charges fast or slow: almost no one knows it exists

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There is a small and notable chip in our USB-C cables. This is the so-called “e-Marker”, which is especially important. The reason is simple: when we connect a cable to a device, it is responsible for indicating to those devices whether the cable supports more or less transmission or charging speed, for example. USB-C chaos is a little less chaos. USB-C connectors completely dominate the market, especially after European regulations that require them to be used to charge mobile phones and other devices. Although they have become the Swiss army knife for connecting all types of devices and peripherals, it is not easy to know what we can do with a cable when we connect it to our mobile phone or laptop, for example. And that’s where the e-Marker chip (Electronically Marked ID chip) comes in, a fundamental yet invisible component of the connectivity of our devices. In Xataka We criticize the EU a lot with its obsession with regulating Big Tech. There are at least two examples that justify this obsession A chip to identify everything. The official specification of the USB-C standard clearly indicates the mission of this chip, which is responsible for showing what capabilities the cable in question has. The document that talks about this chip is the one dedicated to USB Power Delivery, the power delivery function through these cables. Specifically, the identification data includes: Manufacturer and model of the cable. Signaling protocol: that indicates the maximum transmission speedthat is, if it is a cable with USB 2.0 support, or USB 3.2 of one generation or another (Gen 1, Gen 2, etc.). Active construction (in long cables there may be chips that regenerate data signal to act as a kind of repeater) or passive construction (they do not alter the data signal). How much power does the VCONN pin (intended to power accessories) consume? Whether the cable can support 3A (standard) or 5A (required for powers from 100 W to 240 W). Latency (signal delay over the cable). RX/TX directionality (how the high-speed cable pairs are configured). SOP Controller Mode: Whether the cable controller can communicate independently with the charger or device Hardware/firmware version. One of the sections of the USB Power Delivery specification that talks about this chip. Source: USB.org An active safety mechanism. The e-Marker is not only official, but is a mandatory part of the USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) specification dictated by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). This chip acts as an active safety mechanism, and during the power negotiation phase, the chip tells the charger “I am a cable certified to support up to 100W” (for example). If the charger does not receive that digital confirmation, it will assume that the cable is basic and cheap, restricting the flow of power or data transmission. Does your phone charge slowly or is the transfer using pedals? In fact, if a USB-C cable does not have an e-Marker chip, most device drivers will automatically treat it as a USB 2.0 cable. That means that even if the cable is physically capable of more, the speed will be limited to 480 Mbps maximum, and charging will also be slower. With 3A you can reach 60 W at 20 V, so even so this section is not so affected and it also depends on the charging capacity of the charger. {“videoId”:”x8dmqaj”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”One USB-C TO RULE THEM ALL- the European Union approves a single charger for mobile phones”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”54″} The rails. High-speed cables (USB 3.2, USB4, Thunderbolt) have multiple pairs of copper wires designed to transmit data in parallel. The e-Marker tells the device “I have all the threads necessary to activate dual lane mode.” If this confirmation does not arrive, the transfer speed is again limited. The e-Marker on long cables. Another function of the e-Marker, as we said, is to identify the length of the cable. At high transmission speeds the signal degrades very quickly, and the e-Marker is responsible for notifying you, allowing the device (mobile phone, computer) to adjust the signal strength to compensate for potential data loss. Support for alternative video modes. Another option that this chip enables is to indicate what video connection standards the USB-C cable in question supports, and if, for example, it has the necessary bandwidth for 4K or 8K resolutions. There are “readers” of the information provided by the e-Marker chip, although they are not cheap: this one from ChargerLAB costs about 140 euros. Two key pins. The “brains” of a USB-C connector are located on two specific pins known as the configuration channel (CC). These pins (CC1 and CC2) allow, for example, the orientation or reversibility to be detected. Since the connector is reversible, the device needs to know which side you inserted the cable to activate the appropriate data pins (TX/RX). When connecting it, the side will be identified, and based on that the rest of the pins are switched for transmission. The other pin of the configuration channel becomes Vconn to power the e-Marker chip. In Xataka | Mobile phone manufacturers first stopped including the charger with every purchase. Your next threat is clear: the USB cable (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news There is an invisible chip in every USB-C cable that decides whether your phone charges fast or slow: almost no one knows it exists was originally published in Xataka by Javier Pastor .

an invisible weapon that blinded his soldiers without firing a single bullet

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The number of Venezuelan casualties after the United States incursion in Caracas and the subsequent capture of Nicolás Maduro varies with the passing of the days and the sources, but it seems clear that it amounts to at least double digits (we speak of up to 100). In any case, another piece of information has now been revealed that amplifies the mission. In reality, Washington’s key weapon did not fire a single bullet. The attack that was not heard. Yes, the American operation in Caracas was not defined by explosions or columns of smoke, but by the sudden silence of radars, radios and command centers, a demonstration of force in which more than 150 aircraft acted in a coordinated manner to enter, hit and leave with hardly any visible resistance. In fact and how explains the Wall Street Journalthe key was not to destroy the enemy, but to leave him blind and disoriented from the first minute, unable to understand what was happening or to react coherently while special forces captured Maduro in the heart of Venezuelan power. The invisible weapon. At the center of that blackout was the EA-18G Growler, an aircraft that does not attack people or physical positions, but rather the opponent’s nervous systemspecialized in locating, jamming and neutralizing radars and communications until turning an apparently solid defensive framework into a collection of mute sensors and useless screens. While stealth fighters and bombers performed deterrence and targeted attack functions, the Growler ensured that the Venezuelan defenses they will never get to see them clearly, demonstrating to what extent electronic warfare has ceased to be a complement and has become the precondition of any modern high-intensity operation. Blind before hitting. The logic applied in Caracas reflects a lesson learned and refined in Ukraine– It is not necessary to physically destroy all enemy systems if you can overwhelm, confuse or fool them until void your operating profit. The Growler can simulate multiple targets on the radar, flood the electromagnetic spectrum with noise, interfere with command links and, if necessary, guide anti-radiation missiles against active emitters, creating temporary windows of absolute superiority that allow helicopters and ground forces to operate with minimal risk even in theoretically defended environments. The Russian defenses that did not fire. They recalled in Insider that the most striking result was that none of the Russian-made air defenses in Venezuela’s possession managed to shoot down a single plane American during the operation, despite the fact that the country had on paper respectable systems such as S-300VM, Buk-M2, Pantsir-S1 and radars of Russian and Chinese origin. The image of airspace simply collapsing under a well-planned operation It has been devastating from a symbolic point of view, because it shows that having advanced systems does not guarantee their effectiveness if they are overcome by a combination of surprise, electronic warfare, stealth and multi-domain coordination. 9A83ME launcher of the S-300VM Antey-2500 missile system Not everything is the system. The Venezuelan failure cannot be explained solely by the technical limitations of the Russian systems, but also due to structural factors such as the state of maintenance, the real integration of the defense network, the quality of command and control and, above all, the training and experience of the operators. An anti-aircraft system is only as effective as the doctrine that supports it and the people who operate it, and in Caracas it became clear that, in the face of a well-trained Western force, even feared equipment can be defeated. reduced to passive spectators if they do not function as part of a coherent whole. Repeating pattern. What happened in Venezuela is not an isolated case, but rather fits with a pattern observed in other scenarios like syria or attacks Israelis against Iranwhere air defenses of Russian origin have shown irregular performance against forces that master electronic warfare and stealth. Although in Ukraine, operated directly by Russia, these defenses have worked betterhave also not achieved the invulnerability that their reputation promised, which reinforces the idea that their effectiveness decreases considerably when faced with adversaries capable of combining interference, cyberattacks, deception and precision attacks. Without triumphalism. There is no doubt, for the United States, about the Caracas operation strengthens confidence in its ability to penetrate airspace defended by Russian systems, but it also emphasizes that this success depends on exhaustive planning and intensive use of invisible capabilities that are not improvised. The lesson is not so much that Russian defenses are useless, but that in the face of an adversary that dominates the electromagnetic spectrumEven feared systems can be neutralized long enough for a decisive operation to take place. The war that is not seen. If you also want, the assault on Caracas leaves an uncomfortable and increasingly obvious conclusion: modern war is decided before the first shotin an intangible space made of signals, links and frequencies, where whoever controls the information controls the result. He Growler He did not fire a single bullet, but its effect It was more devastating than that of many bombs, remembering that in current conflicts lose seeing and hearing is almost always equivalent to losing the war before it begins. Image | COMSEVENTHFLTSenior Airman John Linzmeier, Vitaly V. Kuzmin In Xataka | The war in Ukraine has just met that of Venezuela: that means that its two invaders are facing each other In Xataka | While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

The United States has turned Trinidad and Tobago into the war container it was missing. Venezuela has responded like Russia: an invisible fleet

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The conflict between the United States and Venezuela has entered a phase in which the silent accumulation media outweighs official statements. If you will, the Caribbean once again functions as a strategic belt from which Washington projects pressure without the need to declare an open war. Under the formal argument of the fight against drug trafficking, the White House has been weaving a support network logistics, radars, airstrips, ports and resupply spaces in an arc at a time bigger of “allies”. The Venezuela’s response We already saw it in Russia. The map of countries. That “arc” of allies Washington runs from the Dominican Republic to Trinidad and Tobago, passing through Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, Grenada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The deployment includes destroyers, nuclear submarines, amphibious ships, aircraft carriers, state-of-the-art fighters, drones and thousands of troops, not enough for a land invasion, but enough to control air and maritime space, monitor critical routes and sustain missile attacks if it is decided to escalate. It is a prepositioning strategy classic: being everywhere without publicly assuming that something else is in the works. Trinidad and Tobago, the most sensitive link. Within that architecture, Trinidad and Tobago emerges as the most delicate piece of the board. Its extreme proximity to the Venezuelan coast turns any gesture into a political and military message. The new government has authorized the use of its airports by US military aircraft, has received warships and marine units, has allowed joint exercises and has accepted the installation of an AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR radar capable of detecting aircraft, drones and missiles. Everything is presented as logistical and defensive cooperationbut it fits almost literally with the US National Security Strategy of 2025, which calls for a toughened version of the Monroe Doctrine to reaffirm the preeminence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere and prevent external actors from controlling strategic assets. Trinidad and Tobago insist in that it will not be a platform for offensive attacks except direct aggression, but its role as node of surveillance, resupply and intelligence places it at the center of any scenario of sustained pressure on Caracas. A blockage that is not. The announced threat by Trump of a “total and complete” interdiction of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela fits into that model of gradual pressure. It is not about closing ports with a formal declaration of war, but about taking advantage of naval and air superiority, supported by friendly infrastructure, to intercept, seize or deter the ships that support the main source of income for the Nicolás Maduro regime. The recent seizure of an oil tanker loaded with nearly two million barrels and the warning that further action could follow shows the extent to which Washington is willing to take pressure beyond the symbolic, taking the risk of controlled incidents in international waters. The Venezuelan response. Faced with this siege, Caracas has reacted by raising the profile of its challenge. The order to escort ships that transport oil products and derivatives to Asia is a calculated move: it seeks to demonstrate that the Venezuelan State does not renounce its right to free navigation and that it is willing to involve to his Navy to keep exports open. It is also a response that increases the risk of confrontationbut that sends an internal and external message of resistance. Oil continues to be the financial pillar of the regime, and losing it would be equivalent to accepting total economic asphyxiation. The ghost fleets. Beyond the visible escort, the true backbone of the Venezuelan strategy is the ghost fleeta tactic practically copied from the used by Russia after Western sanctions. Old oil tankers, many with more than twenty or thirty years of service, change name and flagsteal the identities of already dismantled ships, sail under flags of convenience, turn off or manipulate their identification systems and carry out crude oil transfers on the high seas to hide the origin of the cargo. The result is an opaque trade that allows you to sell oil with large discounts to buyers willing to take risks, while the traceability required by sanctions is diluted. It is not a marginal phenomenon: a significant part of the world’s oil tanker fleet already operates in this gray ecosystem, transporting Venezuelan, Russian or Iranian crude. Sanctions that do not suffocate, they deform. The BBC reported that the data show that, although far from the historical levels of the end of the 20th century, Venezuelan exports have recovered notably compared to the collapse of 2019. This indicates that the sanctions have not paralyzed the flow, but rather have displaced it towards more opaque and risky circuits. As in the Russian caseeconomic punishment does not eliminate trade, it makes it more expensive, makes it less transparent and reinforces dependence on informal networks and actors willing to move illegally. The Caribbean as a conflict. With US aircraft carriers patrolling the Caribbean, radars deployed in islands near Venezuela and escorted or invisible tankers sailing to Asiathe conflict is located in a dangerous intermediate zone between economic pressure and military confrontation. The United States bets on the ccontrol of space and logistics regional via of discreet allieswhile Venezuela responds with the same manual that has allowed other sanctioned countries to survive: ghost fleets, aggressive discounts and specific shows of force. The Caribbean, for decades associated with tourism and trade, is thus once again a scene of high geopolitical tension where each radar installed and each oil tanker intercepted brings the risk of a clash that no one admits they want, but for which both sides seem to prepare, a little closer. Image: US Navy In Xataka | The situation between the US and Venezuela only needs one incident to escalate into something more: that incident is already here In Xataka | In full tension with the US, Venezuela has presented its drone simulator: it is equal to a three-euro Steam game

An “invisible” Russian submarine has set off alarms in the Arctic. Europe’s response: Atlantic Bastion

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The launching of the Khabarovskthe new and ultra-quiet Russian submarine capable of deploying nuclear torpedoes Poseidonhas reactivated a fear that had been latent for decades in cities like London: the possibility that the naval balance of the Atlantic is once again tilting in favor of Moscow. The response from the United Kingdom has been forceful, and it is called Atlantic Bastion. Submarine warfare. Although the public image of the Russian threat usually revolves around research vessels like Yantarsuspected of mapping and potentially manipulating underwater cables and pipes, European specialists know that what is truly disturbing lies much further down. Russia has spent decades reducing the acoustic signature of its submarines to levels that they border on invisibilitycombining new propulsion systems, composite coatings and virtually undetectable cooling pumps. In this environment, where silence is power, a ghost submarine with nuclear capacity alters not only the sea routes, but the very heart of the strategic infrastructures that connect Europe with the world. UK reinvents itself. Faced with the resurgent threat from Khabarovskthe Royal Navy has launched what they have called as Atlantic Bastiona plan designed to restore British strategic advantage in its own and allied waters. Its origin is not new and it we have counted before: the United Kingdom has been monitoring the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap (GIUK gap) since before the creation of NATO, and the Second World War already demonstrated that controlling that maritime corridor was essential to prevent enemy forces from slipping into the North Atlantic. But what used to be destroyers and acoustic sweeps is becoming a hybrid framework that combines Type 26 frigates equipped with new generation sonar, aircraft P-8 Poseidon capable of patrolling thousands of kilometers and, above all, swarms of underwater drones equipped with artificial intelligence. According to the Ministry of Defensethis architecture aims to detect, classify and follow any enemy submarine that tries to penetrate British or Irish waters, and to do so constantly, autonomously and with an unprecedented range. The algorithms arrive. The core of the project will be Atlantic Neta distributed network of autonomous underwater gliders equipped with acoustic sensors and guided by artificial intelligence systems capable of recognize sound signatures with a level of precision that until a few years ago was little less than the preserve of science fiction. Unlike the SOSUS of the Cold War, based on gigantic fixed hydrophones placed on the seabed, the new generation will be mobile, expandable and adaptable to the routes and behaviors of increasingly soundproof submarines. The ultimate ambition is to deploy hundreds of cheap, persistent units that together create aa surveillance mesh much harder to evade. The metaphor is revealing: if finding a silent submarine is like searching for a needle in an oceanic haystack, modern technology makes it possible to exponentially multiply the number of searching hands. Khabarovk The technological challenge of hunting shadows. However, even with this technological revolution, experts warn that detecting new Russian submarines will continue to be an extremely complex undertaking. Since the 1980s, Moscow has drastically reduced lacoustic emissions of its fleet, which requires combining passive and active sensors and complex configurations such as bistatic sonar, where one vessel emits a pulse and another collects the echo. These techniques require coordination, multiple platforms, and significant sensor density, something that Atlantic Bastionaims to provide but it is still far from being deployed on a full scale. The arrival of the Type 26 frigates, designed to be the flagship of British anti-submarine warfare, is fundamental to this purpose, as is the cooperation with Norway and other allies that are also strengthening their capabilities in the North Atlantic. The Russian Bastion Puzzle. Even if Atlantic Bastion managed to limit the presence of Russian attack submarines in the Atlantic, there is one dimension that no Western system can solve: Russian strategic submarines already they don’t need to abandon its own bastion in the Arctic to threaten Europe or the United States. Its intercontinental ballistic missiles can hit targets thousands of kilometers without moving from the Barents Sea or the White Sea, protected by layers of defenses and favorable geographical conditions. There they play a hiding place lethal where the West cannot penetrate without significantly escalating the conflict. The paradox is clear: the United Kingdom can reinforce its waters and monitor every meter of the GIUK gapbut it cannot deny the Russian nuclear capacity deployed in its natural refuge, a reality that frames the entire British effort within a logic of containment rather than domination. An underwater chess. If you want, Atlantic Bastion ultimately represents the recognition that underwater competition has returned with a vengeance, now fueled for digital capabilitiesdistributed sensors and autonomous platforms that transform the nature of ocean surveillance. The North Atlantic once again becomes a stage silent maneuvers where Russia and the United Kingdom measure their technological resistance in an environment reminiscent of the Cold War, but with algorithms and autonomy as new weapons. A career that is not decided by great battles, but by the ability to listen better, process faster and anticipate invisible movements. In this theater of shadows, the advantage is not whoever shoots the most, but rather whoever is able to detect first (already happens in Ukraine). Thus, Atlantic Bastion aspires to return that capacity to the British, although the contest that is opening now does not look like it will be brief nor simple: In the depths of the Atlantic, the prelude to the next era of strategic rivalry between Russia and the West is underway. Image | SEVMASH/VKONTAKTE In Xataka | A Russian submarine has appeared off the coast of France. And Europe’s reaction has been surprising: have a laugh In Xataka | Russia’s most advanced nuclear submarine was a secret. Until Ukraine has revealed everything, including its failures

The chaos that AI has generated in personnel hiring has revealed a type of hidden talent: “invisible developers”

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For years it has been repeated that to have a good work in technology It was necessary to cultivate a good public personal brand and maintain an updated and complete professional profile. However, more and more voices within the technology sector are dismantling that idea, ensuring that many of the most valued developers They don’t do any of that. They are not going to apply to dozens of job offers or optimize their visibility. “Invisible developers” are simply brilliant at their job. This invisibility is something that was put on the table Gergely Oroszengineer, analyst and author of ‘The Software Engineer’s Guidebook’ in a recent message in his X profile, in which he pointed out that this profile of “invisible developers” flies under the radar “the only way to find them is through references and specific searches”, assured the expert Candidates with AI have broken everything. The increase in responses generated by AI to job offers has completely broken the hiring system. They explained it perfectly from the Manfred technological employment platform, where a few years ago they received between 20 and 50 applications a day for each job offer, and now they receive more than 500. Various recruiters they explained on Reddit that this saturation of applications lowers the average quality of the applications and makes it difficult to detect real talent through this route. The situation is so extreme that, as Orosz indicated in an analysis from the tech job market posted on his blog, “many companies hire most engineers through contacts and referrals.” Internal recommendations matter more than ever. In this saturated scenario in which true talent goes unnoticed, word of mouth has become the most reliable hiring filter. It is estimated that around 80% of existing job offers are not made public and are filled internally or through references and recommendations from the employees themselves. In fact, many companies use referral incentives among their employees so that, when a vacancy opens, they recommend their former colleagues and acquaintances as candidates. As Orosz details in his analysis, recruiters increasingly look for candidates more among the pages of their agenda than among the applications that come to them. The myth of the hypervisible developer. Public attention usually focuses on profiles with a lot of activity on networks or with highly visible projects. However, different examples and testimonies reveal the rising trend of “invisible developers”: brilliant workers at their job with little or no activity on their public profiles. A clear example is found in the message published by Max Spero, co-founder of the AI ​​company Pangram, in which he compares the GitHub contribution profile of an unemployed 22-year-old developer, full of activity and contributions, and that of a prominent Google engineer, with a practically empty history. In response to that post, Konstantin K, a software developer from San Francisco, confirmed Spero’s message. “The top 1% of engineers I’ve worked with over the past 10 years didn’t have GitHub, LinkedIn or LeetCode, they don’t speak at conferences or publish podcasts. But they built systems that no one else can,” he wrote. Trust networks between colleagues. Other testimonialsamong which Orosz is also foundreinforce this idea of ​​”invisible developers” and agree that the most effective way to open job doors in the future is to be valuable to colleagues in the present. “From the outside you cannot know how good an engineer this person is until you ask former colleagues. There are many cases like this,” wrote Orosz in X. Even academic research suggest that internal networks—those formed by real collaborations, not superficial digital connections—have a direct impact on career opportunities. In other words, the professional prestige that these “invisible” employees generate within the teams in which they participate weighs more than any public presence and their colleagues become their guarantors to obtain a job in the future. Real contact in a digital setting. It is still paradoxical that, faced with the saturation of digital channels and the implementation of AI-based systems, the technology sector is returning to a classic model: relying on real recommendations to reduce uncertainty. Research reveals that recruiters prefer to spend time on references validated by employees or former colleagues, rather than analyzing hundreds of clone resumes generated with AI. In Xataka | Job interviews have always been a game of cunning: AI is just taking things to another level Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

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