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Japan has crossed a red line in the Pacific with the US. China just responded with warships closer than ever

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When in 2013 two Russian strategic bombers They flew over without warning airspace near Japan, forced Tokyo to deploy interception fighters in a matter of minutes in one of the most tense responses in its recent history. The episode, almost forgotten outside military circles, made clear the extent to which there are movements in the Pacific that, even if they last just hours, can change the way countries look at each other for years. A crossing of lines. Japan has taken a step that for decades it carefully avoided: integrating for the first time with combat troops in maneuvers led by the United States in the Indo-Pacific, de facto breaking a political and strategic barrier inherited from the postwar. This movement is not symbolic, because involves deploying soldiers, ships, aircraft and missiles in a real conflict simulation scenario, which brings Tokyo closer to a much more active role within the US military apparatus. The decision, furthermore, occurs in a context of growing concern about Taiwan and for him balance of power in the region, which makes this gesture more than just cooperation: it is a clear sign of strategic alignment. China’s response: closer than ever. Beijing’s reaction has been immediate and measured in kilometers: the deployment of warships on routes much closer to Japanese territory than usual, including transit through waters that it rarely used to access the Pacific. Although China insists that these are routine exercises, the pattern reveals a willingness to press and demonstrate operational capacity in sensitive areas, bringing its military presence closer to points that it previously avoided. Not only that. This movement fits in a trend wider than greater naval aggressiveness around Japan, where each maneuver not only tests capabilities, but also political limits. Everything revolves around an island. The background of this escalation is the Taiwan issuewhich acts as the axis of tension between China and Japan since Tokyo left open the possibility of intervening if a conflict breaks out on the island. Beijing has interpreted these statements as a red lineand has since responded with diplomatic protests, economic pressure and military demonstrations. Every Japanese step in or around the strait is seen as a provocation, and every Chinese move seeks to recalibrate that balance without openly crossing the threshold of direct confrontation. Balikatan: from exercise to message. It is another of the crystal clear readings. The Balikatan maneuvers have ceased to be a simple bilateral exercise to become a multinational display of forceone with more than 17,000 troops and the participation of countries such as Australia, France or Canada. The active incorporation of Japan changes its nature, because it introduces a key actor in the so-called “first island chain”, a geographical and military barrier. designed to contain Chinese expansion in the Pacific. The deployment of anti-ship missiles and live-fire exercises, including the destruction of naval targets, reinforces the idea that rehearsing a scenario of high intensity maritime conflict. The battle for the islands. Also we have talked on several occasions in this chain of territories (which goes from Japan to the Philippines passing through Taiwan) that has become the axis of the US strategy to limit Chinese naval projection. Japan, by integrating more deeply into this system, contributes to the creation of a species of distributed “fortress” that seeks to hinder any Chinese advance towards the open Pacific. For Beijing, however, breaking or surrounding that barrier is a strategic prioritywhich explains the increase in its activity beyond that line and its insistence on operating in waters increasingly distant from its coast. An increasingly fragile balance. The result of all this is a scenario where each movement has a double reading: what some present as routine trainingothers interpret it as a climbing sign. Japan has taken a step that redefines its role in regional security, and China has responded by bringing its naval power closer to a distance it previously avoided, creating an action-reaction dynamic that increases the risk of incidents. Thus, in a global context marked by many other conflicts that could divert American attention, the Indo-Pacific is positioned as the great board where the balance of power of the 21st century is played. Image | CCTV In Xataka | Japan has dozens of “forgotten” islands off the coast of China: it is now preparing for the worst scenario In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has concentrated thousands of fishing boats off Japan, and its idea is not to fish

Iran has just crossed the great energy red line. Türkiye is the first victim of a blackout that is already looking at Europe

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We had been holding our breath for weeks, accepting the logistical tension in the Strait of Hormuz as the new normal. However, the war has crossed an irreversible red line. We have gone from a trade blockade to the physical destruction of the world’s energy engine, and the consequences are already being felt in the global economy. The impact was so immediate that the price of natural gas in Europe skyrocketed by 35%. Global interdependence has caused the first major domino to fall to be thousands of kilometers from the epicenter: Turkey has become the first country to suffer a gas supply cut, marking the beginning of a chain reaction. The blow to the energetic heart. It is not just any objective. As explained Deutsche Welle, South Pars is the largest natural gas reserve in the world – shared with Qatar, which calls its part North Dome – and contains enough gas to supply the world’s needs for 13 years. It is the basis of Iran’s energy survival. The response from Tehran was withering and expansive. As detailed in the Wall Street JournalIran did not limit itself to responding to Israel, but attacked vital infrastructure in neighboring countries, launching missiles against the gigantic Ras Laffan industrial complex in Qatar (the largest liquefied natural gas facility in the world) and refineries in Saudi Arabia. In the midst of this war chaos, Iran turned off the tap: Tehran suddenly paralyzed its natural gas exports to Türkiye. Türkiye in the eye of the hurricane. The cutoff to Türkiye is not an anecdote, it is the symptom of a systemic crisis. According to the data provided by BloombergLast year, Ankara imported around 13% or 14% of its total gas needs (about 7 billion cubic meters) from Iran. To the gallery, the Turkish government tries to project calm. How to collect ReutersTurkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has categorically assured that “there are no supply problems” and that the country’s storage facilities are at 71% of their capacity. Furthermore, the minister insists that oil dependence of the Middle East is a “manageable 10%” and they are already accelerating diversification agreements with giants such as TotalEnergies, Exxon and Shell. The markets are not optimistic. The experts consulted by Middle East eye They point out that Turkey has alternatives – such as increasing the flow from Russia or Azerbaijan – but the closing of the Iranian tap will force Ankara to compete fiercely in the international market for emergency shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Panic reaches Europe. And this is where the domino effect hits us directly. As Türkiye goes on a desperate hunt for LNG ships, the pressure on prices becomes unsustainable for the Old Continent. The day after the start of the conflict, the price of gas rose 55%. However, in the midst of this European chaos, one country is resisting the challenge much better than its neighbors: Spain. Thanks to a massive deployment of solar and wind energy, our country manages to cushion the initial blow by sinking prices during daylight hours. But the transition is painfully incomplete and we are not invulnerable. As analyst Antonio Aceituno, from Tempos Energía, warns, the Spanish balance is broken when evening falls. When the sun disappears, gas combined cycles begin to cover demand, returning tension to prices. It is empirical proof that, without massive batteries to guard the sun, at eight in the afternoon we are still at the mercy of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. As the expert Gerard Reid reflects in Euronewsit is preferable to depend on China to import a solar panel once every 25 years, than to depend on gas from the Persian Gulf every day. Broken diplomacy. Arab governments are “furious” because they feel the US-Israeli strategy has put a target on their backs. For its part, Qatar has called the attacks on its facilities a “dangerous and irresponsible step” and a direct threat to its national security. In the midst of this powder keg, Washington’s role is erratic. President Donald Trump took to social media to deny prior knowledge of the Israeli attack on South Pars. However, Trump did not hesitate to issue a brutal ultimatum to Tehran: if it attacks Qatar again, the United States will “massively blow up the entire” Iranian oilfield. The scars of a systemic war. As my colleague Miguel Jorge analyzes well,the dynamic that has been activated is dangerously reminiscent of the 1991 Gulf War. It is no longer about destroying military capabilities or political pressure; We are facing a war against the very infrastructure that supports the states. The apparent lightness with which this conflict has developed has dragged us into a dead end. Iran has shown that it does not need to win a conventional military war; It is enough for him to set the energetic heart of the planet on fire. Even if a ceasefire were signed tomorrow, the material reality is inescapable. Charred refineries and dry pipelines to Türkiye are not rebuilt with signatures on a piece of paper. The scar on the world’s infrastructure will take years to heal, and the crisis that we had been avoiding for months has already detonated irreversibly. Image | Hamed Malekpour Xataka | The red lines are ceasing to exist: the fear of the US and Qatar in the face of Iran’s attacks on basic infrastructure

the Transport plan so that the most used Cercanías line in Spain stops being chaos

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The Ministry of Transport has finally decided to transform line C-5 of Cercanías de Madrid, which is, with some 72 million annual travelersthe most used in Spain. Won’t do it until they finish the underground works of the A-5but we already know all the details. It is the largest renovation of the line in decades and the heart of the change are 35 giant trains that are already being manufactured in Valencia. ORa line to the limit. As we said, the C-5 moves about 72 million passengers a year and absorbs 29% of all Cercanías Madrid trips. It is the public transport line with the most users in the entire country, and today it operates with trains that do not exceed 150 meters in length, platforms that do not allow larger vehicles and an outdated signaling system. With a demand that has grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024the margin has narrowed so much that it is time for a change. The protagonist of change: the Stadler Series 453. On March 4, the Ministry of Transportation presented the modernization plan of the C-5, endowed with 1,350 million euros, and confirmed that Renfe will allocate 600 million to the purchase of the 35 Series 453 trains manufactured by Stadler at its plant in Albuixech, Valencia. The service promises, since we are talking about trains that will measure almost 200 meters (specifically 191.16 meters) and will combine single-decker cars at the ends with double-decker cars inside. QWhat changes for the traveler. Where today about 1,565 people fit in the current trains, the new ones will accommodate up to 1,884 people (524 seated and 1,360 standing) in a single composition. Double-decker cars are designed for longer journeys and with a seat; those with one floor, wider at the entrances, for quick ascents and descents. Two-story interior cars According to they count in Trenvista, they will include areas for wheelchairs, multifunctional spaces for bicycles and strollers, a fully accessible toilet, WiFi and USB sockets. In addition, the middle points to greater padding than in other Cercanías trains, but without armrests. Why haven’t they arrived yet. Renfe put out to tender these trains in 2019 and the contract was awarded to Stadler in 2021. The Swiss firm had to expand its Albuixech factory to meet the order, which in 2022 was expanded with 20 additional 200-meter units, and began manufacturing in rented warehouses while the new facilities were ready, according to detailed at that time the medium. The first tests on the Spanish railway network began in the summer of 2024. The arrival at C-5, however, will still take some time. And the Ministry’s plan places the entry into service of these trains with automatic driving in April 2030. The problem that had to be solved before. For a 200-meter train to circulate on C-5, the infrastructure has to be prepared. Today it is not. The current platforms are too short, the LZB signaling system that regulates circulation has reached the end of its useful life, and there are no maintenance facilities capable of accommodating trains of that length. The good news is that in the 1,350 million plan is included the extension of platforms between 40 and 50 meters, the construction of a new maintenance base in Móstoles, the replacement of the signaling system with the European ERTMS Level 2 standard and the construction of a new station in Móstoles-El Soto. What’s coming now. The schedule foresees two service cutsin the summers of 2027 and 2028, to get to work with the most complex parts, and with free replacement buses and reinforcement in the Metro. Testing of the new signaling system will begin in April 2029, the first high-capacity trains will enter service in April 2030, and the project is expected to be completed in October 2031. The objective declared by the Ministry is to go from 72 to 100 million travelers annually, with a capacity 60% greater than the current one. It remains to be seen if the deadlines are met. Images | Snooze123 (Wikipedia) and Stadler In Xataka | In a region addicted to burials, a municipality wants to bury another 2.5 kilometers: Rivas’ plan for the Metro

AI is bringing back into fashion something that we thought was only for geeks: the command line

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At first it was the command line. It was 1982, maybe 1983, and I first saw a ZX Spectrum 48K. That fascinated me not only because of the noises and beeps and colors and crappy and wonderful games, but because you wrote something on the screen in text mode and suddenly things happened. I would end up having a C64, which of course was far better 😉 but that’s another story. Then, a couple of years later, a personal visit to the IT department of El Corte Inglés, which was one of the few places where one could no longer see computers, but touch them. That was like the Apple stores of today, and preteens and not so preteens came there not to see machines, but to feel them. Hello, old friend. There were PCs there, of course. Boring and gray and yet also wonderful. And the first thing they did when they turned on was ask the date and time to adjust their internal clocks, and I was amazed and thought in my innocence, “Oh my God, how clever is he that he asks the date and time to be super updated.” And immediately afterwards, of course, the MS-DOS logo appeared and that terrible and magical prompt at the same time (or a similar one, because I doubt they had a hard drive): C:\ I was little, but human-computer interaction had long been dominated by that technology: the command line. You wrote, the machine responded. The UNIX systems did it before, the “operating systems” of the Spectrum or the C64 later, and of course it was also done by that MS-DOS that seemed amazing because once again I, in my innocence, did not even know that there was already a brilliant crazy visionary out there who was selling some simply amazing little machines with a 7-inch screen that They greeted you with “Hello, I’m Macintosh”. Everything changed (quite) quickly and suddenly the command line became somewhat awkward, clunky, obsolete. Everything had to be visual. Windows and graphic elements evolved so that we wrote less and clicked (not to mention scrolled) much more. And in the last 30 years we have not stopped doing that and defending that the graphical interface was perfect for humans and for most scenarios in which we have to talk to our machines. And it was. And it is. But AI has changed that. Hello again, CLI The explosion of generative AI has turned this situation 180 degrees. It is true that in recent years we have used AI through (mostly) a browser or a mobile app that was actually an embedded browser, but over time we have seen that if we wanted AI to do things for us, there was a problem. Than to AI has a hard time seeing and working with a graphical user interface. But at the same time there were those who realized that what AI did like angels was work with a command line interpreter or CLI. It suddenly made sense to use the terminal again or our computer consolebecause the AI ​​felt at home with it. I didn’t have to recognize and interpret the screen: I just had to read it, and that was wonderful. That is why we have seen how Claude Code (or Codex, or Gemini CLI, or similar tools) has become an absolute marvel. One that suddenly returned us to the command line and a terminal in which we felt like we were in the ZX Spectrum that I saw when I was 9 or 10 years old. You wrote and the machine responded, and here it was the same, but of course, wildly. What seemed like something relegated to the realm of programming is slowly making sense for many other scenarios. You can actually use Claude Code or Codex like you use ChatGPT, for chatting, but it seemed like they could only be used for programming. And not. We are seeing how more and more solutions designed to take advantage of the power of generative AI are programmed with a text interface, for the command line. Those tools They are designed to be used much more by an AI than by a human. They also come in there the MCPs that connect AI models with tools and services like Slack, GitHub or AWS, and if those services have their own versions of themselves in text mode, the AI ​​will be able to use them much better and much more efficiently. We have the last example in Google Workspace CLIa platform that allows Drive, Gmail, or Calendar to be used from the command line. It is not designed for humans—although we can use it—but rather for AI models to take advantage of it. It’s a gift from Google to the machines, and one that is not at all generous: what the company wants here is to convince the machines to use its services. The humans have already won. btop, a system monitoring tool that makes use of a text-mode interface that is still wonderful. Source: Wikipedia. It’s just an example, because little by little we see how the command line is experiencing a second youth. We no longer only talk about the GUI (Graphical User Interface), but from the TUI (Text-based User Interface). It is something that has always had its place, especially in the Linux operating system, where tools like btop or Neofetch showed that text can be (very) pretty, but now. These are just two examples, because there are dozens of them. Hundreds. Probably thousands. Not necessarily beautiful, but efficient and functional, like mutt (mail client) or Midnight Commanderlegendary file explorer in text mode. For AI, these types of apps are wonderful, because I insist, it does not have to make an effort to understand what is happening: it reads text at full speed and understands and acts. And that is vital for those AI agents who are beginning to conquer everything and everyone. OpenClaw, for example, is showing us that potential … Read more

more than 600 km/h on a line that has accumulated years of delays

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In 2015, a seven-car prototype in Japan made us dream with the tremendous speeds that the trains of the future would have, with the Japanese country as the main standard bearer. The L0 Series train reached 603 km/h on the Yamanashi test line, becoming the fastest manned railway vehicle ever recorded at the time. More than a decade later, that record still standsalthough the promise of its commercial use has yet to materialize. And the line that is supposed to bring it to travelers accumulates years of delays. magnetic levitation. The L0 Series works via superconducting magnetic levitation, using powerful magnets along the track and in the train that interact to lift the vehicle on the track, completely eliminating physical contact with the tracks. Without friction, without mechanical noise, without wear, and with heart-stopping speeds. The system is known as SCMaglev and uses an electrodynamic suspension, different from that used in the Shanghai maglev. Japan National Railways began researching this type of propulsion in 1962 with a clear objective: to connect Tokyo and Osaka in one hour. They have had that dream for more than six decades. Chūō Shinkansen. This is the maglev line under construction between Tokyo and Nagoya, with plans to extend it to Osaka. The idea is that it will be established between Shinagawa and Nagoya stations, with stops in Sagamihara, Kōfu, Iida and Nakatsugawa. The line is not intended to replace the legendary Tokaido Shinkansen, but it will exist to offer travelers a much faster alternative. The line would connect Tokyo and Nagoya in 40 minutes and, later, Tokyo and Osaka in 67 minutes, at a maximum speed of 505 km/h. Today the fastest Nozomi (Japan’s fastest high-speed train service) takes around two and a half hours between the two cities. With Chūō Shinkansen, the idea is that approximately 90% of the 286-kilometer route to Nagoya passes through tunnels, instead of following the coast, as the Tokaido does. This decision is also the root of much of their problems. ORa prefecture and a river. The main obstacle was that the then governor of Shizuoka, Kawakatsu Heita, denied permission to drill one of the tunnels under the Japanese Southern Alps for environmental reasons. The argument was that the impact studies had been carried out with little rigor and that the excavations could affect the bed of the Oi River. The section in question affected just 8.9 kilometers of tunnel within Shizuoka, but it was enough to block the entire project for years. Without that section, the rest of the work could not be completed. However, the current governor of the region, Yasutomo Suzuki, authorized the geotechnical inspection prior, but the works are still in progress. A calendar full of delays. In 2024, JR Central president Shunsuke Niwa publicly ruled out opening in 2027 and targeted 2034 as the new minimum date. But the story doesn’t end there. Last October, JR Central postponed the arrival to 2035. Construction costs have already skyrocketed by more than 50% to 11 trillion yen (about 61 billion euros), according to RailTech. The section to Osaka, for its part, It would not arrive until 2037 at best. The threat from China. In July of last year, during the World High Speed ​​Congress held in Beijing, the state-owned CRRC presented a maglev prototype Designed to reach 600 km/h. The train runs on rubber wheels at low speed and switches to magnetic levitation when exceeding 150 km/h. The Asia Times shares that it will still take a long time to put it into commercial use, and that market demand, rather than technology, is the main obstacle. But there is more: the T-Flight project from the state company CASIC, which combines magnetic levitation with hyperloop-style vacuum tubes, has already reached 623 km/h in tests in 2024, with the goal of exceeding 1,000 km/h soon. China has also, for years, the only commercial maglev in the world that operates regularly: the Shanghai Maglev, which circulates at 430 km/h. Cover image | Maglev.net In Xataka | The Mayan Train has become a nightmare for Mexico: what seemed like a great plan has run into justice

China has just crossed a red line in Taiwan. They are no longer drones, they are their fighters shooting “attached” to the Taiwanese F-16s

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China has been tightening the siege on Taiwan for years with pressure constant and calculated: increasingly frequent air raids, naval exercises large scalesymbolic crosses of the midline of the strait and military deployments designed to rememberwithout firing a single shot, that the island lives under permanent surveillance. This strategy of attrition, made of demonstrations of force and controlled ambiguity, has marked the relationship between Beijing and Taipei long before the current pulse reached disturbing levels. One (another) red line. If a few weeks ago we said that China had taken a qualitative step in its military pressure on Taiwan by crossing the island’s airspace with a military dronehas now redoubled its efforts, going from intimidating maneuvers to direct aerial encounters with manned fighters flying meters away and firing flares near Taiwanese planes, an escalation that multiplies the risk of accident and turns intimidation into something much closer to a deliberate clash. during exercises “Justice Mission”J-16 planes of the People’s Liberation Army not only came dangerously close to Taiwanese F-16s when they came to intercept them near the middle line of the strait, but they also arrived to launch flares at close range, a maneuver considered unsafe even by demanding military standards and that marks a before and after in the face of previous, more indirect provocations. From symbolic pressure to physical risk. In just 24 hours, dozens of Chinese aircraft crossed the midline of the strait and penetrated the airspace controlled by Taiwan, showing a pattern of behavior that no longer seems to seek only to saturate radars or send political messages, but rather to put enemy pilots in extreme situations. Unlike radar jamming or the presence of military drones, these encounters centimeters away introduce a human and physical factor. much more dangerouswhere a mistake, turbulence, or knee-jerk reaction can trigger an immediate crisis between China and Taiwan. One of the Chinese J-16 fighters photographed during Chinese People’s Liberation Army military exercises while being monitored by a Taiwanese F-16V aircraft Intimidating maneuvers. The actions were not limited to direct harassment: Chinese fighters used concealment tactics flying close to H-6K bombers to evade radars, revealing itself, according to local Taiwanese media, “ostentatiously” by displaying missiles at close range, in maneuvers compared by observers to historical tricks of military infiltration. They remembered in the Financial Times That this behavior, described by some sources as more typical of a “thug” than a professional pilot, reinforces the feeling that Beijing is testing new risk thresholds to measure the Taiwanese and allied response. A regional pattern. What happened around Taiwan is not an isolated event, but part of a incident sequence in which the Chinese air force has raised the tone towards neighbors like Japan and the Philippinesincluding blocking radar and firing flares against patrol aircraft. In fact, analysts warn that the next logical step in this escalation could be to operate regularly within the 12 nautical miles of Taiwanese territorial airspace, a scenario that would then exponentially increase the risk of collision or armed confrontation. Political pressure and risk of lack of control. If you like, this increase in boldness coincides with those publicized changes in the chain of command China and with political pressure from Xi Jinping for the armed forces to demonstrate their preparation for an eventual conflict, which could be pushing pilots and commanders to take risks that were previously avoided. Under that prism, Beijing would not only have crossed another red line against Taiwan, but would have entered a phase in which aerial intimidation ceases to be a calculated game and becomes a much more dangerous gamble, one with potentially explosive consequences for regional stability and security. appearance of “third parties” on the board. Image | 日本防衛省・統合幕僚監部, Ministry of National Defense In Xataka | China already has drones capable of shooting with surgical precision at 100 meters. Not good news for Taiwan In Xataka | The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan

We have crossed another line with subscriptions. LG now allows you to pay a fee to use a television in a European market

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What started as a practical formula to pay for digital content has, little by little, become a way of life. Subscriptions to listen to music, watch series, store photos, work, protect your computer. Based on small installments, has been normalized that an increasing part of our lives depends on a monthly payment. And when the time comes to do the math, that recognizable feeling of juggling the budget appears: we cancel one, reactivate another, adjust as best we can so as not to go overboard. Perhaps we pay more and more to access, and less and less to possess. That is why the latest twist in the phenomenon draws special attention: now you can also “rent” a television instead of buying it. Rent a TV if you can’t (or don’t want to) buy one. The scene comes from the United Kingdom. There, LG already offers a modality called LG Flex which allows access to a selection of televisions and sound bars through subscription, directly from the company’s website. The logic is similar to that of other services: you choose the product and, at the time of checkout, you select Raylo as an option, since LG presents it as its official partner for this program. The proposal is sold as “flexible access” to premium products, with no initial outlay, and with different subscription durations to adjust the monthly price. In practice, it is a paradigm shift in an object that we traditionally bought and amortized for years. What does “flex” mean? The subscription is proposed with two very different paths: a renewable monthly plan, designed for those who want maximum freedom, and closed plans of 12, 24 or 36 months, which reduce the monthly payment in exchange for a greater commitment. It is a well-known logic: the longer the term, the lower the fee. In addition, the proposal includes a 14-day free trial and, at the end of the period, the user can choose between continuing to pay month by month, requesting a change to a newer model at no additional cost or returning the device. Of course, this last option is not neutral: the withdrawal has a fee of 50 pounds (about 60 euros). The key is what you are paying. A television like LG OLED evo AI C54 83-inch 4K (2025) It is offered for 3,999 pounds (about 4,620 euros at the exchange rate in that market), with a subscription available from 123.90 pounds per month (about 145 euros at the exchange rate) with Raylo, while a LG QNED evo AI QNED9MA 86-inch 4K Mini LED It is listed for 2,499.98 pounds (about 2,890 euros at the exchange rate), with installments starting at 78.35 pounds per month (about 92 euros at the exchange rate). The difference is in the time horizon: if the subscription is maintained for a long time, the accumulated amount may end up exceeding the purchase price. That is why Flex is best understood as a formula to have the television “in use” without purchasing it directly, not as an alternative designed to pay less at the end of everything. Will it leave the United Kingdom? For now, the experiment remains in the United Kingdom. LG has not communicated plans to expand Flex beyond that market, so, at the moment, there is no basis to assume that it will reach other European countries. But even as an isolated case, the idea says a lot about the moment we are going through: subscriptions are no longer just a method to access digital content or tools, but a commercial language that is also beginning to be applied to physical objects. Images | LG In Xataka | Apple Creator Studio is not just a subscription. It’s Apple looking to conquer the little tiktoker who uses CapCut and Canva

The Line and Trojana were the jewels of the new Saudi Arabia. They will also be the first to face reality: they are very expensive

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Saudi Arabia imagined an almost dystopian future based on futuristic ski resorts, 170 km linear skyscrapers and paradise islands for millionaires. Reality has forced the Saudi authorities to wake up from their reverie and face serious cost overruns in the construction of their pharaonic projects and lack of budget to cover them. He Financial Times uncover in an article that an internal report in which auditors propose cutting the NEOM project in half, reusing what has already been built, but reorienting its objectives and, above all, its budgets. However, this cut is conditioned by the commitments that Riyadh has already adopted, organizing the 2030 World Expo and the 2034 World Cup. Oil gives no respite: we must cut back. According to Financial Times sources, the audit of the project that is about to conclude leaves no room for maneuver and forces Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to rethink the NEOM project. applying new cuts and changes in construction plans to a “much smaller” project. The reason for the cut is found in oil priceswho have not recovered from their downward trendseriously damaging the solvency of the nearly $1 trillion Saudi Public Investment Fund that finances NEOM. With a fund that does not grow at the rate it used to and huge investmentsPrince Mohammed has been forced to lower expectations and achieve short-term profitability from what has already been built. Put your feet on the ground. The NEOM project was born in 2017 as the flagship to transform the Saudi economy, moving from a model focused on the exploitation of natural gas and oil resources to one based on attracting investments, tourism and renewable energy. NEOM consisted of different big-budget projects to build infrastructure in a territory the size of Belgium on the Red Sea coast. The Line, the crown jewelpromised a linear city 170 kilometers long flanked by two 500-meter-high buildings, without cars or streets, and powered 100% by renewable energy. It was estimated that by 2030 this project would house 1.5 million people, at an approximate cost of 500 billion dollars. In 2024, the first phase of The Line has already suffered an important snip reducing its length 2.4 kilometers away. The Line was going to be a city, now your data will live. FT sources point out that Riyadh finally admits the initial design flaws, prioritizing what has already been built. Thus, The Line would go from being a futuristic megalopolis to reusing its foundations to become a data center hub to put Saudi Arabia in the AI ​​race. This shift reflects a change in strategy aimed at achieving more specific goals that provide a short-term return on invested capital, leaving behind the vision of infinite skyscrapers in the desert. Other cuts already announced include $8 billion less from the Public Investment Fund for the five main megaprojects, representing 12.4% of their total valuation. A ski resort in the desert. The cuts also seriously affect the construction of Trojena, the ski resort futuristic project that was to serve as the venue for the 2029 Asian Winter Games. However, the Asian Olympic Council that organizes this sporting event has announced in a statement “confirming the postponement of the 2029 edition to a later date that will be announced in due course”, and that experts link directly to cuts in its budget. According to published Bloombergthe project was initially budgeted at around 19 billion dollars and was going to offer 30 km of ski slopes that ran on the roof of the resort itself and different luxury hotels, in a desert area with little snowfall during the year, which added an added challenge to keep the artificial snow necessary for the operation of the station in good condition. This first postponement sows uncertainty about the future of other competitions to which it has already committed, such as the football stadium that was going to be built. on the roof of The Line. In Xataka | Siranna: the new luxury destination for the super-rich is a spa that looks like Minas Tirith and only ships arrive Image | NEOM

ASUS just killed its phone line for good reason. Goodbye to the Zenfone

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ASUS, the Taiwanese giant known for its computers, had been competing in the smartphone field for years. The Zenfone family is one of the ones that has convinced us the most at Xataka: phones with a ROM similar to that of the Google Pixel and top-of-the-line specifications. The proposal, solid on paper, has had low commercial success for years. And given the great opportunity in formats that AI allows, ASUS is clear: there will be no more Zenfone for a while. A harsh goodbye. ASUS has made a stoppage official in its smartphone division. It not only affects the Zenfone family, but also ROG Phone, its division of phones aimed at gamers. The company is now emptying its release calendar to leave a division whose future is uncertain. “ASUS will no longer launch new mobile phone models in the future.” Jonney Shih, president of ASUS. What’s wrong with my ASUS. If you have a company device, you will be covered. ASUS will maintain both guarantees and support for existing mobile phones, but there will be no room for new launches. And now what. The company’s strategy is clear: they are leaving the field of mobile phones to focus on new solutions and formats linked to artificial intelligence. The group’s revenue from its AI server business has doubled expected resultsand the robotics and smart glasses divisions will be the main beneficiaries of the death of Zenfone. Why is it important. ASUS’s strategy gives us a clue about where the industry wants to move in AI beyond the smartphone. The race in this field is being won by an unstoppable Gemini that has forced Apple to take its handand with Google distributing Android, competition beyond OpenAI does not seem possible. But in smart glasses Meta operates with its own technologies, Google has its proposals based on Gemini, and There is still room for participants who want to develop their own solutions. Even fiercer is the war in robotics, Why outside the smartphone. The mobile phone business represents a very small part of ASUS’ strategy. Their smartphones are niche products, and they never had it easy to conquer the general public. Abandoning a territory that is high in costs and difficult to obtain profits offers additional room for maneuver to invest in new product categories. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Artificial intelligence guide: main characteristics of the main AI models, points for and against, and comparison

Make the “most mysterious book in the world” with dice and cards. How we are understanding the Voynich manuscript without deciphering a single line

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Voynich is an old acquaintance of this house: for years, we have been tracking (and gutting) each of the attempts to decipher the “most mysterious manuscript in the world.” They have all been unsuccessful and that includes, of course, the attempts to some of the sharpest minds of history. Now, however, we have a new idea. And, despite not solving absolutely anything, it sounds very good. What is the Voynich manuscript? Let’s start at the beginning: Between 1404 and 1438someone somewhere started writing a book in a language or code that no one has been able to decipher. A book that, since its rediscovery in 1912, has baffled everyone and especially cryptographers. Overall, this is an extraordinarily strange piece (full of illustrations of rare or non-existent plants, astrological symbols, strange creatures and naked women) about which we know only a handful of things. We know, for example, that it is a natural language (or a code related to a natural language) because complies with Zipf’s Lawan empirical regularity that only occurs in natural languages ​​and that describes the frequency of appearance of words. Invented languages ​​(especially languages ​​invented in the 15th century) do not comply. We have known this since the 60s, but little else. And people are still trying to figure it out? Yes, absolutely yes. The Voynichians are a group of people who are extremely passionate (and ‘insistent’) about their manuscript and, in fact, have members in almost every social strata in the wide world. An example is today’s protagonist. A few weeks ago, the magazine Cryptology public a job of Michael A. Greshko in which a new and very interesting idea was proposed. Greshko is a renowned science journalist, he is an editor at Science and has worked for media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Nature, Scientific American and National Geographic. He is someone who is risking part of his prestige on this, come on. And what does he propose? Greshko has exposed something called “Naibbe cipher”. Basically, it is an encryption system that allows languages ​​such as Italian or Latin to be transformed into a pseudo-writing that preserves properties of ‘voynichés’ (the ‘language’ of the manuscript). Respect, for example, things like glyph frequencies or word lengths. All this, with plausible cryptographic tools for the 15th century. And that’s precisely what’s interesting: Greshko doesn’t try to “read” the book; It attempts to demonstrate that, at that time and starting from a common language, a text similar to that of the manuscript could be constructed. How to make your own Voynich at home. According to the work of Cryptologiathe Naibbe method does things like break words into blocks (splits ‘gatto’ into ‘g’, ‘at’ and ‘to’), uses random systems (like dice or card rolls), and generates a homophonic cipher (ciphers specially designed to “counter the main deciphering tool for monoalphabetic substitutions, frequency analysis”). So, have we solved the problem? Not even close. As I said, Greshko has not deciphered the manuscript. He has simply looked for ways in which that manuscript could have been produced. For years, artificial intelligence algorithms have failed in the translation of the Voynich and, as the author explains, this may be because they do not know very well what to look for. Systems like Naibbe draw constructive possibilities that expand the options among which we can search. And in that sense, yes: Voynich is still much smarter than us. Although we don’t know for how long. Image | Gunnar Klack In Xataka | No, no “artificial intelligence” has deciphered the Voynich manuscript

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