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Spanish scientists have created a material that swallows 99.5% of light. And it is great news for renewables

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At first glance they look like invisible needles, thin to the extreme and tiny like a thousandth of a human hair. A group of Spanish researchers has created ultra-black nanoneedles that absorb up to 99.5% of the solar radiation they receive, a record figure that not only sets an optical record, but will increase the efficiency of solar thermal plants. Made in Euskadi. The discovery comes from the Thermophysical Properties of Materials group at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). There, the researchers have designed a surface composed of copper cobaltate nanoneedles—a mixed oxide of copper and cobalt—with exceptional optical properties. Its ultra-black tone and its resistance to humidity and high temperatures make it ideal for solar tower receivers. According to tests, the material achieves an absorption of 99.5% of sunlight, surpassing black silicon (95%) and carbon nanotubes (99%). “We are looking for ultra-black materials for more efficient solar towers,” noted researcher Íñigo González de Arrieta. A change for solar energy. In concentrating solar thermal power plants (CSP), hundreds of mirrors reflect and concentrate sunlight towards a central tower. There, heat is used to melt salts that retain thermal energy and allow electricity to be generated even when the sun has already set.The key is to take advantage of each photon: if the receiver material reflects part of the light, that energy is lost. And this is where the new nanoneedles come into play. Until now, the most used material was black silicon, with an absorption level of 95%. The new nanoneedles, on the other hand, could raise that figure significantly and, with it, make solar thermal energy, one of the most promising clean sources in countries like Spain, more competitive and profitable. Beyond the blackest black. Carbon nanotubes seemed unbeatable: dark as a vacuum, capable of trapping almost all light. But they had an invisible enemy: the heat and humidity deteriorated them quickly. The copper cobaltate nanoneedles, developed by the Basque team, endure what their predecessors could not. They withstand temperatures above 700 degrees without losing effectiveness and, in addition, they are more stable. In solar towers, that difference can translate into more energy and less maintenance. A real impact. Dr. Renkun Chen, from the University of California, San Diego, is collaborating with the Basque team and the United States Department of Energy to study the feasibility of applying nanoneedles to industrial solar plants. “We observed that these nanoneedles performed better than the carbon nanotubes used until now, and that their performance increased when coated with zinc oxide,” Chen explained.. However, González de Arrieta himself clarifies that there is still some way to go: the next pilot-scale tests will determine if the process is economically viable and if the material can be produced industrially without losing its optical properties. Darker, brighter. Ultrablack nanoneedles are an example of how nanotechnology applied to energy can have a direct impact on global sustainability. The UPV/EHU team plans to continue developing new compounds with better thermal and optical conductivity, designed to withstand the challenges of future solar towers. Promoting this renewable energy offers many advantages: it is totally clean and can also be used when the sun does not shine,” recalled González de Arrieta. And if everything goes as expected, the future of solar energy could be, paradoxically, darker than ever. Image | Flickr Xataka | In the midst of a trade war, there is a battle that China has already won: that the world depends on its new energy

Portugal and Spain have proposed that traveling between Lisbon and Madrid be as comfortable as in 1881. This is excellent news

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31 years after the first promise, we will have a high-speed train from Madrid to Lisbon passing through Extremadura. We will have it, of course, if the plans are fulfilled. And four years later we will be able to travel the space that separates both capitals at high speed. 2030 and 2034. At least that’s what they’ve committed to. Portugal, Spain and the European Commission, who have reached an agreement to bring the connection between Lisbon and Madrid back to life in 2030 with a conventional train and in 2034 with a high-speed line that should make the journey in three hours. The calendar. To launch the line between the capitals, the project requires various phases and actions. Poceirão-Bombel section: new line that will begin construction in 2026 and should be completed in 2029. Évora-Caia section: this high-speed section should be ready in 2026. Lisbon-Évora section: the project study should be completed in 2027. Plasencia-Talayuela section: should be operational in 2028. Madrid-Lisbon at high speed: the new lines should allow travel between the Spanish capital and Portugal in three hours from 2034. In addition, the possibility of opening a Caia-Badajoz-Elvas high-speed line has been raised to reduce times and reach three hours if the planned times are not being met. Target: airlines. One of the great objectives that the European Union has with this new high-speed line is to reduce the number of flights between both cities. They point out in elDiario.es There are currently about 40 daily flights between Madrid and Lisbon. For years, European institutions have been working to reduce the volume of air traffic by improving rail connections. Spain either France These are some of the countries that want to implement policies to reduce them. A 600 kilometer railway line to travel in three hours is exactly the type of trip that can do a lot of damage to airlines if it works correctly. A good example is the Galician runner which, despite requiring more travel time, has made passengers turn their backs on the plane. And Galicia? If travelers who aspire to take their trains from Madrid are the big beneficiaries, Galicia seems to be the big loser. In recent yearsPortugal had insisted that its true intention was to create a high-speed line between Lisbon and Vigo with an intermediate stop in Porto. The project now takes a back seat, however, since they will have to focus efforts on high speed between capitals. In Atlantic They highlight that the European Union has already dedicated more than 250 million euros to promoting high speed in Portugal and more than 750 million euros to do the same in the connection between Extremadura and Madrid, so it seems logical that the first corridor to support this. A continental network. The project to link Lisbon and Madrid on a high-speed line is part of the European Atlantic Transport Corridor. The project plans to link Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and Ireland with intermodal connections that include roads, airports, ports… and railway lines. Regarding the latter, the connection with Madrid would allow connecting Barcelona with Lisbon in less than six hours. It would be a key stage for unite Lisbon with the rest of the European Union by train since, at the moment, the Portuguese capital is isolated by rail. In addition, it would allow rapid connection with other hot spots on the Spanish high-speed rail network, such as Valencia and Alicante or connections with Asturias and Cantabria. The exit to Vigo with the high-speed network that was already planned is the other possibility to reach the north of the Peninsula. The eternal promise. The connection between Lisbon and Madrid is a promise that has been going on for more than 20 years. In The World Order They highlight that the railway connection between both cities is worse today than in 1881 when a train line was opened between both cities for the first time. Between Berlin and Warsaw, they point out, there is a similar distance traveled by seven trains a day. Despite the first promises of having a cross-border AVE ready in 2010the line is still not operational. With the latest advances in the high-speed line, already present between Plasencia and Badajoz, the travel time between Lisbon and Madrid has been reduced to just over eight hours, as explained in The World Order but you have to take three different trains. In 2022, the same trip exceeded 11 hours, collected in The Country. At least 144 years ago, travelers only had to take a train and wait for it to drop them off in one of the two cities. Photo | Phil Richards, Annie Sprat and 야스민 ㄹㅁㅅ In Xataka | A hydrogen train has crossed Spain and Portugal for the first time: 10,000 km of route, including the Pyrenees

We already know how to retrieve the exact prompts that people use in AI models. It’s terrifying news

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A group of researchers has published a study that once again raises alarm bells regarding privacy when using AI. What they have managed to demonstrate is that it is possible to know the exact prompt that a user used when asking a chatbot something, and that puts AI companies in a delicate position. They can, more than ever, know everything about us. A terrifying study. If you are told that ‘Linguistic models are injective and, therefore, invertible’ you will probably be shocked. That’s the title from the study carried out by European researchers in which they explain that large language models (LLM) have a major privacy problem. And it has it because the transformer architecture is designed that way: each different prompt corresponds to a different “embedding” in the latent space of the model. A sneaky algorithm. During the development of their theory, the researchers created an algorithm called SIPIT (Sequential Inverse Prompt via ITerative updates). Such an algorithm reconstructs the exact input text from the hidden activations/states with a guarantee that it will do so in linear time. Or what is the same: you can make the model “snap” easily and quickly. What does this mean. What all this means is that the answer you got when using that AI model allows you to find out exactly what you asked it. In reality, it is not the answer that gives away, but the hidden states or embeddings that the AI ​​models use to end up giving the final answer. That’s a problem, because AI companies keep these states hidden, which would theoretically allow them to know the input prompt with absolute accuracy. But many companies already saved the prompts. That’s true, but that “injectivity” creates an additional privacy risk. Many embeddings or internal states are stored for caching, for monitoring or diagnosis, and for customization. If a company only deletes the plain text conversation but does not delete the embeddings file, the prompt is still recoverable from that file. The study shows that any system that stores hidden states is effectively handling the input text itself. Legal impact. There is also a dangerous legal component here. Until now, regulators and companies argued that internal states were not considered “recoverable personal data,” but that invertibility changes the rules of the game. If an AI company tells you that “don’t worry, I don’t save the prompts” but it does save the hidden states, it’s as if that theoretical privacy guarantee is of no use. Possible data leaks. A priori it does not seem easy for a potential attacker to do something like this because they would first have to have access to those embeddings. A security breach that results in the leak of a database of those internal/hidden states (embeddings) would no longer be considered an exposure of “abstract” or “encrypted” data, but rather a plain text source from which, for example, financial data or passwords that a company or user has used when asking the AI ​​model could be obtained. Right to be forgotten. This injectivity of LLM also complicates the requirements of regulatory compliance for the protection of personal data, such as the GDPR or the “right to be forgotten.” If a user requests complete deletion of their data from a company like OpenAI, they must ensure that they delete not only visible chat logs, but also all internal representations (embeddings). If any hidden state persists in any register or cache, the original prompt would still be potentially recoverable. Image | Levart Photographer In Xataka | OpenAI is making the tech industry unite its destiny with yours. For the sake of the global economy, it better work

If you were expecting cheap electricity this winter, we have bad news: Holland

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Winter has not yet arrived, but the European energy market has already started to shake. And not because there are new problems with Russian gas pipelines. The winter that awaits us. The warning he issued the analyst Pedro Cantuel illustrates the problem: “The most important regasification plants in Europe, those in the Netherlands, are operating at maximum capacity.” It is not a positive fact. These terminals are the main gateway for liquefied natural gas to the industrial heart of Europe. Its saturation is the prelude to higher gas prices. And gas is what marks the electricity bill in much of Europe. And the Spanish regasification plants? Although Spain has the largest regasification capacity in the European Unionwith six active terminals, its ability to alleviate Europe’s thirst for gas is limited. The problem: the poor gas interconnection with France. The current bottleneck of the Pyrenees It barely allows the export of between 7,000 and 8,500 million cubic meters per year. Therefore, all eyes are on the Netherlands. Its terminals, mainly Gate’s in Rotterdam and Eemshaven, are the true entry point for Germany and European industry. In figures. Netherlands is the main LNG importer of the EU. Between June and August 2025 alone, it regasified more than 2,000 million cubic meters of gas. But according to the data of Gas Infrastructure Europeits terminals are constantly touching the all-time high. The Dutch ports are saturated, there is no more LNG. And this has a direct effect on Germany, which since the sanctions against Russia imports 25% of the gas from the Netherlands. With the terminals of the neighboring country at 90-100% of their capacity, the room for maneuver due to a peak in demand due to a cold wave or any delay of a LNG tanker will immediately strain the system. How it affects the invoice. As we have seen in recent years, any difficulty in accessing natural gas results in higher prices. The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators documents in your reports a direct correlation between the high utilization rates of LNG terminals in northwest Europe and the increase in volatility and spreads (price differences) in the gas reference index in Europe. We have changed dependence on a single supplier (Russian gas pipelines) for dependence on a single infrastructure that can now become the new bottleneck has moved from the gas pipeline to (European ports). Efforts are already underway to expand port capacity. Gate, for example, is building a fourth tank to reach 20,000 million cubic meters per year. But it won’t be ready until 2026, so the reality for this winter is what it is: the system is operating at the limit of its capacity. Image | Vopak In Xataka | The Castor project was Spain’s great idea to become self-sufficient in gas. Now he is selling it for pieces

The first nest of Asian hornets in Andalusia was more than seven kilos and had thousands of larvae about to emerge. It’s not good news

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The 7.5 kilo nest, located 10 meters high in a pine tree in Alhaurín de la Torre. This mass full of thousands of larvae has the dubious honor of being the first Asian wasp nest detected in Andalusia. A species that, it is worth remembering has killed three people in Galicia in the last two weeks. “We caught it on time,” explained Alvaro Garciafrom the pest control company Lucanus. “If we had left it a few more days, hundreds of fertile queens would have emerged, and that would be unstoppable.” And yet, the relief of having stopped the expansion of the velutina throughout the most populated community in Spain has been followed by something else: the anxiety generated by knowing that we have found them by pure chance. What if by chance? The discovery It was due to Eduardo Sáezthe biologist who owns the farm where the nest was found. Sáez is not an expert on wasps, but upon seeing him he realized that it was not normal and raised the alarm. Given this, it seems inevitable to ask not only what would have happened if they had not “caught it in time”; but if it really has been like that. Is there not one but dozens of Asian wasp nests maturing in Andalusia without anyone noticing? What is the vespa velutina? The Vespa velutina nigrithoraxnative to Southeast Asia, is an invasive species that arrived in Europe in 2004. It is not difficult to identify itbut it is not something trivial either: it is larger than the common wasp (up to 3.5 cm), it is darker and has an almost completely black abdomen. After expanding from Cantabria, the Basque Country and Galicia throughout the north of the peninsula, it is growing at a rate of 80 kilometers per year. In addition, and if that were not enough, it feeds on fruit, bees and other pollinating animals. To this, of course, we must add that this type of wasps are especially aggressive. Didier Descouens And in response to that, Alhaurín has taken a desperate measure. The municipality of Malaga, recognizing that it is unable to trace its entire area to ensure that the velutina is not growing elsewhere, has requested citizen collaboration: Dozens of neighbors and volunteers have supported the call and are combing the Pinos de Alhaurín area. This obviously entails security risks (due to improper approach to the nests) and false positives (putting other species at risk). However, the situation is very complicated. We must not forget that Málaga has been fighting against Vespa orientalisadding the velutina would be a disaster for provincial beekeeping (and for another half dozen sectors). Why this urgency? Because, as its impact has shown in the north of the peninsula and endorses technical literatureOnce it enters an ecosystem, eradicating it is almost impossible. And the city councils do not have enough of their own equipment to deal with this type of threats. Above all, in a context in which both climate change and anarchic urbanization have made it incredibly easy. A problem that goes beyond beekeeping. And, as I said, in less than two weeks and in the middle of autumn, three men have lost their lives in Galicia due to stings from velutina wasps. It is true that these are deaths related to “severe allergic reactions”, but that does not make the situation any more reassuring. We must not forget that Galicia has been fighting this insect for 15 years with massive trapping and nest removal programs. Without any success. In fact, according to the Xuntawe are experiencing an “extraordinary increase” due to “enormous adaptability” and asks for “caution, especially in the case of allergic people.” Image | Francis ITHURBURU In Xataka | After centuries of disappearance, there are people releasing beavers into the Tagus and other rivers in Spain. The problem is that we don’t know who

In Castilla y León, a baby of an eagle that became extinct in the 19th century has been born. What is not clear is that it is good news

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The skies of Castilla y León have left a historical imagesomething that had not been seen for a long time in our country: a native baby eagle flying over the territory. The specimen of this bird of prey was born on Spanish soil a few months ago, early mayand has already taken flight, as has just been said reveal The Confidential. Something like this hadn’t happened in a long time. That a species that was supposed to be extinct in the Iberian Peninsula since the 19th century manages to recover ground is usually positive news, but in the case of the eagle it comes clouded by something else: controversy. There are those who believe that its reintroduction in Spain is a “historical milestone”. And who thinks it is a blunder. First of all, what is the eagle? A bird of prey that stands out for its enormous size. With its wings extended it can reach 2.4m wingspan and usually measures between 80 and 90 cm long. His name appeared in a list published years ago by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) with extinct species susceptible to be reintroduced. After all, there are those who consider that the eagle, which continues to live in Scandinavian countries, it disappeared from the peninsula among the 19th and 20th centuries due to the degradation of their environment. How did you return to Spain? Thanks to Proyecto Pigargo, a plan released in 2021 with the approval of the Principality of Asturias, the Cantabrian Government and above all the support of MITECO, which invested more than 300,000 euros in the recovery of the species. In August of that same year was announced the arrival of almost a dozen young specimens born in Norway that were introduced in Pimiango, in the municipality of Ribadedeva (Asturias). As time went by, more birds were released until add 25. Of them survived about 17almost all (12) paired. And have they bred yet? Yes. The news I advanced it on September 18 GREFA, the group that has promoted the reintroduction of the species on the peninsula. In a statement The group explains that the calf was born in May in the north of Castilla y León, in an area that had been identified as “optimal for the species”, although GREFA has not specified the exact location “to avoid any disturbance.” “The birth of the first European eagle chick in Spain represents a historic moment for nature conservation in our country,” celebrate the association before highlighting the collaboration of the Junta de Castilla y León and the “technical support” of both MITECO and agents of the autonomous community. Perfect, right? It depends on who you ask. If we listen GREFA is “a historic milestone for biodiversity in Spain and Europe”, the result of a well-studied plan, which accumulates hours of work and has achieved the support of IUCNthe International Union for Conservation of Nature. The group insists that it is the first breeding after “the extinction” of the species in Spain and highlights “the success” of having achieved a chick in a few years with 25 specimens released. “An exciting and motivating result that allows us to hope for more views next season,” celebrate. Don’t everyone think that way? No. The launch of the Pigargo Project may have generated expectations at the time, but it certainly did not achieve something equally or even more important: scientific consensus. Already in 2021 there were voices that warned that releasing copies in Spain meant “a bad idea”. In fact, that was the key message of an article published in The Conversation by three experts from the University of Oviedo in which they pointed out the weak points of the program and questioned whether the eagle is really a native and extinct species. The controversy escalated to such a point that the central government and the autonomies that had initially endorsed the project they decided to back out after just two years. What arguments do they use? GREFA recalls that the releases of eagles that began four years ago in Asturias had the endorsement of the IUCN and the species was included in the list of extinct fauna prepared with the endorsement of the committee of scientists that advises the ministry. Not only that. The group defends that the birth of the first baby in the wild in Castilla y León a few months ago proves the adaptation to the environment of a bird of prey that, argues“contributes to keeping under control” other species that can damage ecosystems, such as carp. “Thanks to its scavenging habits, the European sea eagle plays an important role as a ‘health police’, helping to control the spread of diseases by effectively removing animal corpses from the environment,” they point out from the entity. In fact, GREFA trusts that the birth of the first chick marks a turning point in the program and will allow it to recover the institutional support that it has been losing in recent years. “We hope that this historic event encourages strengthening or resuming support for the project, especially in the case of the Principality of Asturias and the Government of Cantabria, whose initial collaboration was fundamental although they later withdrew it,” Ernesto Álvarez slidesits president. And what do the critics say? They go to the root of the approach and question its most basic premise: that it has really been proven that the eagle is a species native to the peninsula. “To consider a species as extinct, the evidence must be irrefutable. In the case of the eagle that does not happen. The documentation that has been used for its classification as an extinct species is reduced to some reports on archaeological remains, several citations of solitary specimens and dubious signs of breeding,” he points out. the article published in The Conversation. One of them, Germán Orizaola, Ramón y Cajal researcher in Zoology, warned in 2023 in statements to The Country of the risk that the initiative may pose … Read more

Ukraine has returned from the US with two bad news, and the least of it is the Tomahawk missiles

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Last Friday it was supposed to take place a nuclear meeting for the future of war in ukraine. However, what happened in the White House ended up being less a diplomatic exercise than a scene of head-on collision: a president demanding territorial capitulation from an invaded country, a president refusing to give up what he still defends under fire, and a third absent actor marking the remote script of what Trump repeated with a literality that blurred any pretense of mediation. Concessions and threats. He had exclusive the financial times that Trump discarded the maps of the front, repeated that the war was not such but a “special operation” in Putin’s words, and urged Zelensky to accept the loss of Donetsk and the entire Donbas as the price of peace, warning that “If Putin wants, he will destroy you.” The conversation degeneratedapparently in shouts and ultimatum language, with the Ukrainian delegation attempting achieve Tomahawks (denied) while listening to arguments identical to those from Moscow put forward one day before to Trump himself. The American president even verbalized in public, already on Air Force One, the solution of freezing the war “where the lines are,” leaving negotiations on territory “for later.” The Russian proposal. Putin, in his previous call, demanded total surrender of Donetsk (a military objective that Moscow has failed to achieve in eleven years of combined war) offering as a counterpart only parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that it currently controls precariously. For Ukraine, surrender the eastern bastion without combat (key to containing a penetration towards the Dnieper and kyiv) it is unacceptable because it would be equivalent to dynamiting the strategic defense of the entire country and, in psychological and political terms, to legitimizing a violent annexation project active since 2014. Trump and the European reading. trump had hinted Weeks ago that Ukraine could recover “everything and more,” and that Russia was a “paper tiger,” he now maintains that Moscow “has gained property” and should be given some credit. The literal echo of Putin’s points in Trump’s words dissipated among allies the hope of reopening the arms route and revealed that the matrix of the negotiation that Washington is pushing is no longer symmetrical but asymmetrical: downward pressure on the invaded and assumption of the invader’s premise. Russian internal calculation. For Ukrainian analysts, Donetsk’s demand does not so much seek to maximize territorial gain as to induce a sociopolitical fracture within Ukraine: forcing the leadership to consider what society will not tolerate to open an axis of internal delegitimization. Putin, in fact, already knows the social impossibility of barter, and that is why he insists: the desired cost is the erosion of cohesion rather than the line on the map. The Ukrainian position. Zelenskiy confirmed after the meeting that I would agree to freeze the front in its current location as a condition for entering talks, but stressed that there will not be additional delivery of territory. Considers that any negotiation must start with an immediate cessation on the line of contact, not with prior territorial modifications in favor of the aggressor. Trump’s public statements and the prospect of a Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest They do not alter that principle: without prior freezing and without forced concession, there is no viable dialogue. Tactical horizon. Ukraine enters winter under massive attacks on your energy infrastructure while responding by hitting Russian refineries. The lack of long range missiles from Washington after the call with Putin limits its capacity for deep counter-escalation just when Moscow is looking for time, social fatigue and diplomatic fracture. kyiv, in the absence of immediate alternatives, indicates that a ceasefire on current lines would be acceptable as a table key, but not the surrender of Donetsk as an entry passport. Peace on demand. If you will, the scheme that has emerged from this sequence (Putin-Trump call, Trump-Zelensky meeting, territorial barter proposal and appeal to the “agreement” freezing positions) places Ukraine before a conditional peace that recognizes the violence of annexation as a fait accompli and requires the invaded to formalize it. The ukrainian reaction (freeze, negotiate, but not give in) is the last dam between an end to the fire and an end to the State in the political-strategic sense. The meeting did not bring closer an equitable end to the war: it clarified the type of end that certain architecture is willing to accept, even if it does not say it out loud. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, NARA In Xataka | The factories of deep America have reopened. And they all make the same “toy”: an army of combat drones In Xataka | The crazy number of drones has turned the Ukrainian sky into the M-30 at rush hour. Identifying the enemy is a danger

What news has and how to update

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Let’s tell you the novelties of the next version of Android Autonow that the Beta of Android Auto 15.4. It is a version that does not present external changes in the form of new functions, but it does solve Some important failures. Therefore, we are going to review what concrete developments this new version of the operating system for the car brings. Remember that you will be able to use it directly on the vehicle screen, connecting your android cell phone or wirelessly if the car is compatible. News of Android Auto 15.4 Beta This new version, as usual, It has no external news. You will not find any new option or function. Does nothing change on the outside with respect to the previous one. However, Google confirms that you have corrected a failure with the Pixel 10 quite important. Until now, connecting this mobile model the screen stayed in gray, but after updating it should already be corrected and can be used normally. Has also been corrected The failure of the absence of sound When connecting the mobile to the car, and also the problems that were with the control of the songs while listening to music. Otherwise, There is still no news about Gemini’s arrival To the car, something that Google has been working for some time. Nor have they arranged connection failures with Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9 Proso their owners will have to continue waiting. And why is this so slow? Because The news of Android Auto van insideand being a system to use in the car Any error in the app can be fatal. That is why in the Android Auto updates They cannot simply launch a new function and then improve it, because each failure can cost lives. How to update Android Auto Beta Being a beta phase version, you will still have to Wait a few days until you get to your final versionsince betas are closed, although In this link You can try luck in case there is any hole in the betas program, something that does not usually happen. The other method to test beta is download and install your APK fileavailable in Android Auto in Apkmirror. On this website you will have to choose between the ARM and ARM64 architectures, although if your mobile is currently almost certain that it is the ARM64. Once the file is downloaded, you have to Install the APK on your Android manually and restart. In Xataka Basics | News of Google Maps: New reports of incidents that arrive for mobile and Android Auto

Goodbye to the official Windows 10 support is bad news for users. Hackers already rub their hands

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On October 14, millions of computers worldwide will be helpless. That day The official Windows 10 support period endswhich means that users of equipment based on this operating system will not receive security updates. Problem. That raises a gigantic problem for end users, but especially for companies you can see their operation committed to future vulnerabilities that are discovered in said operating system. It is something that has happened in the past with ancient Microsoft operating systems, but the difference here is in the windows 10 dimension. Four out of ten pcs, with Windows 10. According to Statcounter Globalstats data, Windows 10 has currently a global fee of 40.84%. Four out of ten teams that use Windows, use Windows 10. That involves hundreds of millions of PCs, laptops and other devices – point of sale, interactive kiosks, industrial control systems – are exposed to new vulnerability that are discovered from that moment. In Spain, by the way, it is quota is even more worrying. Remembering what happened with Windows 8. In January 2016 Microsoft also marked the end of the Windows 8 support, but the market share of said operating system was much lower, which made the risk, even existing, it was much lower. The problem of the Windows 10 quota is now added that Ransomware and other malware threats They have multiplied. Party for cybercriminals. The “hackers” – or rather, the crackers, the cybercriminals – have before them a golden opportunity to discover and exploit new vulnerabilities that will not be corrected by Microsoft or whose updates will not apply in most cases. It is true that Microsoft has offered methods to extend updates in some cases, but as has happened in the past, many users will not take advantage of them and therefore will be vulnerable to those future cyber attacks. Update options. With the end of Windows 10, there are options for users. One of them is to update Windows 11 “Skipping” the technical requirements Taxes by Microsoft. The other, take advantage of the free extension of the update period, which they can receive for one more year With a simple process. There is also the most profitable option for Microsoft and manufacturers: update to a new PC that arrives with pre -installed Windows 11. And of course, we can opt for other operating systems: these equipment can remain useful (and insurance) installing some linux distribution. The condemnation of “Legacy” systems. Microsoft has always had the philosophy of maintaining compatibility back. That has advantages – can continue executing software for years even in modern hardware – but also that serious disadvantage of security commitment. Apple does not suffer so much. Apple, for example, has a much more drastic attitude in terms of updates and constant update is prioritized. And although it is possible to continue using old equipment with old versions, new functions that usually encourage users to update are excluded. Because it has it much easier. But of course, Apple has in its catalog a few tens of Mac and Macbook since they do not license their operating system, which makes it much easier have these updates under control. In the Windows world, with tens (hundreds?) Of manufacturers and millions of hardware and software combinations, conflicts may appear everywhere and control security is much more complex. In Xataka | The unexpected return of Windows 7: it reaches almost 10% of the market when Microsoft prepares to retire Windows 10

Incinerators are growing both in Europe that they are becoming a problem. The bad news is that we do not know how to solve it

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“Every year We produce 2,000 million tons. They are everywhere, but since it is something disgusting, we do not think about it. “Oliver Franklin-Wallis, author of the excellent ‘said it.Dump‘(Captain Swing, 2025) and is right. What happens is that in Europe they forced us to think about it. And China did. In 2018, China left half the world game and He got fed up being the landfill in developed countries. This may surprise many, under the great speeches of ‘green revolution’ and care of the environment, what there was basically to pack up everything we generated and send it to China. Until, as I say, Beijing said ‘Enough’. And it wasn’t a joke. During 2019, The importation of plastics of the Asian country fell 99%those of paper 30% and those of aluminum and glass around 20%. Only if we take into account that 95% of European plastics and 70% of Americans end up there, we can understand The magnitude of the problem. We look for the exit, of course. During the following years, millions of tons of garbage They redirected the Gulf of Guinea, to the Southeast Asia And basically a Any site that was arranged To accept them. But we all knew that the problem was structural: for decades we have been dismantling the continental recycling system. That is, we had no capabilities to assume it. And, although the European Commission has considered various plans (from promoting the creation of recycling plants throughout the continent to “generate jobs and take care of their own waste” to ‘convince’ the market with taxes that they penalize the products created with new plastics), the truth is that only garbage was buried or burned. In fact, today, we burn “60 million tons of municipal waste.” And that worries many. So much that, in recent days, more than 150 organizations They have asked To the European Union “a moratorium throughout the EU On the new waste incinerators (R1 and D10), together with gradual reduction strategies of the existing incineration capacity and an increase in investment in circular economy infrastructure, such as reuse systems, composting and recycling technologies. “ It is not a coincidence. Everyone who is up to date with the problem knows that, without pressures, the expansion of incineration will grow. And that will have climatic consequences (according to the latest studies It generates more carbon than fossil fuels), but also toilets. The question is if we have an alternative. And, honestly, it is not clear. Europe is increasingly cornered And what seemed before us impossible responses begin to become reasonable exits. “Incinerate as if there was no tomorrow” begins to be in that category of things. Stop it will be complicated. Image | Jonathan Kemper | The Blowup In Xataka | We have been recycling the garbage we produce. Experts say it has not served at all

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