panic

Asia is hoarding all the world’s LNG due to Hormuz panic

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In global energy markets, alarm bells do not always ring loudly; Sometimes all you have to do is watch where the boats are sailing. Right now, the canary in the mine of the looming crisis is the frenzy of Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers. As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, Asia’s major powers are preparing for supply disruptions that could last months. The prolonged paralysis at the world’s largest export plant is stifling global supply and skyrocketing prices. As Dai Jiaquan explainschief economist at the CNPC Economics and Technology Research Institute, companies should prepare “contingency plans” for a two- to four-month disruption. Far from expecting a quick resolution to the attacks between the United States, Israel and Iran, Asia is sweeping up all available gas. The Qatar blackout and the buying fever. The origin of this panic has exact coordinates: the Strait of Hormuz. The trigger was an attack with Iranian drones that hit the strategic facilities of Ras Laffan and Mesaieed, forcing the state company QatarEnergy to cease production. The impact is massive: Qatar supplies 20% of the world’s LNG and, without Hormuz, there is no alternative route. According to the consulting firm AMEthis stoppage removes 1.5 million tons of gas from the global market every week. Added to this is an unprecedented logistical blockade with some 150 ships paralyzed in the area. Faced with this abyss, purchases have skyrocketed. According to BloombergTaiwan has already fully secured its supply for March and April, and is now actively purchasing to cover the month of May. Bangladesh managed to secure shipments for April and is already evaluating purchases from May onwards. For their part, Thailand and South Korea seek to ensure immediate deliveries, while in India, the company Gail India Ltd. barely managed to reserve a shipment in March after several failed attempts. Europe vs. Asia. What is coming is a direct trade war: Europe and Asia fighting for the same gas. According to Financial Timesthe contest is a chilling reminder of the crisis of 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To this battle, Europe arrives with its defenses low: its gas storages are barely 30% because companies did not fill them due to high future prices, a phenomenon known as backwardation. Furthermore, Spain, despite having regasification plants, cannot act as a total lifeline for the continent due to its lack of interconnections through the Pyrenees. Historically, Asia consumes more gas in summer due to air conditioners, creating a desperate urgency that is already reflected in prices. As explained BloombergLNG spot prices in Asia are around $18 per million British thermal units (MMBtu). This represents an 80% increase in price compared to pre-conflict levels, despite having fallen from a recent peak of $25. The Asian benchmark JKM index doubled to $24.80. In Europe, the reaction was one of panic: the TTF benchmark index jumped sharply from below 40 euros to almost 47.5 euros, marking an increase of 55% in recent days. In fact, it is projected that a 90-day closure in Hormuz would raise the TTF to €92/MWh. And this is where the alarms go off for the real economy, As the report explains Kpler, The profitability threshold for intensive European industry (chemicals, fertilizers or ceramics) is usually between €50 and €60/MWh. If prices stagnate there, we could see a new wave of factory closures and a resurgence of inflation. Change of course at sea. According to monitoring data collected by Bloombergat least nine shipments bound for Europe have been redirected to Asia since the fighting began. Atlantic ships like the Clean Mistraloriginally destined for Spain, or the BW Brusselswhich was going to France, have redirected their compasses towards the Pacific in the face of lucrative Asian offers. This maritime chaos is not exclusive to gas. In the oil sector, about 30 giant supertankers They crowd off the Saudi coast of Yanbu in the Red Sea to collect crude oil transported by land, in a desperate attempt to avoid the Iranian blockade. Vulnerabilities and “buffers”. Not all countries face this crisis with the same weapons. According to an analysis of A.M.E.Taiwan is the most exposed and vulnerable player: Qatar and the United Arab Emirates provided it with 35% of its imports in 2025, and after the closure of its nuclear park, it has almost no options to use other fuels. South Asia is also on the line. The report of Kpler highlights that Qatar and the Emirates account for 99% of Pakistan’s LNG imports, 72% of Bangladesh’s and 53% of India’s. However, powers such as China and Japan breathe a little easier. According to Vortexa analyst Ken Lee cited by oil priceBeijing and Tokyo’s exposure to Qatari LNG is just 6% and 5% of their gas mix, respectively. Furthermore, Japan has a good reserve inventory and the restart of its nuclear plants gives it a strategic “cushion.” Asia as a global buffer. In the end, the market will rebalance, but the pain will be uneven. Faced with the impossibility of paying stratospheric prices, very price-sensitive countries such as Pakistan or Bangladesh will have to resort to demand destruction, industrial cuts or return to burning coal. According to AMEJapan and South Korea will seek to replace between 70% and 90% of Qatar’s lost volumes in the spot market, while China, confident in its inventories, will only seek to cover 50%. As pointed out KplerSouth Asia and its industry will operate as the “buffer” (shock absorb) of this crisis. By cutting their own consumption due to not being able to pay, they will leave gas available for the Asian and European giants, but at the cost of maintaining relentless upward pressure that will make the entire world’s energy bill more expensive in the coming months. Image | Photo by Chris Pagan on Unsplash Xataka | The $200 per barrel scenario: when geography suffocates the world economy

OpenAI going from 70% share to 46% is the symptom of something more worrying: they have entered panic mode

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Between January 2025 and January 2026, ChatGPT has lost almost 24 points of market share among daily users of its mobile app in the United States, its main market. Gemini has gone from 14.7% to 25.1%. Grok, from 1.6% to 15.2%. In web traffic the pattern repeats itself. ChatGPT rose 50%, from 3.8 billion to 5.7 billion views. Gemini jumped 647%, from 267 million to 2 billion. OpenAI is still the leader, but it already has a real alternative in all aspects. Why is it important. When you lose 24 share points while the market grows 152%, something has broken along the way. And it’s not just technical leadership. It’s the narrative. Sam Altman sold OpenAI as the company that would reach the market first AGI. That promise mobilized a lot of capital, a lot of talent and a lot of faith. The AGI has not arrived yet. Meanwhile, OpenAI has had to become something else: a conglomerate that does quite a bit more, from chatbots to chips to a wearables. In Xataka The AI ​​of 2026 brings an uncomfortable truth: the most useful will be the one that watches us the most The business model problem. OpenAI… It earned $13 billion in 2025. It lost $12 billion in the last quarter alone. It has 40 million paying subscribers at $20 a month. There are 800 million monthly. It is still insufficient. The company needs AI to function as a business service, not just a consumer product. But there he is losing to Anthropic, which leads with 32% of the business market compared to 25% for OpenAI. Claude Code has become the favorite option for developers: 42% share compared to 21%. Google has 20% and counting. Meta controls 9% with Flame. DeepSeek barely 1%, but its model shows that the level of OpenAI can be replicated without the same resources. The great advantage of Google. Google doesn’t need you Gemini earn money tomorrow. It can afford low prices and red numbers for a long time, while perfecting the technology and integrating it into products that already work: the search engine, YouTube, Android, Chrome… OpenAI depends on ChatGPT to survive. The snowball in debt and payment commitments is too big. Sundar Pichai’s strategy is clear: not to place advertising on Gemini to maintain trust, but to try placing ads on the AI-powered search engine, where users see them as something to be expected. Google can learn without risking its brand. Yes, but. Altman has reacted with quite aggressive diversification. OpenAI no longer wants to be just a modeling company, but rather control multiple layers: from hardware to consumer applications. The objective is become too big to fall. That a hypothetical failure represents a systemic risk for the US economy, as happened with the banks in 2008. {“videoId”:”x9u4ml2″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Does Gemini 3 surpass ChatGPT? This is Google’s new AI”, “tag”:”Webedia-prod”, “duration”:”156″} behind the scenes. The dispersion is becoming noticeable. Banking is reducing its dependence on OpenAI. 18 months ago, half of AI use cases at large banks used OpenAI models. By the end of 2025, that figure had fallen to a third. While OpenAI loses focus, Anthropic wins them. Projects to be profitable in 2028. OpenAI, having moved the goal along the wayin 2029. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka |Google had a practically unsolvable dilemma with AI and its search engine. So you have chosen to create a subscription (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 OpenAI going from 70% share to 46% is the symptom of something more worrying: they have entered panic mode was originally published in Xataka by Javier Lacort .

The panic of technology companies about running out of chips has broken the RAM market. Manufacturers have said enough

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The RAM market is completely broken. In November of last year we talked about a 300% increasewas the result of the perfect storm caused by AI and data centers. Faced with brutal shortages, large companies are trying to get hold of as much memory as possible, which further destabilizes the market. Now manufacturers are taking matters into their own hands. No hoarders, thank you. In an extensive report published by Nikkei Asiatalk about the big three DRAM manufacturers (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix) implementing stricter rules for their customers in order to prevent them from hoarding memory. The measures are aimed at ensuring that demand is real, that is, that the chips are not going to end up collecting dust in a warehouse “just in case.” Manufacturers are asking for details about who the chips are for, the quantities and what they will be used for. OpenAI’s dirty deal. We go back to October 1, 2025. OpenAI signed an agreement with Samsung and SK Hynix to a potential demand for 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. The figure is equivalent to 40% of all world production, absurd, but what is striking is the “potential.” As they point out multiple users on Xare securing a critical product for data centers that have not yet been built, with money they do not have. Some analysts called this agreement “The dirty DRAM deal”whose hidden objective seemed to point to a rather dirty move: to create a moat by preventing its competitors from accessing critical technology. Open orders. The AI ​​race is not going to stop because chips rise in price and big technology companies have done what they had to do: everything possible to get chips. At the end of last year, Reuters He said that some companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta had even approached Micron with open orders, that is, they were willing to accept all the memory they could supply, without a price cap. A full-fledged preventive hoarding. Compulsive shopping. AI companies are not the only ones that have tried to secure their chips, PC manufacturers such as Asus, MSI, Dell or HP also began to buy RAM compulsively at the end of 2025 for accumulate inventory before what was coming. Manufacturers are aware of overorders and that is why they are now demanding data on the end customer. The winners. While everyone is fighting to get their chips, Samsung is getting rich. It is not only that has tripled its profitsFurthermore, it is the technological more has appreciated in 2025ahead of Alphabet and TSMC. For its part, SK Hynix has doubled its profitsmainly due to the boom in demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), of which it is a key supplier. In Xataka | There is a lack of RAM memories and Micron is going to spend 1.8 billion dollars to produce more. but not for you Image | Unsplashedited

It is widely known that Orson Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’ caused a social panic. It is less known that it is a lie

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In my years of training as a journalist I remember how they told us to study the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. My Radio and Television Information teacher told us that it was an exemplary event that could help us in the future practice of the profession to evaluate the responsibility of the media and to understand the mechanisms by which the so-called “fourth estate” could influence the social reality we serve. What perhaps the teachers who transmitted that information to me did not think is that they were right in what they had told me, but for a twofold and partially wrong reason. The legend of War of the Worlds The story is well known: HG Wells, a widely known science fiction writer at the time, had a story titled The War of the Worldsthrough which aliens would come to Earth to conquer humanity. A beginner but ambitious young man named Orson Welles decided to adapt the script to the radio format, giving it a newsreel structure for his television program. Mercury Theater on the Air on CBS and that he would read with other colleagues on the night of October 30, 1938, on Halloween Eve. The broadcast, the reading of this work, lasted an hour in which the aura of truthfulness was maintained except in three momentsone at the very beginning, another 40 minutes into the recording and another at 55. They indicated that it was a dramatization. For the rest, the fiction of that Martian invasion that was taking place in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, remained live. The myth, the documentaries and reports about the case and the journalism classes I attended said that Welles, the hired actors and the sound montages were so believable (and the audiences so naive) that within minutes of them starting to simulate a supposed alien attack the streets of the country were filled with hysterical and shocked masses. Panic attacks, people stockpiling supplies, collapsed police services and who knows what else. We assume that the people who did not hear those warnings were able to connect to the program after the warning and listened to the program without knowing that it was fake. And why wouldn’t we think like that? The newspapers of October 31 had carried the story to the foreground: “False war bulletin spreads terror throughout the country”, “Radio play terrifies the nation”, “Radio listeners panic, they confuse a war drama as a real chronicle”. These are some of the headlines that could be read about an event that, as it was said later, caused rivers of ink to flow in the form of more than 12,000 articles in newspapers throughout the United States. The reality is that, as a series of experts have reflected on different occasions, this interpretation largely falls into the realm of fake news. To support it here we use, above all, the study of professionals and experts from Princeton University, from the work of scholar David Miller in his essay Introduction to Collective Behaviorfrom the book Getting it Wrong by W Joseph Campbellfrom the work of sociologist Robert E. Bartholomew and from what journalists Jefferson Pooley and Michael J. Socolow have collected for Slate. What events did occur The broadcast did cause some effects. We know that some Grover’s Mill locals, believing their town’s water tower had been transformed into a “giant Martian war machine,” fired guns at the water tank. There was at least one woman who sued Welles and his team for causing her a panic attack and one man received direct compensation from the future film director who paid for the shoes that a listener said he had given up to pay for the train ticket he needed to escape the alien catastrophe. It is also true that calls to hospitals increased from people telling them where they could go to get donate bloodand police stations in the New Jersey area were also called, but most who did this were looking to find out if it was a false alarm. They wanted confirmation that it was a joke, but they also called to protest about this program that could be deceiving people or to congratulate them on that great special on that Night of the Dead. But nothing more. All of them came together to serve the approach that the written press wanted to give: that the CBS program had caused mass hysteria, that the radio was lying and deceiving its listeners and that they had created a major problem. And the lies that were published The rumor that people were being treated for shock in New Jersey hospitals was false, as the Princeton Radio office later revealed. The news that a man had died of a heart attack because of the program, as reported by the Washington Post, was also not true. People didn’t jump out of the windows either. In general, hundreds of articlesmany with supposed witness accounts, witnessed chaos that, in truth, had not been such. I remembered Some time later in his memoirs Ben Gross, radio director of the New York Daily News, that in truth the streets of New York They were half empty. It would also later be known that CBS had disconnected the Welles broadcast in different local affiliates in the country to show regional bulletins that, they assumed, would interest their audience more than a little play by Martians. The biggest scandal of all, the audience figures. It was said that more than a million people had listened to the program, when it could not be true. In fact, most people were listening to the NBC rival to ventriloquist Edgar Bergin’s popular radio show. And with most people we are talking about a 2% audience for the NBC show, as demonstrated by an independent survey that was done simultaneously with the broadcast. There is no doubt that in popular culture the idea that The War of the Worlds was a a before and afterthat the phenomenon must have been … Read more

Mexico wanted to know who is behind each phone number. And Telcel has spread panic along the way

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Since January 9, 2026, the Mexican Telecommunications Regulatory Commission requires that all mobile lines in the country are associated with a verified identity. Until now, SIM cards could be contracted completely anonymously, something that changes with the mandatory registration. A logical measure to avoid the telephone SCAM that, in recent hours, has sparked controversy. The alleged gap. Less than 24 hours after the entry into force of the mandatory registration of mobile lines in Mexico, Telcel, one of the largest operators in the country, suffered an alleged security breach which would have exposed personal information of millions of customers. “The official portal of @Telcel presents a critical security vulnerability that exposes the identity, CURP, RFC and email of millions of users. This occurs only 24 hours after the regulations that require all mobile lines in the country to be registered came into force. When entering any Telcel telephone number in the form, the internal system returns – without the need for passwords or verification codes – a complete information package of the line owner. This is extremely dangerous. Any cybercriminal could use one of Telcel’s number bases and automate the massive extraction of information.” Ignacio Gómez Villaseñor, journalist. The reports They pointed to a massive leak of each and every one of their clients, the sources ensuring that for a few hours it was possible to access the data through the official Telcel portal. Telcel’s response. The spread of the alleged breach was such that Telcel did not take long to call for calm. Of course, he did it with a somewhat ambiguous statement in which it neither affirms nor denies that the security failure occurred. “Your data is secure. Each user receives a unique code by SMS to only access their own information and link their line. We have implemented additional security measures to the registration process. The process is secure and your data is protected.” Telcel. Although Telcel assured that, at the time of its publication, the data was safe, the company acknowledges having implemented additional security measures during the registration process. hours later. Renato Flores, deputy director of communications at Telcel, acknowledged hours later on one of the national radio stations that there was a technical vulnerability. “Telcel acted quickly, responsibly and transparently. We detected a vulnerability, we corrected it immediately, we reinforced security and at all times we protected our customers’ data.” Despite admitting the gap, the company’s position remained firm: it ensured that only one’s own information could be accessed as a user, not that of the rest of the company’s clients. It is something that Gómez Villaseñor was quick to deny. through a video published on Xin which he showed how he was able to access user data. The risks. According to the source, the following data was exposed for hours: Owner identity CURP (Unique Population Registry Key) RFC (Federal Taxpayer Registry) Email A relatively similar case to the recent hack of Endesa suffered in Spain, through which the alleged attackers claim to have obtained more than 1TB of information related to account numbers, identities, addresses, telephone numbers and emails. A bumpy process. In the middle of the debate, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT) clarified that, during the first phase of this national registry, there were certain “intermittencies on various platforms” due to the high volume of users, without giving too many details in this regard. The Commission avoided referring to the specific case, and limited itself to pointing out that it remains in contact with the operators to normalize the service. And now what. At the moment, there is no news about possible exploitation of the supposed vulnerability. If this had occurred, the attackers would have access to customers’ personal information, as happens in any other case of mass hacking. In the face of these leaks, the user’s only response may be to be alert: not to respond to or provide sensitive data through SMS, calls, WhatsApp messages or email communications (or any of our means of contact that may have been leaked) without being very clear about who we are referring to. Image | Xataka In Xataka | A single person in Barcelona and 2.5 million SMS per day: the “mobile farms” that operate in Spain to scam you

We have spent 30 years forgetting how things are made. Now China has the keys to the matter and the West is in panic

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For the past three decades, Western democracies have operated under an intellectual mirage. Elites, blinded by a neoclassical bias, assumed that control of intellectual property, financial instruments, and software code constituted the pinnacle of value creation. In this worldview, physical processes—the “dirty work” of mining, refining, and manufacturing—were considered low-margin commodity services that could be outsourced to low-cost jurisdictions without strategic risk. As Gillian Tett explains in his Financial Times columnthis cognitive bias allowed China to dominate global supply chains with little protest. The material deterioration of the West. The essence of the current problem is defined by investor Craig Tindale in his essay “The return of matter”. In it he argues that the West has suffered “strategic disarmament” by dismantling its national productive economy in favor of quarterly financial efficiency. As Tindale details, he fell into the “raw material paradox”: believing that possessing the raw mineral is equivalent to possessing the usable material. While the West possesses vast geological deposits, China has monopolized the “Midstream,” that is, the heavy industrial capacity to refine, smelt and purify these materials into useful forms. Without this capability, a lithium mine in Australia or a copper mine in Arizona are simply quarries for a Chinese smelter; They are not strategic assets for the West if Beijing has the keys to access them. The data is there. The data of the Chinese industrial domain are, as investor Craig Tindale describesoverwhelming and unprecedented in history, consolidating what he calls “processing sovereignty”: Gallium: China controls approximately 98% of global production, a material that is essential for AESA radars, 5G networks and the semiconductors of the future. Rare earths: The Asian giant dominates 90% of chemical separation capacity – the true technical “separation wall” – and more than 90% of the production of NdFeB magnets, vital for electric vehicle engines and defense systems. Graphite: Control more than 90% of the production of graphite anodes, the indispensable component of virtually all lithium-ion batteries. Magnesium and Polysilicon: Your control extends to 90-95% of magnesium casting (key for aluminum alloys) and 95% polysilicon necessary for solar energy. As Tett points outwhile the West became obsessed with software and services, China was quietly building the physical infrastructure that today gives it a massive competitive advantage in the race for artificial intelligence and the energy transition. This physical reality is what has forced the Trump administration to try to redraw the energy map by taking Venezuelan crude oil, desperately seeking to regain control over the “matter.” The electric wall of AI. This physical reality has revealed that the race for Artificial Intelligence It’s not just a question of code or chips. The digital leadership of the West is now encountering the physical limit of cheap energy. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Jensen Huang, director of Nvidia, agree that the biggest current problem is not the excess of chips, but lack of electricity to connect them. On this board, China has gone from being a dependent petrostate to becoming the first “Electrostate” in the world. Beijing now produces 2.5 times more electricity than the US and builds 74% of all current solar and wind projects on the planet. By investing massively in electrification, China is expanding an infrastructure that could give it a definite advantage in the AI ​​race. The Venezuelan trap. Against this backdrop, Donald Trump’s administration has accepted the importance of physical matter, but seems determined to fight with tools from the last century. The taking of Venezuelan crude oil seeks to consolidate the reserves of Venezuela, Guyana and the United States are under US influence, which would represent close to 30% of the world’s oil reserves. according to a JPMorgan report. However, Venezuelan oil alone cannot solve the AI ​​problem. As Gillian Tett warnswhile Washington asks the world to buy 20th century infrastructure (fossil fuels), Beijing offers 21st century infrastructure (renewable energy and high voltage networks). In addition, Venezuelan crude oil is “mortgaged”: The country owes up to $60 billion to China under the oil-for-loans model, and its infrastructure is in ruins. The skills gap and the clash of “clocks.” Rebuilding industrial sovereignty is not just a question of money. The West has closed its heavy industrial capacity for thirty years, causing a “human bottleneck”. Metallurgists and process engineers who know how to adjust an unstable furnace or a chemical separation train are retiring without relief. Tindale further postulates a conflict of time horizons. The “Western Financial Clock,” which requires quarterly profits, has destabilized the “Industrial Clock” (which requires decades of investment) and the “War Clock” (which requires immediate reserves). While China’s clocks are synchronized by the state, the West remains trapped in short-term financial efficiency. Towards a rematerialized sovereignty? The JPMorgan report suggests that the US has won the short-term battle for Venezuelan crude oil. But, as Gillian Tett concludesrisks losing the global strategic war for the energy that will power AI. Tindale’s thesis is blunt: a civilization that financializes everything ends up sacrificing the material base that keeps it independent. If the West does not rebuild its foundries, refineries and factories, it will renounce the material sovereignty that sustains democracy, becoming a simple “quarry” rich in resources but poor in capacity in the face of a rival that already holds the keys to the physical world. Image | freepik Xataka | Venezuela has something much more valuable than oil and the US knows it. The big problem is that he doesn’t know where he is.

The terror of wars was always stepping on a mine. In Ukraine they carry scissors, because the panic is thinner: a spider web

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In May we count that an unexpected weapon had begun to be added among the Ukrainian troops: scissors. Given the brutality of the conflict, a technology had sneaked in to evade electronic warfare and enter the enemy camp on both sides as he had not done before: destroying the lines, making attacks invisible and evading any attempt at interference. Now, the tangle of cables has intensified. A deadly web. In 2025, the Ukrainian front is no longer understood without a sky and ground crossed by thousands of drones and by kilometers of optical cable that transform the land into a physical and tactical tangle. What started as a technological revolution to compensate for human shortcomings has evolved into an industrialized war in which each innovation immediately generates a counter-innovation, and where Ukraine, which for years led the initiative, now faces a scenario in which Russia obtains a sustained advantage. Fiber optic drones (invulnerable to electronic shielding) have colonized trenches, roads and wooded areas, leaving visible and invisible networks that slow down every movement and that, in the middle of the night, they get confused with real traps. Narratives from units like the Ukrainian Rangers show a landscape in which advancing is as dangerous as retreating: cables hanging from trees, entrenched in mud, or accidentally attached to weapons and vehicles after each mission. There is no “safe zone.” The great transformation is not in territorial advances, but in the Russian ability to hit supply lines tens of km from the front. What yesterday was a rearguard today is a vulnerable gray zoneand what once required manned aviation is now accomplished by swarms of small, remotely guided vehicles. The explosions that convoys have reached on theoretically protected roads confirm that Moscow has given absolute priority to the war of attrition: attacking where it hurts most, preventing rotations, exhausting Ukrainian drone pilots and forcing brigades to walk dozens of kilometers on foot to avoid detection. This logistical pressure not only undermines military resistance, but also alters the political balance: a country that loses strategic depth also loses negotiating capacity. The Rubikon unit. It we have counted before. The appearance of Rubikon, the elite unit that reorganized Russian doctrine after the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, marks a before and after. Recruiting the best pilots, integrating optical drones, FPV and “mother” platforms like the Molniya, they exported a lethal model to the Donbas: attack supply before infantry, eliminate enemy pilots before riflemen, destroy capabilities before positions. Its success lies less in technology than on the scale: Russia produces more, deploys more and lets China nurture its fiber optic industry without limits. In Pokrovsk (the crudest laboratory of this mutation) Ukrainian soldiers calculate that Russian drones surpass them in a ratio of 10 to 1. The city, turned into a puzzle of ruins where the front line changes every few hours, exemplifies how tactical air dominance has become the decisive factor in controlling the terrain. The Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine continues to cause severe damage in the final strip before the front, where traditional FPVs remain lethal. But the rest of the board has leaned against her: a shortage of optical cables, pilots forced to launch from ever greater distances, disrupted logistics chains and a military industry struggling to produce what Russia receives on an industrial scale. Some controls they insist in which the strategic error is to prioritize the destruction of Russian infantry instead of replicating the Rubikon model: hunt down the operators, saturate the logistics nodes and act in depth. However, any solution requires resources that Ukraine does not have and that its allies provide too slowly. Chinese fiber optics, the officers point outis tipping the balance with more weight than many Western diplomatic decisions. Between swarms and cables. The conclusion is disturbing: war no longer depends so much on territorial advances as on who controls the drone ecosystem, who has more operational pilotswho can saturate the most kilometers of enemy rear and who turns rival logistics into a prohibited zone. The front, turned into a spider web physically by wires and digitally webed by unmanned swarms, is being redefined at a speed that Ukraine struggles to match. If kyiv does not regain the technological initiative and achieve a steady supply of optical capabilities and long-range platforms, 2026 could be the first year in which Russia’s structural advantage in drones not only complicates Ukrainian offensives, but seriously limits its ability to sustain current defenses. Image | reddit In Xataka | Russia had managed to manufacture drones and missiles despite the sanctions. So selling Zara clothes was a matter of time In Xataka | The round of peace meetings in Ukraine has ended. Russia says it is “ready”, but for war with Europe

25 years ago, Europe was close to panic at the barbarism of Japanese motorcycles. So Japan limited them to 299 km/h

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The 90s were one of the golden times of motorcycling. A time when there was no Electronic controls, Anticontamination regulations No concern for security. Where now we see chaos and lack of control, a few years ago motorcycle manufacturers saw a test field to launch the fastest vehicles in the world. So much so, that the brands themselves had to put a limit to stop competing fiercely between them. What was happening. The motorcycle market has changed. Currently what is sold the most They are scooters and comfortable motorcyclesl, the SUV made motorcycle. In the 90s, the icons were the Japanese sports of Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki. There came a point where virtually great street sports car reached vertigo speeds. In the early 90s, Honda launched her CBR900RR Firebladeone of the fastest production motorcycles in the world. It soon being overcome by the kawasaki ZZR1100 and later by the Hayabusa. A race to step on the grass of the neighbor that ended up uncontrolled. The 300 km/h. Motorcycles like Hayabusa ranly passed the 330 km/h, and in fear that governments imposed new regulations and prohibitions against such powerful vehicles, the industry decided to self -control with A gentlemen pact. The industry wanted to continue selling supercardives, but I did not want to intimidate the regulatory agencies with motorcycles that began to get closer to the barrier of the 400 km/h than to that of the 300. A secret pact. The gentlemen’s pact among motorcycle manufacturers is an open secret, although given the nature of the agreement there were never official statements. It is rumored that BMW began conversations with both Japanese and Italian manufacturers. Interestingly, when BMW did not have a single motorcycle capable of competing for being the fastest. Be that as it may, in the early 2000s the pact began to be fulfilled: the motorcycles launched by manufacturers, such as the Kawasaki ZZR1200 Or Honda’s proposals, did not exceed 299 km/h. But the sports market demanded speed and muscle, flying through the air the pact. It didn’t last long. Just seven years later, Italian as MV Agusta They left the pact in the air, with models such as the F4 R exceeding 300 km/h. It is something that BMW itself also did with its S1000R And, again, the fastest sports race began. Honda CBR1000RR-R-SP, much more than 299 km/h, although the scoreway says otherwise. What remains of the pact. Although there are numerous street motorcycles that exceed 300 km/h, the Japanese keep the pact alive. Manufacturers like Honda do not mark speed beyond 299 km/h, although the motorcycle is really running beyond her. The same happens with Yamaha. Versions such as the New Hayabusa or the Kawasaki H2, motorcycles that could touch the 400 km/h, remain electronically limited to 299 km/h. The Japanese respect and tradition keep the pact almost intact, maintaining the exceptions for circuit such as the Kawasaki H2R and its 400 km/h … with the house motorcycle. There are also those who dedicate themselves to prepare motorcycles to pass from 440 km/h. Luckily, they can’t step on the street. Not only in motorcycles. The pact among Japanese giants was not the only one decades ago. In the 80s and until well entered the 2000, manufacturers such as Nissan, Honda, Subaru and Toyota They signed a pact so that their cars had no more than 280 hp nor exceed 180 km/h. It is especially striking to upload a Japanese of almost 300 hp, and see that Your marker is tarado in those 180. The measure arose in response to the growing concerns for road safety in the country, an agreement not formalized before the public, but evident when analyzing car after car. This is still the limitations at 250 km/h in large part of current sports. Image | Austin Hervias In Xataka | Chinese motorcycles are sweeping in Spain: who is who in this brand puzzle

Quantum computers threaten encryption technologies. This is the reason why we do not have to panic

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This month is being very exciting for enthusiasts who follow up the current Quantum computers. Xanadu, a young Canadian company founded in 2016, has announced that Plan to have ready before 2030 A quantum computer of one million photonic ulna with error correction. However, it is not the only company that intends to make this milestone come true. IBM plans to make available to its customers in 2029 ‘Starling’its first large -scale quantum computer endowed with the ability to amend your own mistakes. The main problem facing quantum computers in the field of error correction is noise, understood as the disturbances that can alter the internal state of the cubits and introduce calculation errors. In any case, if finally the correction of errors comes to fruition the prototypes of quantum computers that we have currently will leave behind their status of prototypes and allow us to face really significant problems. And presumably Bitcoin encryption and other cryptocurrencies will fall. We are facing a worrying challenge Quantum computer experts have known for several years that quantum computers They will end classical cryptography. That moment came in May 2024. A team of researchers from the University of Shanghai (China) led by Professor Wang Chao used a quantum computer D-Wave for I successfully violate the SPN encryption (Substitation-Permutation Network), which is a cryptographic algorithm that is used to encrypt information. This encryption is the cornerstone of, for example, the AES standard (Advanced Encryption Standard), which is used a lot. These scientists published the result of their research in An interesting article entitled “Public Cryptographic Attack Algorithm based on quantum processing with the advantage of D-Wave”. However, this is not all. And it is that in the middle of May several Google researchers They published an entry In the blog dedicated to the security of this American company in which they support a crucial premise: an integer RSA (Rivest – Shamir – Adleman) of 2,048 bits can factor in less than a week with a quantum computer of less than one million cubits. An RSA integer of 2,048 bits can be factor in less than a week with a quantum computer of less than one million cubits Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and the other modern cryptocurrencies use a cryptography technique known as elliptical curve that is more robust, efficient and difficult to break than RSA, but its mathematical foundations are similar to those of the latter encryption algorithm. In fact, according to Google scientists signed by the article that I have mentioned above, if the future quantum computers will cost them less than initially breaking the RSA encryption, the cryptography of elliptical curve will also fall with relative ease. So far we have talked about cryptocurrencies, but it is crucial that we do not overlook that encryption technologies have a fundamental role in our daily lives. In fact, WhatsApp and Telegram use them to encrypt our messages; Banks turn to them to Protect our transactions And every time we buy something on the Internet, it is the encryption that is responsible for protecting our credit card information. These are just some of the applications of this technology. Keith Martin, professor of the Information Security Group at the University of London (England), has published in The conversation An interesting article in which it addresses this topic. And it reminds us of something important: the threat of quantum computers to encryption technologies is very real, but we have no reason to panic because many researchers have been working on the solution to this challenge for several years. In fact, most of the theoretical work is already done. In 2024 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the United States published an initial set of standards that includes a post -mecuantic keys exchange mechanism and several postcuantic digital signature schemes. The work that is already done invites us to anticipate that at the time the relevant quantum computers appear from a cryptographic point of view Technologies will already be ready They will be able to protect our information. And in all likelihood these techniques will also be in the hands of quantum computers, such as Juan José García Ripoll holdsResearcher at the Institute of Fundamental Physics of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Image | IBM More information | The conversation In Xataka | China manufactures quantum computers as if it were life in it. Its best plant is capable of producing eight at the same time

Before panic for US tariffs there are technological ones doing something uncommon: product collection

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The scenario of Commercial War between the United States and China is generating an uncomfortable emotion in some of the technological giants: absolute panic by what may happen in the coming months. The supply chain is intended to change, and manufacturers live an uncertainty that increases for weeks. Some of them have begun to move, from Apple to Nintendo, with a clear objective. The collection of as many product units is possible to avoid a greater impact. Standby, not a real pause. The current status of tariffs is that of a ninety -day pause. With the numbers that are right now on the table, the products imported from China to the United States suffer a 145%tariff. The global is set at 10%. They are numbers that are of little use since, since the beginning of the month, they have suffered a practically weekly dance. The situation at the time we write this piece is from standby, but could change completely in a matter of time. Apple, the first to move file. According to sources of Reuters, Apple fought 600 tons of iPhones in airplanes from India to the United States. A total of six commercial flights with a million and a half devices in total. A decision that would be accompanied by An increase in India production of 20%in order to mitigate the impact of tariffs. They are still ridiculous figures compared to the bulk global sales of the iPhone, which exceeds 100 million annually. Nintendo and Switch 2. The Gaming Estrella product in this first half of the year was the new Nintendo Switch 2a device that started from 469.99 euros, but for which price increases are not ruled out. Just a few days after its launch, Nintendo announced The postponement of reservations in the United States. According to sources of Bloombergthe Japanese company is sending thousands of consoles From Vietnam to the United States. The objective is simple: introduce in American territory as many consoles made of China as possible. Consumers begin to answer. The fear of future price increases is not affecting only manufacturers, consumers too They begin to answer. Sources of Bloomberg They ensure that in just a weekend the influx to the American app store has been similar to that of the Christmas campaign, one of the most powerful for Apple. “Sales of networks in North America grew very strong when benefiting from the awarded contracts and the accelerated investment of customers, partly reflecting the uncertainty of tariffs” Manufacturers such as Ericsson have triggered their sales in the first quarter in American territory by 64%, to some extent due to an acceleration in investments in networks infrastructure caused by uncertainty. It is not enough. The world is beginning to respond to the possible stage of a 145%tariff, but neither charting airplanes nor increase production in other countries will be sufficient. The industry is condemned to raise prices to survive, as well as to look for alternative routes for a production chain that has been optimizing for more than two decades. Image | Xataka and Pixabay In Xataka | If the question is “who will win if prices for tariffs up” the answer is: “Second -hand mobiles”

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