perfectly

The fundamental trick to perfectly control the car’s temperature is a (not) forgotten button on the dashboard

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Although with the fury of bringing screens to cars There are fewer and fewer buttons, we still find a lot of old-fashioned controls scattered around the steering wheel and the dashboard of the car. However, there is usually a small element (sometimes shaped like a circular knob, which may or may not protrude) that usually looks like a button that goes unnoticed due to its location: it is far enough away that it cannot be easily operated. Spoiler: if you touch it nothing happens. And nothing happens simply because it is a solar sensor or solar load sensor (if we get more technical, a phototransistor), a piece little known to the general public but of great importance as it is the element that the automatic air conditioning uses to regulate the temperature correctly. It is essential to control the temperature of the car More specifically, is located at the bottom of the dashboard and in the central area, attached to the front window. It usually has the speaker grille or the air outlet grille nearby to defog the window. Hence it neither looks good nor is it comfortable to touch. That position makes all the sense in the world: it is one of the best areas inside the cabin to capture sunlight from outside. Precisely the reason for the sensor, since the sunlight that enters a car can reach represent up to 60% heat load that the air conditioning system has to overcome in the search for comfort. A good everyday example: the temperature difference between parking in the same place on a summer day when the sun is shining overhead or doing so at night or when it is cloudy. This solar load sensor It is actually a photodiode which measures the intensity of solar radiation in order to be able adjust climate controlwhich includes the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. On that hot day in the example, the air conditioning will have to work as hard as possible to cool the cabin as soon as possible. But if it’s night or cloudy, you won’t need to blow as hard. At a technical level, its mechanism is simple: the photodiode moves in an operating range between 0 and 5 Volts, offering more resistance as the light intensity increases, so that the sensor signal decreases as the solar load increases. This signal is what then reaches the control, which gives orders to the system to adjust the speed and intensity. The solar load sensor is not the only one responsible of the operation of the air conditioning, since the vehicle integrates more sensors such as the sensor to measure the interior temperature. And they also have other sensors to turn the lights on or off or configure the mode of the screens and dashboard depending on the exterior lighting. By the way, in some cars there is not only one solar charge sensor, but there are two, one on each side of the dashboard and in that same area adjacent to the front window: they are models that have dual zone air conditioning. In Xataka | The triangles on the plane window are not for decoration: they are a quick way to check that the flight is going well In Xataka | Few people know what the red balls on high-tension cables are for: they are a simple way to save lives Images | Skoda, Opel and SEAT

Motorola has perfectly understood what it needs to continue growing: expensive mobile phones

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If there is a manufacturer putting all its efforts to achieve a premium product that is far from its competition (for better or worse), it is Motorola. The smartphone market has taken giant steps in the last five years with the arrival of AIthe folding mobiles and recently high density batteries. A tug of war between Asian manufacturers and the rest of the world, with two clearly marked identities: China betting everything on the latest technology and the rest being more conservative. Along the way, we have a Motorola (now owned by the Chinese Lenovo, but maintaining its identity as an American company), striving to achieve a premium identity, trying along the way not be a clone of the rest of your rivals. And, at this CES 2026, we have two good proofs of this. The missing fold. It started RoyoleSamsung consolidated it, and manufacturers such as OPPO and Xiaomi refined the concept. The Fold-type folding devices are still alive as an alternative for users who want a pocket tablet, and Motorola has wanted to fully enter this field. A new Razr. Motorola Razr Fold is the name that the company has given to its first book-type folding, after years of betting on the clamshell type. The bet is clear: 8.09-inch AMOLED external screen, with 2K resolution and LTPO type technology. 6.56-inch AMOLED external screen. Triple camera system: 50 megapixel Lytia main sensor, 50 megapixel ultra wide angle and three optical magnification telephoto lens and also 50 megapixels. 32-megapixel external and 20-megapixel internal selfie camera. Bet on Pantone colors: Blackened Blue and Lily White. Optimized software with adaptive interface. Support for the Moto Pen Ultra pen. Little secrets to discover. Motorola has not revealed the rest of the specifications, but we can sense one of the best Qualcomm processors inside (Snapdragon 8 Gen 5), as this chip manufacturer is one of Motorola’s main partners. It will not be able to come short on memory configurations if it wants to be competitive, and the big unknown is reserved for the battery, one of the critical points in clamshell-type folding devices, with panels larger than 8 inches. The premiumization of Motorola. Xiaomi was clear that to make money it had to put cheap mobile phones in the background and bet on premium terminals. Something that Motorola also knows very well. For some time now, Motorola’s main bet is on your Edge familyolder brothers of the Moto G classics. Mid-premium range and high range with the software as the main star feature and an alliance with Pantone so that the design is a key point and differential compared to its competition. Edge, Edge Fusion, Edge Pro… And, to go one step further, The Signature family arrives now. Motorola Signature. Motorola’s new high-end is not an Edge Pro, it is a Signature. The design tells us that this model inherits quite a bit of essence from the Edge (it is practically identical to the brand’s latest models), but betting on even more ambitious specs. The latest Qualcomm chip. Memories up to 1 TB. Zoom up to 100x. 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery. 6.8-inch screen with peak brightness of up to 6,200 nits. A key year. 2026 will be a very important year for Motorola. Its year-on-year growth in shipments was 24% in 2024. Still far from the global podium, but managing to gain a foothold little by little. Image | Motorola In Xataka | Motorola Edge 60 Fusion, analysis: I had been waiting for years for a worthy heir to the legendary Moto G. I just found it

We have been believing for decades that wet hair makes us sick in winter. Science knows perfectly well that it is a lie

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“Don’t go out with wet hair or you’ll catch pneumonia” or “put on your coat or you’ll catch a cold” are very grandmotherly phrases that almost all of us have been told in our childhood and that have been burned into our brains. But the question we can ask ourselves: is this true? The reality is that not directly. The culprit. May we have a cold or flu It doesn’t exactly depend on the cold. The culprit in this case are infectious agents such as viruses, the most common being rhinovirus. The fact that this microscopic germ accesses our body and overcomes our defense barriers causes it to begin to replicate and generate its effect that In the long run it’s really annoying when accompanied by fever, cough and a host of other symptoms. In this way, the equation is quite simple: if there is no exposure to the virus, the external temperature is irrelevant. To understand it, if we put ourselves in the situation of going out to Antarctica with our hair soaked and naked, we would surely die of hypothermia, but we wouldn’t catch a cold unless a penguin sneezed rhinovirus on us. The same thing happens if we are in an environment completely isolated from viruses and at a very low temperature: no infection would occur. The experts. Just as it isExperts from the Mayo Clinic explain and disseminating pharmacistscold alone does not have the ability to spontaneously generate a pathogen. Cold is a physical condition, not a biological agent. And science has been trying to explain this for decades. One of the most cited and relevant studies is the one carried out by the University of Rochester where they separated volunteers into two groups. One of them was exposed to low temperature and cold conditions; the other was kept in a warm and comfortable environment. Subsequently, they were exposed to rhinovirus that causes colds. The result. In this way, it was seen that between the two groups there was no significant difference in the contagion of the virus or in the symptoms they presented. The group subjected to the cold did not have a harsher cold, so the factor in getting sick was solely and exclusively the virus. Getting sick in winter. It is a reality that when winter arrives the rates of people with colds or flu increase greatly, as we are seeing in Spain these days. This makes us think that the relationship really exists, whatever science says. And this is where we give a little point to ‘grandmother’s advice’. Science suggests that rhinoviruses they replicate better at the temperatures we usually have in our noseswhich ranges from 33 to 35 °C. But in addition, the cold temperature also causes our defenses to lower, so it is much easier for the virus to access our body and begin to spread in a much simpler way. And that’s why winter is where we see a higher rate of colds. Other factors. But he is not the only one. The social factor is also a big culprit, because when it is cold the truth is that it is better to be locked up at home with Netflix. But in these cases we would be in an interior space with little ventilation (because it is cold) and very close to other people. In this way, if a person has the virus, the probability of contagion skyrockets in a heated indoor place much more than in an open-air park at 5°C. Another point is the dry environment that exists at this time due to the cold outside and the indoor heating. This causes the nasal mucous membranes to dry out, which is a serious problem for the mucus, which is our first line of defense at the entrance to viruses and bacteria. If the mucosa is dry, its effectiveness decreases and facilitates the entry of pathogens. Wet hair. A special distinction must be made for this myth since today there is no evidence to justify a relationship between wet hair and an increase in viral infections. Going out with wet hair causes a great loss of body heat (since the head has a lot of vascularized surface), which generates notable thermal discomfort. This translates into a feeling of very cold, feeling cold and perhaps accompanied by a headache due to muscle tension derived from the cold, but the humidity on the scalp does not attract germs or facilitate infection. Images | Dmitriy Kievskiy Brittany Colette In Xataka | H5N1 bird flu unleashes a massacre in Antarctica: half of the female seals have already disappeared

There are 500 million users who could perfectly upgrade to Windows 11. The problem is that they don’t want to

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If you are reading this and still using Windows 10you are at risk. Microsoft a month and a half ago ended the official support period for this operating system that was launched in 2015. The curious thing is that what should be happening is not happening. Dell as an example of what is happening in the world. Dell COO Jeff Clarke recently participated in an interview at The Motley Fool and they asked him for his vision on how the end of Windows 10 would affect the migration of users to Windows 11. That’s when he confessed that all his expectations came crashing down. The end of Windows 10 pointed to the growth of Windows 11. In fact, Clarke explained that before it happened he was very confident that this end of the cycle would lead people to buy a new PC or install Windows 11 on their computers. However, the executive indicated that they have realized that the adoption of Windows 11 is between 10 and 12 points below what happened with previous generations: people are not updating to this operating system as they expected. 500 million users simply skip updating. Clarke’s estimate is that there are about 1.5 billion devices (PCs and laptops) running Windows, and that’s where he made the most disturbing statement: “There are about 500 million PCs capable of running Windows 11 that have not been updated. And we have another 500 million that are four years old and cannot run Windows 11. All of them pose a huge opportunity to upgrade to Windows 11.” And yet, they don’t do it, or what is the same: A third of global Windows users do not have a PC officially compatible with Windows 11 and cannot directly upgrade Another third have a PC compatible with Windows 11 but users simply They have chosen not to do so. If it works, don’t touch it? For many users, including business users, the unwritten rule is often precisely “if it works, don’t touch it.” This is especially delicate in companies, because they may depend on legacy systems and if they update to new versions, conflicts may arise that affect the operations of the business itself. And still… A colossal security hole. Once again, what is really worrying about this is that although these PCs and laptops are working correctly, if they are based on Windows 10 or previous versions of Windows, they are absolutely exposed to all kinds of security flaws. At any time, these PCs could become victims of malware that turns them into members of a botnet, or of ransomware that prevents us from accessing our data unless we pay a ransom. This is already bad for individual users, but for companies the risk is enormous. A ray of hope. Here we just have to wait for users to realize that updating their equipment is important and relatively easy. In fact, on officially compatible devices this is basically a matter of clicking the “Next” button when running the update wizard. If your device is not compatible, there is a trick. On computers that theoretically do not meet the conditions—such as, for example, that do not have native support for TPN 2.0—there are not excessive problems either, because it is possible to “trick” Windows with a command or even with the use of a modified version of Windows 11. Come on, although it seems that you cannot update to Windows 11, the most normal thing is that in reality yes you can. And of course, there is Linux. If for some reason what users don’t want is to upgrade to Windows 11 because they don’t like it, the options are there in the form of Linux distributions. It seems that this path is being chosen by an already notable number of users, and this is demonstrated by the fact that, for example, Zorin OS—a fork of Ubuntu—has seen its distribution Zorin OS 18which arrived just at the time when Windows 10 was no longer officially supported, has been downloaded more than a million times in the last few days. In Xataka | If you have an old PC, there is an effective alternative to Windows 11 requirements and bloatware: this is how Flyoobe works

China does not want users on the Internet. He wants perfectly identified citizens

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China will establish a new virtual identity system so that its citizens can record on all types of online services and platforms. The new system – which is now voluntary – is called “identity certification of the National Network” and will make Chinese Internet users lose one of the few cracks that had left: anonymity. Internet card. The regulations of this new centralized Internet identity system It was published In May 2025 and will enter into force on July 15, 2025. Identity checks will be mandatory in all types of online platforms, and that will imply that it will be very difficult for users to maintain their anonymity for example on social networks. This virtual card works as a mobile application in mobile NFCs that can configure both adult and minor users, as explained The guide start -up. The Chinese excuse. In the document published jointly by several Chinese agencies – as the Ministry of Public Security or the administration of the cyberspace of China – it is indicated that its objective is to “protect the security of citizens’s information and support the healthy and orderly development of the digital economy.” A “Antibalas Vest”. In the CCTV account – the Chinese official public television service— In Weibo They explained how These measures “They are based on legal identity information” and will provide a way to verify users in all types of services and “reduce the collection and retention of personal identity information.” It is like “A bulletproof vest so that third parties cannot gather your full personal information,” they say. Digital Totalitarianism. In CNN cite The words of Xiao Qiang, a researcher specializing in Internet censorship, which indicates that “it is a unified identity system and directed by the State, capable of monitoring and blocking users in real time. You can directly erase the voices that you do not like, so it is more than a surveillance tool: it is an infrastructure of digital totalitarianism.” Another repression measure. There is the Internet that we all know and use, and there is the Chinese Internet. And in that last Censorship and control dominate everything. The Chinese totalitarian regime is more patent than ever in the access and use of the Internet, and We have seen In recent years with the massive prohibition of Feminist or LGTB activismthe elimination of Youth jargon In social networks, the fight against CULTITIES CULTor the Total comments control that users publish on social networks to eliminate those that are not appropriate. State pseudonyms. According to the State Media Agency Xinhua, More than six million people They have already registered voluntarily to achieve their particular Internet identifier. The “cyberspace identifier”, as the agency calls it, can have two variants: a series of letters and numbers or an online credential. Both correspond to the real identity of the user “but exclude information in flat text.” That is: they are a kind of pseudonym, but one controlled by the State. “Volunteer” with quotes. One of those responsible for the Ministry of Public Security also indicated in Xinhua how this virtual card was voluntary. However, this voluntariness is debatable because the Chinese government is promoting the integration of said system into various industries and sectors. Haochen Sun, a law professor at Hong Kong University, said in CNN that although the law effectively presents the system as a volunteer, it could end up becoming a system that users would have to end up using to access all types of platforms that integrate it. Silence criticism. This system He began to take his first steps Last year, when a police manager named Jia Xiaoliang proposed it at a meeting of the National Popular Party Congress in March 2024. The criticisms of the experts were numerous, and for example Lao Dongyan, a well -known professor of law at the University of Tsinghua, said in Weibo that the system allowed to “install a espionage device for the online activity of people.” Evogate. That post ended up being erased and the account suspended without being able to publish for three months for “violating important rules.” A year later, when the definitive rules of the project were finally published, there were practically no criticism on social networks. As Xiao explained, it is a typical method in China, which leaves some time before announcing definitive measures to allow some “relief” and those voices end up losing strength. Image | Joseph Chan In Xataka | China is training its AI in suitcases full of hard drives: thus they are mocking the US veto to the advanced chips

The next the gold era are the data centers and Softbank has seen it perfectly

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In 2025 the technology giants will dedicate a lot, a lot of money to data centers. Microsoft speaks of 80,000 million dollars of investment and google of 75,000 million. Not to mention Stargate projectwho plans to go further and Invest 500,000 million dollars With softbank and openai as protagonists. And precisely SoftBank seems to be preparing an important movement to take advantage of this true gold fever. Ampere in the spotlight. As indicated in Bloomberg, SoftBank is in advanced negotiations for the acquisition of ampere. The firm designs and manufactures processors for servers in data centers, and does so using ARM technology. 6,500 million valuation. Ampere is participated in 29% by Oracle, and the current estimate of its value is around 6,500 million dollars. In 2021 SoftBank already negotiated a possible investment that placed the ampere value at 8,000 million dollars, but since then the competition and evolution of the semiconductor market has made this assessment change. ARM would have a great ally. Wednesday ARM presented Your fiscal results. Although income grew 19%, he warned that he would not be able to reach the maximum income for the income of 2025 he had previously advanced. That caused a fall of 6% of its actions. The company, which is the pillar of the mobile segment, has long tried to make the leap to the market and AI market, and ampere would be an interesting ally in that area. Promising chips. Ampere presented its ampereone processors last year, which is expected this year they reach Have a version of 256 cores. This chip, manufactured with 3 Nm photolithography, will have an important competitive advantage: efficiency, something crucial for data centers. Attracting data centers. Precisely having more efficient chips and that consume less energy is increasingly important for data centers, than They threaten with “swallow” up to 1,000 power in 2026. Truce between ARM and Qualcomm? There is one more interesting factor. Qualcomm is current ampere ally since both are developing an inference chip of the set. The funny thing here is that ARM was involved in a legal process with Qualcomm. However Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, He indicated Wednesday At the Conference for Investors, he stressed that ARM had withdrawn the demand for violation of the license agreement. That announcement seems to be able to be related to the negotiations between SoftBank and Ampere: if Arm “has made peace” with Qualcomm, a possible ampere-anm-qualcomm triplet raises important advantages in order to compete in a market as complex as this. Image | Miki Yoshihito | In Xataka | Qualcomm dodges a lethal bullet and is winning his judgment against ARM: that is crucial for the future of his PC chips

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