problem

TSMC is on the ropes and its biggest problem is not competition: it is water

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CC Wei, the president and CEO of TSMC, has just participated in the inauguration of the Pingtung technology park, southern Taiwan. The ceremony was held under very intense rain, and the head of the largest chip manufacturing company of the planet has celebrated it publicly: “Last month I was still wondering: what should we do with the water? Should we start using tankers?” Wei has compelling reasons to be concerned about water. In Taiwan it is a very scarce resource, and it is also essential for its semiconductor factories. The integrated circuit production industry faces five major shortages: water, energy, labor, land and talent. And water is probably the most precious resource of all and the most difficult challenge to overcome. Lai Ching-te, the president of Taiwan, has communicated CC Wei the Government’s plans to connect the island’s reservoirs together in a clear attempt to alleviate this problem. The water we are familiar with, such as that which comes from the tap, spring water, and even bottled mineral water, is full of impurities. It contains bacteria, dissolved gases, mineral salts and microscopic particles in suspension. This is not a problem for most of the everyday applications for which we usually use it, but this water is not suitable for making chips. Even the smallest impurity invisible to the human eye is pure poison when involved in the production of cutting-edge semiconductors, such as 2nm integrated circuits which are currently being manufactured by TSMC, Intel and Samsung. Droughts are the biggest threat to TSMC The integrated circuit manufacturing process requires cleaning silicon wafers dozens of times. Every time a geometric pattern is transferred to wafers using lithography, they need to be cleaned. Also after pouring chemical reagents and photoresist fluids on them. However, the water used to remove any residue that may have deposited on the wafer cannot have the slightest impurity. It must be absolutely pure. In fact, the industry standard calls for water with an electrical resistivity of 18.2 megaohms per centimeter, which is the theoretical limit of water purity at room temperature. The problem is that producing ultrapure water is not easy. And it is not because it is necessary to subject it to reverse osmosis in multiple stages and ion exchange treatments. It is also necessary to degas it under vacuum, eliminate any microorganisms that it can contain with ultraviolet light and filter it using membranes expressly designed to capture the slightest impurity. In this article we do not need to delve into these processes, but there is something that we cannot ignore: this treatment consumes energy and requires the use of a large amount of chemicals. Furthermore, a significant part of the water that is processed is not transformed into ultrapure water, so it cannot be used. In 2021 Taiwan faced the most aggressive drought in recent decades In 2021 Taiwan faced the most aggressive drought in recent decades. The reservoirs that supply the north of the island, which is the region where most of the integrated circuit manufacturing plants are located, reached a critical level. This scenario forced the Government to suspend agricultural irrigation in order to protect industrial supply. Even so, TSMC had to resort to tanker trucks to transport water from other areas of the island. This crisis passed, but it exposed a structural vulnerability of an industry that is deeply sensitive to extreme climate phenomena and for which water is as valuable as silicon or some rare earth elements. At the moment TSMC reuses 85% of water that it consumes in its processes, but its plants require so much water daily that the 15% that cannot be reused continues to be a very large amount. Paradoxically, some of the most important chip factories in the US reside in Arizona, which is the second driest state in the country only behind Nevada. Both Intel and TSMC have state-of-the-art plants in this region, and Samsung manages several state-of-the-art factories in Texas, another state where water is not exactly plentiful. Besides, Intel has several very important plants in Israelagain a country for which water is a scarce resource, and, therefore, of great strategic value. The choice of these locations responds to geostrategic and geopolitical factors, and not to planning that prioritizes sustainability. In addition, there is another unappealable reality that further complicates this panorama: the most advanced integrated circuit manufacturing nodes. consume more ultrapure water than mature nodes. A 3nm chip from TSMC goes through more than 1,000 individual stages, and many of them require washing with ultrapure water As transistors become smaller and chips become more sophisticated, the number of stages required for their production process is higher, making it necessary to clean the wafers with ultrapure water more times. A 3nm semiconductor from TSMC goes through more than 1,000 individual stages, many of which require washing with ultrapure water. 2nm chips are even more demanding, and those that will arrive in the future will surely multiply water consumption. The problem faced by TSMC, Intel, Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, GlobalFoundries and other semiconductor manufacturers is daunting. These companies are developing solutions, but at the moment they are not enough. TSMC, Samsung and Intel have very advanced water recycling and reuse programs. In addition, these companies are developing dry cleaning systems for wafers using reactive plasmas instead of water for use in some steps. And they are even looking for new materials for the ultrapure water distribution pipes with the purpose of minimizing losses in the circulation system. The problem is that these solutions do not eliminate the deep dependence that chip factories have on water. The definitive solution has not yet arrived. And it is urgent. It is very urgent. Image | TSMC More information | Reuters In Xataka | ChatGPT blocking mode: what it is, what it is for, who can use it and how to activate it In Xataka | AI is replacing one of the most hated jobs in the world: the tailcoat collector

Greece wanted to put AI to monitor traffic. The problem came when the fines had to be reviewed

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Putting cameras with artificial intelligence to monitor traffic sounds, on paper, like an almost inevitable solution: less paperwork, more speed and an administration capable of detecting violations without depending on an agent being in the right place. The problem appears when that promise comes down to the asphalt and what we have seen in Greece forces us to ask a much more difficult question for any automated system: what happens when the machine flags a possible infraction, but then someone has to check if it really existed. The problem. Ta Nea published a figure which forces us to look at the system from the inside, not only in terms of the fines that reach the driver. According to the Greek media, during the pilot phase the percentage of failures or incorrect registrations would have reached between 90% and 95%. The scale helps to understand the problem: of 5,500 records generated by the system, only 400 were validated as correct after review by the Greek Police. The remaining cases included 1,300 cases attributed to cell phone use and 3,800 due to speeding that were eventually discarded. The key. The Greek system provides for a long chain: cameras record a possible infringement, this information goes through validation by the competent authority and only then can it be broadcast and digitally notified to the citizen. That is why Ta Nea’s data is so relevant. It does not simply point to drivers who resort after receiving a sanction, but to a previous bottleneck: a huge amount of records that the system generates and that the Police have to review before considering them good. New violation management model. Greece has a pilot phase since the end of March the Digital Traffic Violations Certification System, designed to gradually replace handwritten fines with a digital registration and processing process. In this first stage, two main sources intervene: the cameras of the public transport company OSY in the bus lanes, aimed at traffic and parking violations, and the network of “smart” cameras linked to the Ministry of Digital Governance. Then comes another plane. Until May 30, 2026, according to Euronewsthe new mechanism had generated 2,453 digital fines, for which 420 allegations were presented, 17.12% of the total. Of those claims, 52 were accepted, equivalent to 2.11% of all fines issued. Most of the accepted cases were related to technical or procedural issues, such as time differences, difficult-to-read data or exceptions linked to seat belt use. The distinction. One thing is the records that the camera generates and that must then go through police review before becoming a valid sanction. Another thing is the fines that have already passed that filter, have been issued, have been notified to the citizen and can then be the subject of allegations. In other words: the system has a human review before the fine arrives, but that does not prevent some drivers from continuing to appeal sanctions that had already gone through that circuit. Conflict point. As explained by a transportation expert cited by Ta Nea, the failure would not be so much in external violations as in those that occur inside the vehicle. Running a red light or driving over the speed limit can be recorded more faithfully, while detecting whether someone is wearing a seatbelt or using a cell phone depends on much more variable factors. Shadows, colors, camera angles or objects such as a cigarette can alter the reading and turn a questionable image into an alleged infringement. Images | Greek Ministry of Digital Governance In Xataka | A German driver set out to discover how much he could stretch the tank of his old diesel car. And he has done 2,400 kilometers

We thought that the problem of insomnia was on the mobile screen. Science points to the harmless five o’clock coffee

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There is a ritual that many of us follow without questioning it. We arrived at five in the afternoon with our brains fried, we ordered a coffee—or a tea, or a Coca-Cola—and we continued. It’s the push we need to get through the rest of the day. What almost no one knows is that that five o’clock coffee may be sabotaging your eleven o’clock sleep. What we usually do when we don’t sleep well is point to our cell phone, stress, late dinner, or looping thoughts. We rarely point to the cup. And yet, for doctor Pablo Ferrero, a specialist in sleep medicine, the answer is there: “Caffeine is the number one enemy of good rest.” The chemistry behind the problem. To understand why caffeine is so disruptive, you have to know adenosine. It is a substance that the brain accumulates during waking hours and that, when it reaches a certain level, gives us that feeling of tiredness, that it is time to stop. It is, in a certain sense, the biological alarm of sleep. What caffeine does is to block adenosine receptors: Silences the alarm without disabling actual fatigue. The body continues to accumulate fatigue, but the brain stops perceiving it. The problem is not just that it is difficult to fall asleep. It’s what happens inside while we sleep. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that a dose of 400 milligrams of caffeine consumed six hours before bedtime significantly reduced sleep efficiency. Other job in Neuropsychopharmacology was more specific: Consuming caffeine before bed reduces the amount of REM sleep, the phase in which the brain consolidates memories and regulates mood. More in depth. The numbers They are concrete and not very reassuring.: That dose can delay sleep onset by up to 45 minutes and reduce deep sleep—NREM phases 3 and 4—by up to 20%. Taken to everyday practice: if you have a coffee at 5:00 p.m. and go to bed at 11:00 p.m., your deep sleep can go from the usual 120 minutes to just 96. That’s 24 minutes less brain and physical repair. Nightly. But there is something even more disturbing: a scientific review published in the magazine Nutrients concluded that caffeine can reduce deep sleep even when the person sleeps eight hours continuously. That is, it is not enough to add hours. Quality does not always coincide with the perception of having a good rest. You can wake up thinking you’ve had a great night’s sleep while your brain hasn’t gone through the cycles it needed. Time matters. One of the most common mistakes is to think that afternoon coffee “no longer works” because you are used to it. Tolerance reduces the perception of the stimulus, but The half-life of caffeine in the body is between 4 and 9 hours: That means that half of what you drank at three in the afternoon is still active at eleven at night. And the problem is not limited to coffee. Caffeine is also present in some soft drinks, energy drinks, teas and chocolates, something that Ferrero expressly points out as a factor that goes unnoticed. It’s not just the breakfast cup: it’s the entire consumption circuit of the day. The broken clock. Caffeine, however, does not act alone. Ferrero points to another factor that can be even more decisive: schedule disorder. The body works through the circadian rhythman internal biological clock that regulates when we feel sleepy and when we are alert. When schedules constantly change—we go to bed at eleven Monday through Thursday and one o’clock on Fridays and Saturdays, and we get up three hours later on Sunday—that system loses synchronization. science back this up with data: Sleeping at irregular hours can cause insomnia, daytime sleepiness and alter hormone production, metabolism and eating habits, increasing the risk of diseases such as diabetes, obesity and depression. The impact don’t stop feeling tired Since while we sleep, the brain eliminates the beta-amyloid protein, accumulated during wakefulness and directly related to Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders. Poor sleep is not just a tomorrow’s problem: it is a long-term investment—or debt. The motive is not innocent either. But the mechanism is more precise than is usually explained. The blue light emitted by screens suppresses the production of melatonin, the hormone that signals the brain it’s time to sleep. A study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health warned that this overexposure directly alters the sleep-wake cycle. Just two hours of exposure to bright screens before bed can reduce melatonin levels by 20% or moreand the time to fall asleep can go from 15 minutes to more than an hour. Using a tablet before going to sleep can delay nighttime sleep by up to 96 minutes; that of a smartphone, up to 67. Harvard Medical School noted that “just a few minutes of screen stimulation can delay the release of melatonin by several hours and desynchronize the biological clock.” The problem is that we live in a society with increasingly irregular patterns: high light exposure at night, changing work schedules, screens until the last minute. We are sending our brain signals that it is still daytime when it is no longer daytime. So what works? Ferrero’s answer is not particularly glamorous, but it is supported by evidence. Going to bed and getting up at similar times every day—even on weekends—is the most basic and most ignored advice. Added to this is a dark, quiet and cool bedroom: artificial light and high temperatures send alert signals to the brain that make it difficult to rest. Avoid screens before going to bed—at least 30 minutes—and have a light dinner, without excess fats or spicy food, close to bedtime. For those who do not have insomnia, a short nap may be beneficial; The key is that it does not exceed 25 minutes so as not to disturb your night’s sleep. And in the face of anxiety or thoughts in a loop, Ferrero points out tools with scientific evidence: … Read more

In 2014, Larry Page bought two private islands for $23 million. The problem is that they already had an owner and he won’t let them go.

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Buying a private island is not as easy as it seems. Especially if someone had already bought it before you. That is, broadly speaking, what the American justice system has been discussing for more than a decade, when Larry Page bought two of the five private islands that it has in the Virgin Islands area. The case has a little bit of everything: companies that negotiate in the shadows, a furious New York real estate developer and one of the co-founders of Google who, according to the documents that are coming to light in the trial, did everything possible so that no one knew that it was he who bought the island. Twelve years later, the dispute over ownership of the islands is still open, but the islands, meanwhile, remain in the hands of Larry Page. Two islands, two buyers. Great Hans Lollik and Little Hans Lollik are two small private islands in the archipelago of the US Virgin Islands. They are just over two kilometers from the north coast of the main island, Saint Thomas, and are located in a privileged enclave because they are surrounded by coral reefs and practically uninhabited, except for a few herds of invasive goats. In 2014, a company based in Palo Alto (California) appeared out of nowhere and bought the two islands that were for sale, closing a transaction worth $23 million, according to collected Business Insider. The problem is that a New York developer named James Eckel had been negotiating the purchase of the property for months. He had even offered 9 million dollars. The deal had not been closed, but he claimed to have a contract that gave him preference in the operation. When the Palo Alto company put its generous offer on the table, the seller chose 23 million and the developer was left hanging. That didn’t sit well with him. Trial for negotiating behind his back. From Eckel’s perspective, the seller (a company called Liberty Bankers Life Insurance Company) had committed to him in a sales contract, which he then ignored when a better offer appeared. So he went to court to claim ownership of the islands. What came next has been a decade of pilgrimage through the courts of Texas and the Virgin Islands. In 2019, a court of appeal of Texas ruled that Eckel was only entitled to compensation for economic damages, but not to ownership of the islands. But that didn’t close the case. The family office which manages Page’s estate and through which the purchase was made, sued Eckel’s company (called Great Hans LLC) to have the courts officially declare that the islands belong to him without any legal burden, so that the developer could not claim ownership again in the future. That process remains unresolved today, despite the fact that Page’s lawyers have been asking the judge to act for years. The opacity of fortunes. The most striking thing about the case is not only the dispute over the ownership of the islands. This is the time it took to find out who the real buyer of the properties was because they found themselves behind a thick corporate framework that protected his identity. The company that acquired the islands was Virgin Island Properties LLC, a limited liability company without a name behind it to reveal who put up the money with which the purchase was made. In fact, as as highlighted Business Insiderit took months of court proceedings and investigations for Eckel’s lawyers to reach Wayne Osborne, the man who manages the assets from Page since 2012. Osborne then confirmed that the purchase was for Page. In his statement he also explained that the islands had been acquired without the intention of building on them, and that the agent who negotiated the transaction (Gil Simon) did not reveal to the seller the identity of the actual buyer. It is a common practice in the operation of companies who manage large assets like that of the co-founder of Google: no document of the operation directly or indirectly mentioned Larry Page. The family office most discreet in the technological world. This trial has served as a window, albeit a very small one, to see how they work management structures of one of the family office most hermetic that exist…even for such a discreet area how is the one of the family office. The company that manages the 290.9 billion dollars of the second richest man in the world It’s called Koop and is based in Palo Alto. His philosophy is total opacity and to achieve it, employees sign confidentiality agreements before entering, LinkedIn profiles are deliberately vague and internal security is supervised by a former CIA agent, as revealed in a exclusive research of Business Insider in 2022. The entire society is organized so that Page does not appear in any of the documents of his own purchases. That is, keep the millionaire as far away as possible from his possessions, so that it is difficult to unravel the corporate network that is woven between the property and who really owns it. In fact, these companies do their job so well that when the judges in the Epstein case tried to locate Larry Page in 2023 to take a statement Regarding his role in the plot, a private investigation firm was unable to find a mailing address for him. It is not that Larry Page did not have a habitual residence, but that everything was designed so that he could not be linked to any real address. In Xataka | The most luxurious “hotel” in the world costs $70,000 a night because it’s not a hotel: it’s an LVMH private island Image | Flickr (Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

The United Kingdom is experiencing a new invasion. The problem is that they are octopuses and they are devouring everything they can find.

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When explorer John Cabot returned from Newfoundland in 1497, assured who had found seas so full of fish that they could captured with simple baskets weighted with stones. That abundance seemed inexhaustible, but more than five centuries later, British waters are once again starring in a story of marine overpopulation, although with very different protagonists. An unexpected invasion. For decades, encountering a common octopus off the coast of south-west England was a rare event for even the most experienced divers. However, in just a few years the situation has changed. radically. What started as a striking increase of sightings has become the largest population explosion of octopuses recorded in at least 75 years. The animals have colonized extensive areas of the British coast, expanding from Devon and Cornwall to Wales, Dorset, Sussex and even Scotland, becoming one of the most surprising marine phenomena that the United Kingdom has experienced in recent times. Perfect weather and conditions. Scientists believe that this expansion is the result of several factors that have coincided at the same time. The juvenile octopuses probably arrived from breeding areas around the English Channel and northern France, but the real difference has been the progressive warming of British waters. Mild winters and warmer breeding seasons have allowed them to survive in much greater numbers and, more importantly, to begin to reproduce successfully in UK waters. The appearance of juvenile specimens confirms that they are no longer simply occasional visitors, but rather a population capable of completing their entire life cycle on these coasts. The big losers. The massive arrival of octopuses is having devastating consequences for part of the traditional fishing. These animals are extraordinarily efficient predators and consume huge quantities of seafood every day. Fishermen began finding empty traps, missing lobsters and ruined catches. In some areas, those who depended on crustacean fishing have seen plummets in between 70% and 100% of their catches. In fact, some businesses have closed and some owners have even sold their boats. The researchers they calculate that octopuses are consuming tons of seafood daily, altering a food chain that had been functioning relatively stable for decades. The same plague that ruins some enriches others. The paradox is that the crisis has also generated an economic opportunity unexpected. Where lobsters and crabs were once caught, octopuses now abound. Many fishermen have quickly adapted their gear and have begun to catch them to supply a growing demand in European markets. The result has been spectacular. Brixham recently sold more than 100 tons of octopus in a single day, generating more than half a million pounds in sales. Some professionals claim that they are obtaining income several times higher than what they achieved with traditional fishing, causing a real fever to catch octopuses along the coast. A reorganized ecosystem. The phenomenon goes far beyond the fishing economy. Octopuses are profoundly altering the relationships between species. While they consume large quantities of crustaceans and mollusks, they have also become food for seals, conger eels and Risso’s dolphins. The researchers describe the situation as a complete reconfiguration of the marine ecosystem, a process in which each change triggers new ones. The feeling among scientists is that British waters are going through a period of ecological transition in which the rules that seemed established for generations are no longer valid. The big difference from previous invasions. Although similar population explosions were already recorded at the beginning of the 20th century, in the 1930s and 1950s, researchers believe that this time the situation can be different. In previous episodes, the octopuses ended up disappearing when conditions changed again. Now, however, winters cold enough to drastically reduce their populations have been going on for more than a decade without production. Evidence of local reproduction and the presence of young specimens suggest that octopuses may have ceased to be occasional visitors and become permanent inhabitants of British coasts. Preparing for a new reality. The magnitude of the phenomenon is already forcing the authorities to react. In Cornwall, for example, they study emergency restrictions to limit the number of boats dedicated to capturing octopuses for fear of excessive exploitation of a population that, paradoxically, seemed inexhaustible just a few months ago. Meanwhile, scientists, fishermen and resource managers are trying to understand what this transformation really means. The big lesson is that ocean warming not only changes temperatures or currents, but can change them completely. who dominates an ecosystem. And on British shores, the new protagonists seem to be animals that until very recently were a rarity and that are now devouring everything in their path. Careful, Galicia. Image | prilfishPixabay In Xataka | We knew that octopuses were very intelligent. But not to the point of having a “brain” in each arm In Xataka | The most intimate secret of octopuses: their ‘loving arm’ not only fertilizes, it also tastes the female

It took an engineer 17 years to build the Lamborghini Countach of his dreams from the basement of his house. The problem was getting it out.

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There are motor fans. And then there’s Ken Imhoff. And this engineer from Wisconsin was not satisfied with having a poster of the Lamborghini Countach on his wall or with saving for years to buy one. He decided to make it himselfby hand, in the basement of his house. It took him 17 years. a movie. It all started in 1990, when Imhoff saw ‘Cannonball Run‘ (1981), directed by Hal Needham and featuring a Lamborghini Countach LP 400 S. Imhoff was amazed enough to make a decision that, seen from the outside, sounds crazy: build his own Lamborghini from scratch. How to build a Lamborghini in a basement. Imhoff began the project by erecting a wooden structure that served as a mold to shape the body panels. To work the aluminum he used an English wheel, a forming tool that allows you to create complex curves in sheet metal. He had to learn the hard way that welding too much at once causes deformations in the metal, so he perfected the technique with short, controlled welding points. The chassis is made of steel tube and the body is entirely made of aluminum. The model he used as a reference was the 1982 Countach LP 5000S. Details. To make the result as faithful as possible to the original, Imhoff incorporated authentic Lamborghini parts, such as the taillights, position lights, windshield and emblems. He even had replicas of the original wheels made from scratch. Where he did have to improvise was in the engine. And without the possibility of fitting an Italian V12, he opted for a Ford 351 Cleveland block, with forged pistons, polished cylinder heads and a more aggressive camshaft. The result was 514 horsepower at 6,800 rpm, according to collect CarBuzz. The transmission is a ZF five-speed and the suspension comes from a C4 Corvette. The whole thing weighs about 1,220 kilos, significantly less than a production Countach. The finish, almost at the level of a professional workshop. The body was painted in pearlescent metallic gray, a finish that has its own because it is usually more sensitive to any imperfection. The painting process was done in a professional paint booth, piece by piece (33 in total) because there was no way to get the booth into the basement. Each panel came out of the basement, was painted and carefully brought back down. Final sanding was done with 1,500 and 2,000 grit sandpaper, followed by three passes of the polisher. Just like point YouTube channel Wonder World, the shine achieved was difficult to distinguish from that of a factory car, according to those who saw it. Getting it out was an issue.. After 17 years working in the basement, Imhoff was faced with the task of removing the completed car from there. And one may wonder… Why wasn’t the project done outside or in the garage of his house? Well, according to Wonder World, Imhoff decided to do it there because the winters in his town are extremely cold, so he preferred to spend time in the basement, which is warmer. To get it out, they dug a dirt ramp outside, removed part of the basement wall and, with the help of a backhoe and some chains, pulled the car out by pulling it up the ramp over an improvised metal structure. It was the first time in 17 years that Imhoff was able to see his work in sunlight. On sale. Years after removing it from the basement, Imhoff noticed that the car was beginning to show signs of corrosion and concluded that he was not taking the proper care of it. “I’m doing you a disservice” and “actually it probably belongs to someone who may appreciate it more than I do,” counted Imhoff in words collected by the channel. So he put it up for sale on eBay with a starting price of $75,000. The bid reached 77,600, but the reserve price was not reached, so it did not end up selling on that occasion. Imhoff had invested around $65,000 in the project over almost two decades, as he confirmed. Ultimately, the car ended up selling to a Florida buyer for approximately $89,000, according to Wonder World. Since then, the car has continued to increase in value, as the Lambocars site public in 2023 that the current owner asked for $229,000 for it. It may seem absurd to have spent so much time building something and for the outcome to have been this. However, Imhoff ended up being honest with himself and decided that the value was not in having it, but in having built it and fulfilling his dream. In Xataka | This Aston Martin DB9 was sold for $57,000, but the craziest thing is not its price: it is the two flamethrowers it hides

AI has meant that so many apps have never been launched in such a short time. The problem is that almost no one is using them.

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A new research from MIT monitored the activity of thousands of developers before and after adopting the use of AI agents such as Claude Code or Codex. In their conclusions they have detected a singular “funnel effect”: many begin to use AI to “tinker” with the codebut few projects end in final software releases. Not only that: many more apps arrive in the application stores, but the interest they generate is practically zero. Hotfix blocks everything. When you start programming with Claude Codeeven without knowing how to do it, usually experience that feeling of “being able to do anything”, but although there are projects that manage to evolve and reach a successful conclusion, many remain in an attempt: the manual processes of quality control, code review or deployment They become bottlenecks for these projects, often carried out by people without a technical profile and without knowledge of software engineering. Producing more is not selling more. The MIT study, led by one of its economics professors, Mert Demirer, reveals another striking conclusion: producing more does not mean selling more. Although the volume of mobile applications that comes to the App Store or Google Play Store has grown spectacularly due to the ease of programming with AI, real consumption has not moved. There are many more apps, but the same consumers (and buyers), who are not downloading, trying or certainly buying more than they did. App failure. The vast majority of these new software products created with these tools fail spectacularly when it comes to capturing a minimum audience. The efficiency when creating them is not directly linked to the real usefulness of these tools or with the value that the market demands of them. The code surpasses us. Linus Torvalds already said it when speaking of how he saw the world of AI: “AI will be a tool, and it will make people more productive. I think vibe coding is great for getting people to start programming. I think (the code it generates) is going to be horrible to maintain… so I don’t think programmers will go away. You’ll still want to have people who know how to maintain the output.” His comment was a good prediction of what we are seeing now: too much code being distributed everywhere makes a review of that code necessary to validate it, but doing something like that at the rate that AI is adding code to these projects is unaffordable for human programmers, who are being overwhelmed. And costs are skyrocketing. The new AI agents that program consume a large number of tokens, which has made set off the alarms in companies like Uber or Microsoft. To mitigate the problem, a hybrid usage model is now being imposed: AI agents in the cloud, such as Claude Opus 4.8, are used to plan development, but then the code is written by cheaper cloud models, which are remarkably compliant, or even local models if the user/company has sufficient local computing capacity. Remembering the industrial revolution. Demirer remembers that something similar happened during the industrial revolution. The first factories that replaced steam engines with giant electric motors did not lead to a large increase in productivity. The real boost to efficiency came decades later, when engineers redesigned those factories from scratch by installing individual motors at each workstation. In Xataka | We believed that the AI ​​talent war is about engineers and developers. Actually, it’s about plumbers and electricians.

Adobe was not born with Photoshop. It started by solving a huge and inconspicuous problem: printing well

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Before becoming one of those companies that we almost automatically associate with digital creativity, Adobe had a much more specific and less brilliant obsession at first glance: printing. We are not talking about retouching photographs, editing videos or opening PDF documents with the naturalness with which we do it today, but rather about attacking a difficulty that is basic in appearance and enormous in practice. In the early years of personal computing, making what was seen or designed on a computer turned out well on paper It was not something guaranteed. Adobe’s story begins precisely at that point: with PostScripta language intended to describe how a printed page should look. The difficulty was that that chain was much more fragile than we can imagine today. Lemelson-MIT remembers that, at that time, personal computers were beginning to hit the market and the printers available were, in many cases, dot matrix, with very low quality results. For truly professional work, the alternative was composition equipment that could cost more than $150,000 at that time and required laborious processes. Between one extreme and the other there was an obvious gap: there was a lack of a more flexible, reliable and accessible way to bring complex pages to paper. The problem was not creating images, it was getting them to look the same on paper The next piece of history appears in the famous Xerox PARCwhere laser printing was already a laboratory reality, although still full of limits. Those early machines were controlled by Press, a protocol that worked well with simple letters and images, but got bogged down with demanding projects. A member of that team named John Warnock encountered the same message over and over again, “Too complex page“, and that was no small anecdote. His response was to think of an architecture capable of doing just the opposite: printing any page. That idea didn’t come from nowhere. Before coming to Xerox, Warnock had worked at Evans & Sutherland, where he was involved in a highly ambitious project for the New York Maritime Academy: a simulator of New York Harbor with computer-generated buildings, docks, buoys, changing weather and other ships. That system had to be built without yet knowing what specific hardware it would end up running on, so the team opted to create a language not tied to a specific machine. A decisive lesson emerged from this: device-independent software gave much more flexibility. John Warnock, left, and Charles Geschke, right, founders of Adobe With that learning behind him, Warnock once again encountered a similar problem at Xerox, but now fully applied to printing. The company used different schemes depending on the printer, to the point that its Star stations were under increasing load due to having to communicate with each model in a different way. Warnock and a group led by Charles Geschke They then worked at Interpressa standard, device-independent language for Xerox laser printers. The advance existed, but it collided with a business decision: Xerox adopted it internally and did not want to open it to the market. Apple LaserWriter The departure came in 1982, when Warnock and Geschke left Xerox PARC and founded Adobe. Lemelson-MIT says that its first idea was not exactly to become the software company that would end up marking desktop publishing, but rather to set up a printing service for companies and consumers. That plan changed when their financial advisors encouraged them to move toward software development. There PostScript began to take its decisive form: not as a closed solution for a single machine, but as a portable language that manufacturers could integrate into their own devices. One of the decisive pieces for that technology to jump from the laboratory to the market appeared in Apple. IEEE Spectrum explains that Steve Jobs had a very specific problem: The Macintosh was advancing, but without a quality printer it was difficult to enter the business world. Daisy printers didn’t work for Mac graphics and Apple didn’t arrive in time with a high-quality solution of its own. Adobe was building an answer. In late 1983, Adobe signed an agreement with Apple, and in January 1985, PostScript appeared for the first time on the Internet. LaserWriter. Seen from today, the interesting thing is that Adobe did not start with the most recognizable part of its current history, but with a layer that we almost always take for granted. Of course, Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop and Premiere are part of a later expansion, but the starting point was different: PostScript and the promise that text, images and graphics could reach paper with fidelity. There was the true initial intuition. Before becoming recognizable for its creative tools, Adobe found its place by solving a discreet but decisive task: that what was created could be printed well. Images | Adobe (1, 2) | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | In 1967, a war veteran believed that moving around a computer could be easier. So he created the first mouse

The cryptocurrency bubble is crashing again. The problem is that it is not at all clear that this time they will survive.

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Cryptos are not raising their heads. In the last 11 months the value has fallen from those $124,000 in July 2025 to the $67,000 where it is moving today. This 46% drop has spread to the rest of a market that He has already cracked other times and then recover. It is not at all clear that this time he will succeed.. Crypto winter. yesterday bitcoin fell 7% in a single day and both its value and that of the rest of the cryptocurrencies have been in free fall for months. What differentiates this crash from previous ones is the breaking of a trend. Until not long ago, large and small investors seemed to see a great opportunity in cryptocurrencies, but we are facing a “crypto winter” in which the stampede of these digital assets is colossal. Record settlements. The apparent panic over that bubble burst seems to be behind a streak of massive withdrawals from investments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. On Bloomberg indicate that the current perception of bitcoin as a value asset in free fall has caused 1.5 billion dollars to be liquidated in just 24 hours. Even Strategy betrays itself. The company Strategy had become the staunch defender of bitcoin, but for the first time since 2022 it has sold bitcoins. The amount has been anecdotal, because they have sold 32 BTC (about 2.2 million dollars at current value) and they own 843,706 BTC in these moments. However, it is a sale with a lot of symbolism, because it betrays that HOLD spirit of crypto believers. Curiously, the analysts they fully trust in the future of Strategy, which they see reaching a value of $400 per share, 185% more than the current value. The failure of ETFs. It was assumed that the exchange traded funds with bitcoin as the main asset, they were going to result in stability and massive attraction of institutional capitalbut they are becoming a burden for investors, who have been withdrawing from their positions for 11 days: in less than two weeks 3.5 billion dollars have been liquidated, confirming that in the face of uncertainty, professional investors are the first to abandon ship. How was that safe haven value? for a long time bitcoin has been compared to gold in terms of its ability to become a refuge value in the face of potential crises. What is happening leaves that argument in a very bad place, although it is true that we have experienced other notable falls in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the past. Contagion effect. The collapse of bitcoin has spread to the rest of the cryptocurrency market. Ethereum, Solana and Dogecoin suffer combined losses of $1.6 billion, and once again it is confirmed that the interdependence of “altcoins” with bitcoin is too important. AI as savior. While cryptos bleed, Wall Street is experiencing a paradoxical sweet moment thanks to artificial intelligence. This technology is what is causing all the bullish momentum in the market, and we are seeing how the money that previously flowed into digital assets now rotates to tangible technologies (or at least that are being used). Loss of identity. Some experts they point out that bitcoin is losing precisely what made it different. It is behaving like an asset vulnerable to interest rates and global politics. It has stopped becoming an alternative and has become just another piece on a game board that is now rewarding those who have dedicated themselves to AI. It is paradoxical that bitcoin is being so punished when we have also been talking about the AI ​​bubble. In Xataka | Predicting bitcoin’s growth seems impossible: these charts prove it

What the Horizontal Property Law says and does not say about fans: when their use becomes a problem

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With summer just around the corner and part of the country fooling around with the 30thmore and more homes in Spain are surrendering to the ‘pre-summer’ ritual: the fans are installed, the air conditioners are checked and the compulsive search for tips to make the torrid afternoons begins. more bearable at home. Against that backdrop, there is a question that in recent weeks has been circulating on the Internet: What does the law say about ventilators? If my neighbor uses a noisy one, can I have him change it? What if it is my device that causes discomfort? As is usually the case when we talk about housing blocks, the most advisable thing is to resort to the ‘bible’ of neighborhood coexistence, the Horizontal Property Law. What has happened? If you go to Google and search for information about fans and laws, you will come across a few recent articles that, more or less emphatically, warn of “complaints”, “dislikes” or even “sanctions” due to improper use of these appliances. All supposedly based on the Horizontal Property Law (LPH). The reality is somewhat more complicated. It is true that the LPH establishes a regulatory framework that can be applied in cases where the use of a fan causes obvious discomfort, but it is equally true that the LPH does not specifically talk about fans (in fact the guidelines it establishes are very general) and the general ‘picture’ must be completed with other regulations, such as Noise Law or local ordinances. What does the LPH say? The article that interests us most here is the seventh. To be more precise, your section two. In it, the Horizontal Property Law clarifies: “The owner and occupant of the apartment or premises are not allowed to carry out activities in it or in the rest of the property that are prohibited in the statutes, that are harmful to the property or that contravene the general provisions on annoying, unhealthy, harmful, dangerous or illicit activities.” The pattern is quite general, but as they explain from the Uncibay Abogados office, a persistent, intense noise, perceptible from the rest of the homes and repeated at odd hours could be considered an “annoying activity” and, therefore, be affected by the article 7.2 of the LPH. As for its source, it can be caused by a party, a dog that doesn’t stop barking at night, a neighbor determined to move furniture at dawn… or an old appliance, such as a fan that vibrates and squeaks. What to do in those cases? In general, the LPH explains to us that when “annoying, unhealthy, harmful, dangerous or illegal activities” occur, it is normal for the president of the community to speak with the problematic neighbor to correct them. The first thing, therefore, is dialogue. If that does not work and the nuisance continues, the homeowners’ meeting must meet and approve more severe measures, such as taking the issue to court. After this procedure, the judge can order “as a precautionary measure” the cessation of the annoying activities. And that would be just the first step. “If the sentence is upheld, it may provide, in addition to the definitive transfer of the prohibited activity and the compensation for damages that may be appropriate, the deprivation of the right to use the home or premises for a period not exceeding three years, depending on the seriousness of the infraction and the damages caused,” clarify the LPH. “If the offender is not the owner, the sentence may declare all rights relating to the home or premises extinguished, as well as its immediate release.” {“videoId”:”x7znesx”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Self-consumption building THIS IS HOW THEY WORK – Solar panels in apartment blocks”, “tag”:”solar”, “duration”:”564″} Are there more rules? Yes, there is more legislation that should be taken into account. For example the Law of Noise (37/2003), the Civil code and local ordinances. The one in Madrid, for example, addresses the issue in its article 46: “The owners or users of radio receivers, television, music equipment, household appliances, air conditioning devices or instruments and, in general, any domestic sound source, must install them and adjust their use, so that they comply with the limitations of this ordinance, in order not to disturb good coexistence.” The same standard details the “sound level limits” and “noise indices” that must be applied in spaces with healthcare, residential, hospitality or educational use, among others. In general, within a home the limit is usually set at 35 decibels during daylight hours, roughly the equivalent of a quiet conversation between two people. If we talk about nights, that barrier extends to 30 dB. If we want to apply it to the use of fans, the conclusion is clear: the law establishes a framework, but it only applies when the device causes obvious and demonstrable discomfort. Images | Nameofmin (Unsplash) and Jason Anderson (Unsplash) In Xataka | If there are elderly people in your building, an elevator can be installed without the board’s approval. The key: the Horizontal Property Law (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 What the Horizontal Property Law says and does not say about fans: when their use becomes a problem was originally published in Xataka by Carlos Prego .

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