regulation

has become the Bet365 of geopolitics without any regulation

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The prediction markets like Polymarket or Kalshi They operate in a legal gray zone that allows betting on coups d’état and military interventions with insider information. A market without sheriff. The capture of Maduro has brought to the table the great problem of prediction markets: there is no mechanism to prevent insider information trafficking. On traditional stock exchanges this is a crime that is severely prosecuted, but these types of platforms operate in a regulatory limbo where betting with privileged or classified information is not punished, and in fact it is assumed to be part of the business model. The account that won more than $400,000 He invested 30,000 when the odds were around 6%. That movement occurred on Friday night, hours before Saturday’s operation. He timing Perfect is not a coincidence: it is the signature of someone who knows what is going to happen. Between the lines. The disturbing thing is not that someone has enriched themselves with classified information. It’s perfectly legal. Joe Pompliano, investor and podcaster, summed it up in X: “He insider trading “It’s not just allowed in prediction markets, it’s incentivized.” A perfect ecosystem has been created there to monetize confidential information without leaving a trace: Anonymity through Blockchain. Absence of identification requirements. Cryptocurrency transactions. The threat. The Maduro case opens up disturbing scenarios: What happens when a Pentagon adviser can make hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on military operations he himself plans? Or when a congressman gets rich anticipating legislation that he is going to promote? In traditional financial markets, the answer begins with ‘c’ and ends with ‘arcel’. At Polymarket this is just another day at the office and is even encouraged by the design of the system itself. Yes, but. Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres has announced a law to prohibit elected officials from participating in these markets. It’s a first step, for now nothing more than that. The elephant in the room is whether a society can allow markets where betting on coups or military interventions is carried out without any oversight. For years, these markets were niche. And when they got the 2024 presidential election right better than all the polls, They gained credibility (and attention) at once. Now the Maduro case shows that this newly gained prestige is based on a model that rewards having privileged information and allows speculation with life or death decisions without any limits. At stake. If prediction markets consolidate themselves as reliable thermometers of geopolitical events, and at the same time allow those who make these decisions to profit by betting on them, conflict of interest will be routine. The account that bet on Maduro has not bet on anything again at the moment, but the problem remains: as long as these markets operate without supervision, each international crisis will also be a business opportunity for whoever has the appropriate information. And that has consequences that go far beyond winning or losing money: An official could delay a diplomatic intervention so that his bet matures. A military advisor could push to advance an operation to get paid sooner. When geopolitical decisions are also opportunities for personal speculation, incentives are no longer aligned with the public interest. In Xataka | I don’t bet, I invest: Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing” Featured image | Polymarket, Xataka with Mockuuups Studio

The real reason why Musk, Bezos and Pichai want to build data centers in space: bypass regulation

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The construction of data centers is proliferating so much that although the largest in the world They are in Kolos (Norway), in The Cidatel (United States) and China, you can find them now even in Botorritain the province of Zaragoza. The limit is the sky. Or well, not even that: because Silicon Valley has been put between eyebrows set up data centers in space. And the main big tech companies are making moves to achieve this. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt bought rocket company Relativity Space with that objective. Nvidia has supported the startup Starcloud in its project to launch the first NVIDIA H100 GPU into space a few weeks ago and Elon Musk has even condensed how he would do it in a tweet: “It will be enough to scale the Starlink V3 satellites, which have high-speed laser links.” He when Jeff Bezos slipped it in a prediction at the Italian Tech Week: We will see “giant training clusters” of AI in orbit in the next 10 to 20 years. The moon is a gift from the universe The next question would be “why?”. The reality is that there is no shortage of reasons. AI is a real energy guzzler and as demand does not stop growingspace offers a couple of differential advantages over Earth: almost unlimited energy and free cooling. On the one hand, in space we have a sun-synchronous orbit where solar panels receive energy almost continuously. On the other hand, you can install a radiator so large that the space functions as a kind of ‘infinite heat sink at -270°C’. The enormous amounts of water essential for cooling on Earth would not be needed. Let’s face it, today there are no plans to have data centers in space. But not too far away: University of Central Florida research professor and former NASA member Phil Metzger esteem that perhaps within a decade it could be economically viable. But its viability is so clear that it considers that taking AI servers into space are “the first real business case that will give way to many more“in the face of a future human migration beyond Earth. So for now, they try it on Earth. Consequence: that Donald Trump declare an energy emergency due to the enormous electricity demand expected for the coming years. As the power grid catches up (or tries to), AI companies have decided to move from a passive to a proactive position: Meta is going to become an electricity marketer. xAI by Elon Musk is using gas turbines as energy sources temporary. OpenAI is pushing to the United States government to lend a hand to electricity companies to add 100 gigawatts per year. That figure doesn’t say much, but it is astronomical: what OpenAI is asking for is that The United States built almost an entire Spain (around 145 GWh considering the 129 GW consolidated at the end of 2024 plus the solar and wind deployment of 2025) every year and a half in terms of infrastructure. AI is growing faster than electrical bureaucracy is advancing How could the Trump Administration help? With the eternal bureaucracy. Because on Earth they face great technical challenges, but they also face a legislative wall. To have more energy, the simplest and most immediate step is to build new power plants, but that means successfully going through the tangle of procedures that slow down the process. There is only one small problem: that in the United States depending on technology, it can take five to ten years… if you’re lucky. Interconnection to the grid alone can take six years, successfully overcoming an interconnection queue with more than 2,000 GW in projects who are already in line. Then, up to four years of federal and environmental permits to end in another couple of years for state and local licenses that must come to fruition. ‘Permit Stack’ they call it. And the journey does not end here: they must also avoid andthe citizen movementNot in my backyard‘ (not in my backyard, kind of like “yes, but not in my house”), which has already backed down the Battle Born Solar Project (Nevada), which was going to be the largest solar plant in the United States, or Danskammer gas station (New York), among others. This can delay the operation even further as rights of way must be negotiated with individual owners who may refuse, going through the courts again. The never ending story. To avoid processes NIMBY that last fifteen years or more, companies like OpenAI or Microsoft are buying plants that already exist, such as Three Mile Island, which is going to reopen only for Microsoftinstead of trying to build new ones from scratch. Amazon has also signed infrastructure that is already on the network like the Talen Energy Campus and it has partnered with Dominion Energy and X-energy to develop mini reactors (SMR). SMRs are also Google’s solution, in this case thanks to an agreement with Kairos Power. Everything is to avoid that tangle of ‘Permit stack’ procedures that in practice and according to estimates, makes it is faster to opt for the space route to build a power plant on the old, familiar Earth. At the end of the day for AI companies “The moon is a gift from the universe”, as already Jeff Bezos glimpsed. In Xataka | Musk has created the perfect circle: Tesla’s megabatteries power the AI ​​that will define its next cars In Xataka | Researchers have dismantled the batteries of Tesla and BYD. You already know which one performs better and is much cheaper. Cover | İsmail Enes Ayhan and NASA

One of the Starliner ship astronauts has revealed that Houston skipped the regulation to save them: “They are heroes”

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NASA Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are already at home After nine months of extended mission In the International Space Station. Although they have avoided participating in the political controversies surrounding your caseWilmore had a revealing interview with Ars Technica in which he explains that the failure of the Starliner ship was more tense than they had told us. The delays prior to the launch. Everything was ready to launch the Starliner ship in early May. Butch and Suni had begun their quarantine, a usual practice to reduce the risk of infecting a virus or infectious disease to other crew members of the International Space Station. However, a problem with a valve in the Centaur stage of the Atlas V and A helium leak in Starliner herself They delayed the launch for weeks. Butch Wilmore, ship’s pilot, asked NASA to return to Houston to continue practicing in the simulator, because he felt that his knowledge was no longer fresh. Finally, they took off on June 5, 2024. Cold aboard the ship. The launch of the Starliner was soft and very precise. Even more than the astronauts expected, since it did not require the typical trajectory corrections they had seen in the simulator or in previous experiences such as NASA astronauts. Butch and Suni felt, on the other hand, something for which the simulator had not prepared them: a booth too cold. Designed to carry four astronauts (or up to seven crew In missions outside NASA), the temperature aboard the Starliner, with only two inhabitants in this first test mission, fell below the 10 ºC, Wilmore recalls. Both went cold and ended up sleeping with their space costumes to heat a little. They begin to lose propellants. The problems that would mark the fate of the mission began on the second day. While approaching autonomously to the International Space Station, the Starliner began to lose propellants. The Boeing ship has 28 reaction control propellants to maneuver in orbit. Oriented backwards, forward and in three radio directions, they control their position and guidance both to secure a port of the ISS and to exorbit, on its return, towards the landing place. A tense approach to ISS. There were some problems with the performance of the propellants during A crew test in May 2022and Butch Wilmore worried him that they could reappear. It was just what happened. In its final approximation to the ISS, the ship lost two thrusters and Butch had to take manual control to maintain its trajectory. The thing would not end there. With Wilmore at the controls, the ship lost a third propeller and shortly after the room. At that time they stopped being able to promote themselves in one of the directions necessary for the approach. A decision against the regulation. According to official procedures, at that point they had to abort the approach to the International Space Station and return to Earth, since the attempt to coupch was too risky. Not only for them, but also for the ISS crew and for the orbital laboratory of 100,000 million dollars. At the same time, Butch and Suni thought that turning with so much failures would be equally dangerous. “I don’t know if we can return to earth,” said Butch Wilmore. “In fact, I think we probably can’t.” To top it off, they had been below the ISS, so they were traveling faster than the station and were moving away from it. Then, NASA’s mission control center, and more specifically flight director Ed Van Cise, decided to move forward with the coupling, against the manual. Heroes. “These people are heroes,” says Wilmore in the interview. “The heroes put on the tank, run to a flame building and take people out of there. The heroes also spend decades in their cubicles studying their systems and knowing them perfectly.” “And when there is no time to evaluate a situation, to talk to people and ask them what they think, they know their system so well that they devise a plan on the march. That is a hero. And there are several of them in mission control.” Have you tried to turn it off and turn it on? Houston informed Wilmore of the Plan, he released the controls and, immediately afterwards, the mission controllers sent a command to the Starliner to restart their systems. Turn off and turn on the ship resulted. They managed to recover the propelants and the control of the Starliner, Although then a fifth propeller failed that never recovered. With the help of the Mission Control Center, the ship managed to return to the autonomous mode and attach to the International Space Station. Now NASA’s decision is understood. If Butch had lost the fifth propeller while sailing manually with four less, the ship would have run out of the redundant maneuver necessary to control its reentry. It would have been potentially catastrophic. Even if Boeing collaborated with the investigation in the later months and expressed his confidence in the Starliner, the decision that the ship returned empty and the two crew remained in the ISS until the next rotation of astronauts In a spacex crew dragon It makes a lot of sense. The future of Starliner. The ship is still not certified for manned flights to the International Space Station. Boeing has lost $ 1.6 billion in its developmentbut NASA has hired six flights and maintains its intention to certify it for operational trips to the ISS next year. Although helium leaks seem solved with new stamps, propulsion failures are still not closed, so NASA and Boeing engineers will perform a series of exhaustive tests at the agency’s facilities in White Sands (New Mexico) to validate possible modifications, such as thermal barriers or changes in propulsion pulses. The next flight of the CST-100 Starliner ship to the International Space Station will not occur until the end of this year or principles that come, According to NASA. A new demonstration is needed in flight because Boeing could … Read more

That implies more regulation in the European Union

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Everything seems to indicate that another goal application will face greater control by the European Union (EU). This is because WhatsApp already brings together the conditions to be designated a very large online platform (Vlop), A status that Facebook and Instagram have since April 2023. What are the Vlop? The Digital Services Law, that entered into force about two years agoclassify search platforms or engines with more than 45 million monthly users in the EU as Vlop. Consequently, important platforms for European users such as Amazon Store, Booking, Tiktok or YouTube are included in this category, but not WhatsApp. Why is WhatsApp now a Vlop and was not at first? While the finishing messaging service had more than 2,000 million users globally And more than 100 million users in the EUit did not enter the Vlop category. Now, A function introduced at the end of 2023 He has made things change. We are talking about the channels, which are comparable to a social network. The number of users of WhatsApp channels has been growing steadily since its launch in the EU and is currently estimated at 46.8 million. We know this because all the platforms that operate in the community block are obliged to make public this information at least twice a year, and goal has complied with the current legislation by publishing A document recently. The growth of the channels, those that we find in the News of the application and that we use to follow the media or public figures, has not gone unnoticed in Brussels. “WhatsApp has published user numbers above the threshold for designation as a very large online platform under the Digital Services Law,” said Thomas Regnier, spokesman for the commission, In a statement to Bloomberg. Vlop platforms have to face more responsibilities. The commission itself indicates that the platforms that have been designated as Vlop must comply with “the strictest standards of the DSA”. These obligations include the realization of risk assessments on the dissemination of illegal or harmful content and the implementation of strategies to mitigate these risks. In addition, they must be audited by an independent auditor at least once a year and act according to the recommendations you receive. To guarantee adequate supervision, the platforms must share their data with the commission and the national authorities, which will allow to evaluate whether they comply with the standard. They must also give access to researchers so that they can study the platform data. Waiting for formal designation. Meta now meets Vlop’s criteria, but its formal designation has not yet occurred. Once the commission of this step, the company led by Mark Zuckerberg will have four months to meet the new obligations that emerge from the DSA. If an infraction is confirmed to this strict European regulatory framework, fines can reach up to 6% of the firm’s annual billing. The regulatory ambition of the EU has been criticized both by US technological giants and the new White House administration. Tim Cook already complained with Trump Before his election, to which the then candidate replied that he would not allow abuse against US companies. Amazon, meanwhile, has rejected his designation as Vlop. In parallel, We are witnessing an unusual turn in the regulatory policy of the block. Images | Christian Lue | Goal | European Commission In Xataka | The battle between LaLiga and Cloudflare is charging many victims. Now those victims are joining strength

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