solution

The games of 2026 aim to be graphic marvels. NVIDIA is clear that the solution is in AI

by

The GDC, or Game Developers Conference, is a very special video game event. It is not focused on announcement of new titlesbut to holding presentations and roundtable talks between those who create video games. Lovers of the most technical issues in the industry consider it an unmissable event, and the one who does not skip an edition is NVIDIA. And in this GDC 2026 it has arrived with all his muscle and a clear idea. The future of gaming goes through artificial intelligence. DLSS 4.5, the umbrella. Leaving aside the current situation of the PC market due to the requirements of artificial intelligence and unprecedented crisis where we find ourselves, AI applied to video games is something that NVIDIA has been pushing for several generations. A lot has happened since the RTX 2000 and the arrival of ray tracing in real time along with a solution to make performance more sustained: DLSS. Deep Learning Super Sampling is a scaling tool that allows the GPU to render the game at a low resolution and then scale it to the native resolution of our monitor. This allows for improved frame rates in performance while maintaining image quality. With the passing of generations, DLSS has been evolving until it becomes a complete neural rendering suite that involves several technologies. It is no longer just scaling through deep learning, but another series of techniques to improve both image and performance. For its main work, DLSS 4.5 presents greater understanding of the scene, improving both image quality and performance at higher resolutions. But he has more things up his sleeve. Frame Generation. One of them, perhaps the most notable, is the enhanced frame generation mode. If in the previous generation DLSS could multiply the frames per second of the image by up to four (through this deep learning, four frames were “invented” for each native one provided by the GPU), with DLSS 4.5 the figure increases to 6x. This is crucial to maintain fluidity in games with extreme graphical loads if we want to play at 4K. Because at 1,440p, the power of the GPU is more than enough, but to play in 4K with all the current effects activated, generating frames seems key if we want to take advantage of the high refresh rates of the monitors. According to NVIDIA data, the step from 4x to 6x increases performance in titles with path tracing in 4K by up to 35% on RTX 50 GPUs. It uses Reflex technology, also from NVIDIA, so that latency is minimal, and the scenario is most curious because we can be playing a game in which most of the frames are reconstructed, and not native, without us realizing the latency. Multi Frame Gen, the “magic”. Within that frames per second multiplier, there is a very interesting technology: DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Gen. Its name is quite self-explanatory and,. Basically, it consists of an algorithm that establishes the best frame multiplier for each moment depending on the image, the performance of the GPU and even whether we have vertical synchronization activated or not. It is an automatic change that changes all the time between 2x and 6x (passing through intermediate multipliers) with the objective of always maintaining the highest possible frame rate per second, but without spending resources foolishly. That is to say: if we have a 120 Hz monitor, the GPU changes the multiplier depending on the situation to always try to guarantee those 120 FPS, but without wasting resources. If in a game we are in a phase with low graphic load (an interior, for example), only a 4x multiplier may be necessary. If we go outside, maybe we need that 6x push, and what the system does is change automatically. The next time we are inside it will go back to 4x and so on constantly. The explanation is simple: the aim is to make the experience as consistent as possible, but without generating frames foolishly to prioritize native frames over those generated by the AI. “New” word: path tracing. And all these technologies to give life to games that will soon begin to consume more and more of the PC’s native resources. Because if ray tracing is already demanding, we are going to have to get used to a new term: path tracing. It’s not new, but it’s basically a more complete form of ray tracing that attempts to even more realistically simulate how light impacts game geometry. Ray tracing can be applied to everything (shadows, reflections or global illumination) or separately, but path tracing is a unified solution. In short: it is like applying all possible ray tracing, but at the same time. This consumes a lot of resources, something we can see in games like ‘Cyberpunk 2077‘ either ‘Resident Evil Requiem‘, and is the reason for DLSS 4.5 rendering techniques and 6x frame generation. The games are ready. In the end, it’s about AI allowing you to achieve performance that the GPU, on its own, might not achieve. In top-of-the-range graphics like RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 We may want to ‘pull’ the native resources, but with others like the 5070 or the 5060, these AI ‘helps’ allow us to further stretch the visual quality of a game while maintaining good performance. And all these tools together will be necessary if we take into account what is to come. Because we have already mentioned some games, but over the next few months others will arrive like ‘007 First Light‘, ‘Resonant Control‘, ‘Star Wars Galactic Racer‘ either ‘Directive 8020‘ that promise to be visual wonders and that will integrate these technologies. In Xataka | Nintendo has not been just a video game company for thirty years. But it is now when it is showing it with dividends

If the controversy is that AI steals works in its training, the European Union has the solution: license them

by

A few weeks ago the Washington Post published this image of the “Panama Project”: It is a warehouse with hundreds of thousands of books waiting their turn to be scanned and destroyed in the process. It is part of an internal program Anthropic to train its AI and the result of tens of millions of dollars in purchases to digitize all those works without permission from their authors. They are not the only ones who “they borrow” copyrighted content to train their artificial intelligences and the European Union is clear about something: stop stealing protected content and properly license works to train AI. And AI companies defend themselves by saying that no one is going to think about small companies. Europe is clear: if you want to train AI, pay the author It is curious how the entertainment industry and the regulation of countries shook hands at the beginning of the 2000s with those ads of “you wouldn’t steal a purse. You wouldn’t steal a car. Don’t steal a movie.” They portrayed copying a CD or downloading a movie as if you were breaking into the Pentagon’s systems. Years later, that same industry turns a deaf ear given what big technology companies are doing to train AI. The Washington Post document states that others such as Meta, Google and OpenAI They had also participated in the race to obtain data in bulk for your models. There are kicking examples, like the 81.7 TB of copyrighted books that you have downloaded Meta or that OpenAI will use animation from all the studios to train its AI (earning reproaches by Ghigli and more Japanese studies and complaining that Deepseek has looted ChatGPT). Given the context, it is time to say that the European Parliament has grown tired of this and has one of the things he is best at: legislating. In this case, it makes perfect sense for Europe to take this measure, and the agency issued a report non-binding law that urges the European Commission to develop rules that set minimum standards for these AI companies. “Generative AI should not operate outside the rule of law” Basically, if they use protected content for their training, they must license it and also compensate the authors. with the title “Protecting creative work with copyright in the age of AI”the European Parliament demands a series of measures apart from licensing the works. They are the following: Calls for the transparent and remunerated use of protected content to train generative AI. AI vendors are expected to recognize and pay for the copyrighted work they used to train their systems. Measures so that owners of works with rights can exclude their protected work from training. The reason that they argue MEPs is that “generative AI should not operate outside the rule of law. If copyrighted works are used to train artificial intelligence systems, creators have the right to transparency, legal certainty and fair compensation.” The European Group of Societies of Authors and Composers, or GESAC, points in the same direction. In statements to EuronewsAdriana Moscoso del Prado, general manager of GESAC; assures that “this vote adds to the growing recognition at the EU level of what is at stake. Innovation, equity and cultural sovereignty must go hand in hand.” AI companies fight back From the CCIA, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, it was noted that this is not a measure to protect artists, but rather “a compliance tax.” That is, something that must be fulfilled no matter what and that goes against progress. The group argued that such a measure would not go against large companies, but against small ones. They say that many will have difficulty negotiating complex licensing agreements with major publishers, “holding back Europe’s digital competitiveness on the global stage” and stating that what they would need to do is improve existing laws in the European Union, including the AI ​​Law and the Copyright Directive. In any case, there is nothing on the table at the moment. As we say, it is a self-initiative report by Parliament and is not binding. The Commission can now consider whether to do so or not, but it makes one thing clear: Parliament’s position on any future AI measures by the Commission. The problem is that generative AI has already plundered millions of copyrighted works on which it can build its next interactions. The software has tons of information to pivot on and can evolve in other areas, like stopping hallucinating, for example. And it is another example of the two speeds of this matter: the technological ones taking the first steps and the legislators behind them seeing what can be done when the act they want to legislate on was already carried out years ago. Images | Washington Post, Anti-Piracy Campaign (edited) In Xataka | The AI ​​industry is only sustainable by violating copyright laws. So he’s trying to eradicate them

The problem with microrobots is that they don’t have a “brain.” The solution has been to use Einstein’s relativity to guide them

by

Making robots the size of a piece of human hair is already a reality, but it faces a big problem: they are too small to bring a “brain” on board. And it is logical, since on a microscopic scale there is no space to insert a microchip, batteries or navigation systems, so in a few words we can talk about “dumb robots” that only react to basic stimuli. But here the Einstein’s relativity has given a small solution. The solution. One of the functions of these small robots is precisely in be able to navigate the bloodstream to react to different stimuli. But the big question here is how they can navigate a bloodstream without colliding with each other. Something that was on the mind of a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania what have you seen that the key is not in making robots smarter, but in manipulating the “spacetime” through which they move. To understand this thread, you have to think about how gravity works according to the theory of general relativity. Here Einstein taught us that planets do not revolve around the sun because an invisible force pulls them, but because the mass of the Sun curves the fabric of spacetime, as with the Earth, which follows the easiest path through that curved space. To biology. Here the researchers wanted to apply this same mathematical principle to microrobotics, introducing the concept of “artificial spacetimes”. And since microscopic robots move in response to light, the scientists designed light fields projected onto a Petri dish that mimic the curvature of spacetime. In this way, the variations in light they faced acted like “artificial gravity.” In this way, the robot does not need to know where it is or where it is going. It simply turns on and moves forward, since it is the light pattern that “pushes” it to curve its path to avoid obstacles or find the exit from a maze, exactly like a ray of light curves when passing near a massive object in the cosmos. It seems like magic. In the experiment proposed by the researchers, different two-dimensional light labyrinths are projected. In this virtual scenario, they created dark areas that mathematically act as “black holes”, since when the microrobot approaches these areas, the equations that govern your response to light They are formally identical to those of the path of light falling through an extreme gravitational field. In this way, when the microrobot approaches these areas, the equations that govern its response to light are formally identical to those of the path of light falling through an extreme gravitational field. From here, using mapping, scientists managed to get these robots to ‘patrol’ specific areas, avoid obstacles and group together at an exact point. And the most interesting thing is that all this happens without a single processing chip on board the robot, since the “calculation” falls entirely on the geometry of the projected environment. A future doctor. The implications of this advance will now allow microrobots to be freed from the need to have a computer system inside them, which means they can be manufactured cheaply and even made even smaller. From here opens the door to very important medical applicationssince millions of these “reactive robots” can be injected into the human body. The objective here is to use external fields such as magnetic fields that act as a curved spacetime that allows them to move through our circulatory system to release a drug, clean arteries or perform biopsies at the cellular level. Images | Ruben Sukatendel In Xataka | Robots have a problem that no one has solved in decades: they get lost. A Spanish engineer believes she has found the key

In Vigo the hoteliers have decided that it is enough to occupy tables to just have a coffee. Solution: minimum consumption

by

Friday afternoon. Spring time, you can almost smell summer. The bars in the terrace area of ​​your city are full, but you and your friends are lucky: suddenly you see a free table on the other side of the square. You rush to occupy it, but when the waiter arrives to take your order, it turns out that of the six of you in the group, only three are going to have something. “I’m sorry,” he responds, putting the notebook in his pocket. “You don’t reach the minimum”. The above is an invented scene, but it is becoming easier to find it in bars in Spain. Especially as the rents and the cost of goods makes it difficult for them to reach the coveted threshold of profitability. “Minimum and mandatory” consumption. The news advances it Vigo Lighthouse: Fed up with groups of customers who ‘colonize’ tables for hours and hours and only order a couple of soft drinks, Van Gogh, one of the most popular cafes in Vigo, has decided to require its customers to have a “mandatory minimum consumption.” The rule leaves little room for interpretation. It is announced with a sign hanging on the door of the premises. Their goal is also quite clear: improve the profitability of the business and avoid tourists who just want to use the bathrooms. “Everyone has to consume”. “The intention is that if six kids come to a table, not just two of them order something, but all of them. We had to take these measures because we are talking about an issue of profitability. Everyone who enters the establishment has to consume it,” explains the manager of the cafeteria, Jordi Casado, told the Galician newspaper. It is the waiters themselves who enforce the rule, as well as another one that the establishment applies: only two baby strollers are allowed inside. “Sometimes people are not aware that space costs money. A child in a stroller does not consume and takes the place of a person who would,” they point out from the premises, who also remember that cars can hinder the passage. Van Gogh is not the only business in the industry that applies minimum consumption regulations in Vigo. Lighthouse mentions another cafeteria in Calvario that also imposes certain conditions on days when there are media matches, such as those played by Celta, Madrid or Barça. Those in charge allow table reservations, but only for those who are going to dinner. “And those who come on their own, obviously, cannot spend two hours alone with a coffee, it is not profitable,” warns the person in charge of the bar. Does it only happen in Vigo? No. A quick look at the newspaper archive shows that, although it is not a majority practice, requiring a minimum consumption is beginning to become normal in the sector. In certain tourist spots (such as Barcelona or Ibiza) it dates back years backin some cases with high rates. Just a few months ago the newspaper The Gazette counted how an establishment in the center of Salamanca had adopted a similar rule, requiring its customers to consume at least one drink and a tapa per person at times of greatest demand (basically on Friday and Saturday nights). Click on the image to go to the tweet. A table, 10 euros. “Many people sat on the terrace for two hours with a water or a wine. In the end the bill was five or six euros. Meanwhile, there were lines of people waiting to sit down,” explained the owner of the local charro. “With those numbers it is impossible to keep a bar afloat.” in autumn ABC echoed another case similar: a bar that requires its clientele to spend at least five euros on League matches. Again it is not a unique case. Not long ago the ‘I’m a Waiter’ account sparked controversy by share a poster in which a bar announces its rates to compensate for “the high costs of broadcasting matches”: if you want a chair you have to pay ten euros. If we talk about a table for four it stays at €30, or €45 if it is for six. Pulling imagination. Minimum consumption is just one of the strategies with which hoteliers try to protect their profitability. Others go through adjust the price of the drinks depending on the time the customer occupies the tables (the more minutes, the more expensive the coffee is) or even veto who They go to bars alone, without companions. It is also not strange that in Spanish restaurants reservations are already made with an arrival and departure time. Bead Earrings. The objective is always the same: improve profitability in businesses that are still carrying the hangover of COVID and that in recent years have been marked by the increase in rentthe complications to find qualified labor and the increase in the cost of goods such as the coffee either cocoa. Added to this panorama is the crisis of some of the most successful ‘products’ in the sector, such as the cane either the menu of the dayand the growing competition from other markets. Today, for example, Mercadona already represents a rival to take into account for the bars. Image | Toa Heftiba (Unsplash) In Xataka | The bars promised them happily by filling their terraces with beer merchandising. Now they fear million-dollar losses

The ugliest and most hated building in Paris is its only skyscraper. Since they cannot demolish it, they have come up with another solution: make it invisible.

by

For more than half a century, the Paris skyline has remained practically frozen. You may not have realized it, but in the historic center practically no building can exceed seven floors. This norm was born after a controversial construction of the seventies that provoked such public rejection that it changed forever the urban rules of the city. Today, that architectural experiment is once again at the center of the debate. And they have found a solution. The tower that should never have existed. In a city famous for its uniform horizon of six or seven-story stone buildings, the dark silhouette of the Montparnasse Tower It has been breaking the visual harmony of Paris for more than 50 years. Inaugurated in 1973 with 59 plants and nearly 210 meters high, the mass was born as a symbol of progress in a capital that was trying to modernize after the post-war period and transform the deteriorated Montparnasse neighborhood into a business district. The project had the political support of President Georges Pompidou and the Minister of Culture André Malraux, and had to demonstrate that the city could hug “the modernity of electricity”, fast trains and telecommunications. However, the result was an enormous monolith of dark brown steel and glass that stood out brutally above the urban fabric of the 19th century, almost immediately becoming the building most hated in the capital. Aging too quickly. As usually happens in hyperbolic projects that do not end well, the problem started even before that the tower was finished. The plan had been conceived in the fifties, but could not be started until the end of the sixties due to lack of technology, money and experience to build a skyscraper of those dimensions in Europe. When it was finally built, its late modernist aesthetic already seemed dated, and its dark color (compared by some critics to a nicotine stain) contrasted violently with classical Parisian architecture. It almost instantly became a crooked line of the capital. The black sheep. The public reaction was so negative that just four years after its inauguration, the City Council prohibited building buildings of more than seven floors in the city center, pushing out the skyscrapers towards the business district of La Défense. Since then, the tower has remained an urban anomaly or, if you will, a reminder to avoid: the only skyscraper in historic Paris. The most repudiated building in the most photographed city. Over the decades, many controversial buildings in Paris ended up being accepted and even lovedfrom the Eiffel Tower itself to the Louvre pyramid or the Pompidou Center. The Montparnasse Tower, on the other hand, never achieved reconcile with the Parisians. Jokes about its presence became part of popular culture: many say that the best view of Paris is from your viewpoint because it is the only place from which the tower cannot be seen. Others describe it as the box in which the Eiffel Tower arrived packaged. Even local politicians have called the building of “urban catastrophe”and for years proposals arose to tear it down completely. However, despite widespread rejection, the skyscraper has also maintained a curious cultural life. For example, the famous “French Spiderman” Alain Robert climbed the towerand has also appeared in movies and continues to attract tourists who climb to its observation platform to contemplate the city. An impossible demolition. You may be thinking about it. If Paris hates its own creation, why the hell hasn’t it been knocked down? As tempting as the idea of ​​removing the tower from the Paris skyline is for many, tearing it down was never an option. a realistic option. The reason? The building still houses offices, has a huge commercial infrastructure at its base and its demolition would involve a gigantic cost in addition to enormous logistical and environmental problems. Even those who would like to see it disappear acknowledge that it would be financially unviable. The tower is too big, too complex and too integrated into the neighborhood to simply erase it from the map. This reality forced the city and the promoters to look for an alternative solution: If the most hated skyscraper in Paris could not be destroyed, we would have to try to transform it. EITHER directly delete it. The solution: make it disappear. From this paradox was born one of the most ambitious urban renewal projects in the city. Because the strategy is not to demolish the Montparnasse Tower, but to radically alter your appearance so that, in essence, it is not “seen” and stops dominating the Parisian horizon. The plan, promoted by a consortium of French architects and accompanied by the remodeling of the surroundings designed by Renzo Pianoaims to replace the dark façade with a kind transparent crystal leather crossed by garden terraces, balconies and vertical gardens that visually fragment the volume of the building. The idea is quite clear: lighten its presence to the point that the gigantic brown block stop imposing yourself about him skyline. A “trick” worth 700 million. The transformation of the tower and the entire urban complex that surrounds it will exceed 700 million of euros and aims to convert a degraded environment (marked by an almost abandoned shopping center and an unwelcoming concrete platform) into an open space with squares, pedestrian walkways, green areas and new connections with the neighborhood. In this way, the tower will retain its structure original plan to reduce carbon emissions during construction, will incorporate more efficient energy technologies and add high-rise gardens and a rooftop greenhouse. The project has been caught for years between political debates, neighborhood concerns and architectural discussions, but the closure of the building to evict the tenants now opens the door to start of works. The strange fate of the Montparnasse mass. In short, more than fifty years after that giddy inauguration, the Montparnasse Tower is still being an anomaly repudiated in the city that banned skyscrapers after their construction. Paradoxically, that same singularity has also turned it into a species of unintentional icon … Read more

If the solution to the housing crisis in Spain is “building taller buildings”, Alcalá de Henares has taken it seriously

by

If you want to solve your residential deficit and stop the upward spiral of prices, Madrid needs housing. tens of thousands of housing, if we trust the calculations carried out by the real estate sector. With that backdrop in the capital (as in other points of the country) has opened a debate: Should we look up? That is to say, if houses are needed and the buildable land is what it is, has the time come? replant the height of buildings, both in established neighborhoods and in new real estate developments? In Alcalá there are those who believe so. In fact, the birthplace of Cervantes has started the countdown to provide one of the tallest skyscrapers in the community, a tower of almost 30 levels. What has happened? That Alcalá de Henares seems to have unblocked an ambitious real estate project that it had been years on the table: a tower that, once completed, will become one of the tallest residential buildings in the Community of Madrid. The news has revealed it the company Ten Brinke, which has partnered with Invesco Real Estate to carry out the operation. Although not many details of the project have been revealed, it is known that the building will be around 30 floors and will exceed the 300 homeswhich will redefine the skyline of the city and will surpass La Garena, an office tower 17 floors and 71.7 m which now dominates the town’s skyline. There are those who now slide that the new construction will be the first residential skyscraper in Alcalá de Henares and one of the few in the Community of Madrid that exceeds 25 heights. What do we know about the project? In the statement In which he announces the “closing of the operation”, Ten Brinke slips a couple of clues about the future property: it will be residential, it will exceed 300 homes and will have 28 levels in total, a sum of 25 floors in height, the ground floor and two underground levels. Furthermore, Ten Brike clarifies that the developers will bet on a “product mix” formula, including family housing, premium apartments and “spaces aimed at modern living.” Regarding deadlines, he states that the works will start “in the coming weeks”, without outlining a delivery schedule. Has anything else transpired? In recent days the Madrid press has pointed out various details to adults, such as that the objective is for the homes to be used for rental marketthat the tower will be around the 80 meters high and that will be located in the Francisco Anton streetnext to the new GAL neighborhood. The SER chain assures that the project has actually been licensed since 2021. A few years ago was announced an ambitious residential development, the Tower (or garden) Cervantes, with buildings 25 stories high. The Idealista portal even reached advertise The apartments, which were offered from 256,000 euros and also stood out for their common areas, with more than 15,000 m2 of gardens and recreational areas that included an outdoor pool. At that time (2024) the idea was to deliver the first keys towards the summer of 2027. Why is it important? Beyond the relevance of the project and its impact on the Complutense skyline, the tower is important because it will inject 300 new homes in a town that has seen how rents and the price per m2 have become more expensive in recent years, in line with the rest of Madrid. According to the Idealista portal, in February the m2 It cost €2,74419.3% more than in the same month last year. Regarding the rent, the m2 It was rented for €13.7which represents an annual increase (February 2025) of about 12%. The municipality has also seen its registry grow in recent years, going from 193,751 registered in 2018 to more than 203,200 residents, according to the tables of the INE. Images | Ten Brinke In Xataka | Madrid is discovering that there is something more controversial than the ‘tazo’ of garbage: where the hell to put a canton of garbage

Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution, and the price to pay has a name

by

In the last four years, a flying device barely twelve feet long has gone from being a little-known Iranian military experiment to becoming a one of the protagonists of several simultaneous conflicts. Its design is so simple that it can be assembled in a few hours and its cost is thousands of times lower than the systems that try to take it down. That combination has changed the way many militaries understand air defense. The buzz that changed war. Since 2022, the sound of a small motorcycle-like engine was the alarm signal which preceded many explosions in Ukrainian cities. That metallic and persistent noise belongs al Shahed-136a cheap, relatively simple Iranian kamikaze drone designed to attack pre-programmed targets at long range. With about 3.5 meters in length and the capacity to transport an explosive charge of about 50 kilos, these devices have become one of the symbols of modern warfare because they combine two factors that are difficult to counteract: their low cost and the possibility of mass producing them. The jump between conflicts. After four years of war in Europe, these drones have reappeared in force in another scenario. Iran has launched hundreds of devices against Gulf countriesreaching military bases, airports, refineries and urban areas in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait or Qatar. The attacks seek less physical destruction than psychological and economic pressureforcing the attacked countries to activate expensive defense systems to intercept weapons that can cost only about $50,000. Although many of the aircraft are shot down, even a small percentage that manages to penetrate the defenses is enough to cause damage to critical infrastructure or generate fear among the population. A strategy perfected by Ukraine. The pattern of these attacks is clearly reminiscent of the tactics Russia has employed since 2022 against cities and infrastructure Ukrainian energy companies. Moscow turned the Shahed into the center of a strategy of attrition and terror based on launching large drone waves together with missiles to saturate air defenses and increase the probability that some projectiles reach their target. The mass production has been key in that strategy: Russia not only imported thousands of Iranian drones, but also raised an own factory to manufacture them on a large scale, which allowed hundreds of devices to be launched in a single night against power plants, ports or residential neighborhoods. The anti-drone laboratory created in kyiv. This constant pressure forced Ukraine to become one of the countries more experienced of the world in the fight against these types of threats. After facing tens of thousands of Shahed, kyiv has developed a defense system in layers that combines radarselectronic warfare equipment, anti-aircraft missiles, mobile units and even interceptor drones capable of shooting down attackers in mid-flight. The result is an improvised network but extremely effective which has allowed most of the attacks to be neutralized despite the massive scale of the waves launched by Russia. Terror reaches the Gulf. That knowledge has now acquired a new strategic value. The Gulf countries, which were not used to facing constant drone attacks, have discovered how difficult it is to protect entire cities against weapons that fly low, are difficult to detect and can appear from multiple directions. Even advanced systems designed to intercept ballistic missiles can be overwhelmed by swarms of cheap drones. The recent attacks They have hit airports, refineries, ports and military bases, demonstrating that even critical infrastructures of highly protected economies can be exposed to this new form of air warfare. Zelensky’s offer. In this context, Ukraine has launched an unexpected proposal: share your experience to help Gulf countries neutralize the Shahed. President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to send his best anti-drone defense specialists along with a group of experienced operators to reinforce regional defenses, but, of course, with one clear condition, a name. kyiv wants Middle Eastern governments to jointly use all his influence on Moscow to pressure Vladimir Putin and achieve at least a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine. If you like, it is an offer that mixes military cooperation and diplomatic calculation: one where Ukraine presents itself as the country that knows the enemy best, and there is not much doubt about that, asking in return help to stop the war which made him precisely that expert. Image | Kyiv City State Administration,X, National Police of Ukraine In Xataka | The US has launched its most ambitious weapon against Iran in the last decade: a missile that does not need fighters or warships In Xataka | It is not that Iran is resisting US attacks, it is that it has room to take the conflict to an explosive scenario.

a solution to hang things without drill or screws

by

Marco Agustín Secchi is an Argentine Industrial Engineering student who has created a coating capable of turning any wall into a magnetic surface. He called him Ironplacand basically works as if it were a regular plaster, but with the particularity that it allows objects to be fixed directly to the wall with magnets, without having to drill holes. The idea is quite interesting, and below these lines we tell you all the details. What is Ironplac and how does it work?. Why do you have to drill holes in the wall every time you want to hang something? That question was what Secchi himself asked himself and was in fact the starting point of this project. According to counted the 29-year-old young man told the Argentine media La Nación, the material is presented in powder form, mixed with water and applied to the wall as if it were a conventional fine plaster, that is, the mixture that is applied to walls to cover them at the end of a work. According to what he says, once dry, the surface is prepared to attract magnets. The trick is that the mixture incorporates a formulation with mineral and ferrous fillers that convert the coating into a passive ferromagnetic surface. Secchi explains that the mixture does not emit any magnetic field on its own, but responds to magnets that are brought close to it. The user only needs to stick a magnet to the object they want to hang (be it a painting, a knife, a tool, etc.) and place it on the wall. Secchi assures having already tried tools, panels, small boards and even a shovel. An idea with a more practical use. Incorporating ferromagnetic particles into mortars or cements is not unknown in materials research. Normally have been explored this type of composites for applications such as radiation shielding or the improvement of mechanical properties. But the Ironplac skips all that to give it a much more practical approach: hanging things on a wall without the need for holes. And of course, on the other hand, it must be said that we love magnets. Click on the image to go to the post and video What is not yet resolved. The project is in an advanced stage of development, with functional prototypes and demos installed in real construction sites, but it is not yet commercialized. Aspects remain to be demonstrated, such as how much weight it can withstand in the long term, how it is applied to construction regulations and whether the cost will be competitive enough with other types of solutions such as metal panels or magnetic strips to make it viable to scale it to an industrial level. According to share In the middle, the patents are pending and Secchi acknowledges that he is currently working on finding financing and investors to scale production. Where do you want to go? The young inventor is clear about the type of spaces where he sees the most potential: workshops, classrooms, laboratories, kindergartens, offices. Places where the ability to rearrange space without damaging walls has real practical value. “I’m interested in understanding what it takes for an idea to work in the real world and be sustained over time,” declared Secchi. According to share The young man, Ironplac does not aspire to be a closed product, but rather “a construction platform capable of evolving and integrating with different materials.” We will see if it finds financing to scale the project. At the moment we know that the idea is quite attractive, especially because of being able to stick anything to the wall (as long as the element is accompanied by a small magnetic piece). Cover image | Marco Agustín Secchi In Xataka | 30 years ago the US was the country that dominated rare earths. This graph shows how China devastated at dizzying speed

Texas has the same problem of sinkholes and potholes as Spain but believes it has the solution: plastic roads

by

It is barely one kilometer but the promise is enormous: converting the roads into a huge plastic recycling plant. Testing began at the University of Texas at Arlington (United States) promulgated by Sahadat Hossaincivil engineer and director of the Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability at the University of Texas, but they have already taken the leap to the road. Hossain tells the story in The Conversationwhere he explains that the project was born from his obsession with recycling plastic. The engineer points out that he grew up in a low-income neighborhood of Bangladesh and that there he observed that people who lived closer to the landfills suffered more health problems than those who lived a little further away. His childhood experience has focused much of his research, focusing on the impact of materials on the environment and possible solutions for recycling them. Among the most complicated to recycle and, without a doubt, the most used: plastic. Now, under their research, in the United States they have launched a project to use plastics used in the construction of roads. And the results are being successful. Harder and more resistant In Texas they have a problem: it’s hot. Very hot, in fact. When building a road, taking the climate into account is essential. ANDIn warmer places, harder bitumens are needed. because they tolerate heat better. The problem is that asphalt also becomes more fragile and breaks more easily. The problems are even more pronounced if a wave of bad weather with a lot of water hits a fragile pavement, as has happened in Spain. A solution could go through make the asphalt a little more elastic but this has an intrinsic problem. And if the asphalt is more elastic, it also resists heat less well and in the harshest months it can soften and melt, as has happened to the United Kingdom in recent years. But this is, always, if we use traditional methods. What Sahadat Hossain’s team is testing is injecting plastics into the bitumen that binds the mixture of stones and sand that makes up the asphalt. At the moment, they are trying to inject plastics that make up between 8 and 10% of the bitumen mixture that binds the rest of the materials. It may not seem like a lot but, according to Hossain, at a test site near Dallas they used 4.5 tons of plastics that came from single-use plastic bags or bottles that were discarded to build a mile. It is a not insignificant amount if we think that we are talking about building about 1,600 meters of road while giving a new use to a material that produces about 400 million tons a year and of which barely 10% is recycled. To be useful, the process requires shred plastic until you get a very fine material that can melt with the bitumen and thus not leave elements in the air. And the result is being good. The first tests were done in university parking lot but they have already been scaling the project to roads with intense road traffic. According to their experience, the asphalt continues to resist heat (with good performance on days that exceeded 100º Fahrenheit, almost 38ºC) and is more flexible than with the traditional system, which reduces the risk of cracks and fractures. Point at The Conversationthat one of these tests has also been carried out in Bangladesh, where a heat wave caused more cracks and fractures in traditional roads while this road with plastics suffered much less wear. It is, therefore, good news when it comes to extend the useful life of the pavement and save money on maintenance. The good news is that the project is monitoring all the results with high traffic volume roads (also the adverse ones such as the possible emission of microplastics when vehicles pass by). And this test is by no means the first. In Rotterdam there was already talk of building these roads with recycled plastics a decade ago. However, its fatigue is much lower. The advantage here is that its performance can be studied under constant and high-tonnage traffic. Photo | The University of Texas at Arlington In Xataka | Until 2020, Spain had the most praised roads in Europe. Now it has something else: a hole of 13,000 million euros

We have been filling the refrigerator with kefir and high-protein yogurts for years. It turns out that the solution was invented in the year 874

by

For decades, the Mediterranean basin has held an absolute monopoly on nutritional health. They convinced us that olive oil, wheat and southern ferments were unbeatable. In the dairy aisle, this hegemony translated into the undisputed reign of Greek yogurt, a product that went from being a traditional food to becoming in the supermarket star thanks to its thick texture and high concentration of complete proteins. However, nutrition science has turned its sights toward much colder latitudes. Today, the undisputed protagonist of healthy diets, recommended by both sports nutritionists and metabolic researchers, does not come from Athens, but from Iceland. Is called skyrand although its appearance deceives us, it is rewriting the rules of what we consider a perfect breakfast. At first glance, the skyr It looks like some kind of ultra-creamy Greek yogurt, but it’s not technically a yogurt. Actually, it is about of a fresh, skimmed whipped cheese, made through a double fermentation process. From the Vikings to the supermarket shelf The history of this product begins with the first Viking settlements in Iceland, around the year 874. The Norwegian settlers who arrived on the island encountered an extreme climate and unfriendly lands. In that scenario, the skyr It became a real life insurance: a food ultra-concentrated in nutrients that allowed them to survive the harshest winters when there were hardly any resources. The traditional process starts with skimmed and pasteurized cow’s milk that is heated to 75ºC and cooled to 37ºC. Lactic acid bacteria are added to this base (such as Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus) and, crucially, rennet. After hours of fermentation, the product is carefully strained to eliminate the liquid whey. The result is a dense paste, with hardly any water, that requires three to four times more milk to produce than conventional yogurt. Today, the skyr has conquered supermarket shelves such as Lidl, Mercadona, Aldi or Alcampo. Nutritionist Blanca García-Orea points out that success in the supermarket lies in their clean labels: the best commercial options contain only two ingredients, pasteurized milk and lactic ferments, without added sugars or sweeteners. The clinical fascination with skyr It is based on its macronutrient profile. According to data collected by Healthlinea typical serving provides between 11 and 19 grams of protein, practically double that of a standard natural yogurt, while maintaining an almost non-existent level of fat (between 0% and 0.5%). But how exactly is it different from its direct competitors in the refrigerator? Nutritionist Laura Parada clears up the usual confusion between the skyrhe kefir and the yogurt. While the kefir stands out for a microbiota very diverse that includes yeasts and acetic bacteria, and normal yogurt It is based on lactic fermentation simple that leaves a light texture, the skyr It makes the difference because it is a fresh fermented cheese with a very high protein concentration and very thick texture. Added to this are other physiological advantages. The rigorous casting process of skyr eliminates approximately 90% of its lactose contentwhich allows many people with mild intolerance to consume it without experiencing digestive discomfort. At the micronutrient level, the portal Ingredia Food highlights that A 150-gram serving covers about 15-20% of the recommended daily intake of calcium, essential to protect against osteoporosis, and 19% of vitamin B2 (riboflavin), linked to the reduction of oxidative stress. What happens in your body when you eat it When you eat a tub of skyr, you’re giving your muscles exactly what they ask for. According to the magazine Nutrition & Metabolismits proteins are loaded with leucine and other key amino acids that trigger muscle synthesis. Basically, it’s an excellent tool for shielding lean mass when you’re looking to lose weight or prevent muscle from deteriorating with age. As if that were not enough, it takes away your hunger suddenly. The Aarhus University in Denmark did an experiment in 2024 pitting the classic breakfast of bread and jam against a bowl of skyr with oats. The conclusions of researcher Mette Hansen were resounding, the Nordic mix boosted mental concentration and satiety throughout the morning. Some women in the study were so full that they couldn’t even finish their portion. Science continues to find medical applications. Last year, the International Dairy Journal published a discovery very revealing about him skyr fermented with strains such as L. plantarum. It turns out that these formulations are capable of stopping blood glucose spikes after meals, while helping to reduce cholesterol and acting as a powerful shield against cellular inflammation. Not all the skyr it’s gold However, you have to put a magnifying glass on the shadows of any fashion product. That a container has the word printed skyr It does not make it a safe passage to comprehensive health. Magazines like Men’s Health warn that the industry is already marketing ultra-processed versions, such as ice cream skyrwhich although they provide protein, camouflage glucose syrup, fructose and added sugars in their ingredients. In addition, Healthline remember thatbeing made from cow’s milk, the skyr It is strictly not recommended for people with allergies to casein or whey protein, as it can trigger severe reactions. On the other hand, the debate about fat arises. Although the original version of skyr is applauded for being skimmed, a deep analysis that we did in Xataka We explain the historical demonization of dairy fat. Modern science is rehabilitating natural whole dairy products thanks to the “dairy matrix” (the membrane of the fat globule), which appears to have a cardiovascular protective effect and greater satiating power. This suggests that, although the skyr It is an excellent tool due to its protein density, completely dispensing with dairy fat in our diet based on ancient dogmas could be a mistake. The emergence of skyr in the global diet is not a marketing accident, but the convergence of an ancient tradition with the demands of modern metabolic medicine. Contemporary nutrition has stopped looking for shortcuts in laboratories to fixate on food matrices dense, real and fermented. Although it is not a magical food nor … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.