Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

Ottawa, April 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Growing industrial automation, expanding manufacturing activities, and increasing demand for maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) supplies are collectively driving strong growth in the industrial distribution market worldwide. What is the Industrial Distribution Market Size in 2026? The globalindustrial distribution market sizeis valued at USD 9.17 trillion in 2026 and is expected to be worth USD 13.46 trillion by 2035, with a robust CAGR of 4.37% from 2026 to 2035. Industrial distribution market is driven by expanding manufacturing output, rapid e-commerce adoption, and digital procurement system and inventory optimization is further strengthening distributor networks across global industries. The Complete Study is Now Available for Immediate Access | Download the Sample Pages of this Report@https://www.precedenceresearch.com/sample/2450 Dietary Supplements Market Key Takeaways Industrial Distribution Market Revenue, By Product, 2022 to 2024 (USD Billion) Industrial Distribution Market Revenue, By Application, 2022 to 2024 (USD Billion) ➡️Become a valued research partner with us☎https://www.precedenceresearch.com/schedule-meeting What Influence Does the Digital Age Have on Distribution's Growth? The speed at which the industrial distribution market is changing through digital technologies, expanding logistics infrastructure and growing industrial output is significant.e-Commerceand B2B websites will provide methods for procuring goods faster and tracking inventories in real time, contributing to improved efficiencies in operations. Governments are supporting logistics improvements and growing infrastructure, which will lead to even greater growth as an example, in India, its logistics industry, has gone from being worth $300 billion to $300 billion and is expected to show continued growth as a result of policies that encourage trade. Currently, a development that will provide significant growth for distributors is the 63% growth that occurred in industrial and warehouse leasing during 2025, driven mainly by e-commerce distributors and third party logistics companies, creating a stronger distribution network. Other investments being made in automation, computerized inventory systems driven by AI and resilient supply chains will result in faster delivery cycles and fewer disruptions in operational processes, making industrial distribution a vital part of the new manufacturing and global trade ecosystem. Market Opportunity The industrial distribution market is experiencing tremendous growth opportunities due to new infrastructure investments, favorable federal government policy, and increased adoption of technology. Because of initiatives launched under the National Logistics Policy and PM Gati Shakti, India is building new, integrated road, rail, port and air cargo networks using digital technologies to reduce delay in transit time and increase visibility of freight as it moves through these networks. The Commerce and Industry Ministry estimates that by reducinglogisticscosts to approximately 8% of GDP, there will be significant benefits to the Industrial Distribution industry in terms of increased productivity and reduced cost of doing business. In addition, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade indicates that there is growing demand to create new warehousing clusters in tier-2 cities because of the construction of new industrial corridors. Likewise, between 2025, the industrial warehousing sector experienced explosive growth, largely due to the increase in e-commerce and the rapid increase in the scale of the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, by leveraging new robotic andartificial intelligencebased inventory management systems andInternet of Things(IoT) enabledfleet managementsystems, companies will have the ability to deliver products faster, more reliably and expand their regional trade network with greater ease. Built for leaders who move markets. Access live, actionable intelligence with Precedence Q.https://www.precedenceresearch.com/precedenceq/ How Big is the Size of U.S. Industrial Distribution Market in 2026? According to Precedence Research, the U.S. industrial distribution market size is valued at USD 3.17 trillion in 2026 and is predicted to reach around USD 4.38 trillion by 2035, growing at a significant CAGR of 3.69% from 2026 to 2035. Note:This report is readily available for immediate delivery. We can review it with you in a meeting to ensure data reliability and quality for decision-making.Try Before You Buy – Get the Sample Report@https://www.precedenceresearch.com/sample/2450 Regional Insights Why Is the North America Region the Dominating the Industrial Distribution? The industrial distribution market is primarily dominated by North America as a result of its manufacturers, logistics infrastructure, and organized distribution networks fully formed to support industrial growth and development in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Other reasons North America continues to succeed as a leader in the industrial distribution market include the widespread use of automation, digital procurement platforms, and inventory management systems across all supply chains, which collectively contribute to greater efficiency. Furthermore, industrial distributors continue to use data analytics and implement e-commerce for smoother and more efficient industrial distribution operations while enhancing the customer experience. Lastly, all three countries of North America consistently demonstrate strong manufacturing and industrial activity in major industries such as construction, automotive, and energy, which creates constant demand across all industrial manufacturers and their supply chains. Why Is Europe is the Fastest-Growing Region in the Industrial Distribution Market? Europe is quickly becoming the most rapidly expanding region of the industrial distribution market due to the rapiddigital transformationand sustainability initiatives currently taking place across the European continent. Advanced technology (i.e., AI, automated logistics, etc.) continues to be adopted to enhance operational efficiencies across several manufacturing/industrial sectors. The emphasis placed on sustainability focuses on green supply chains and energy-efficient distribution practices, which has driven continued innovation in the region. With the increased demand for industrial distribution networks has come the growth of e-commerce and international trade across Europe. In addition, the continued support of local and national governments through regulatory measures and with increased capital investment in the modernization of industrial facilities will bring about an increased rate of adoption in Europe of advanced distribution solutions by all industrial sectors to continue creating value. Get informed with deep-dive intelligence on AI’s market impacthttps://www.precedenceresearch.com/ai-precedence Industrial Distribution Market Insights ➤Access the Full Dietary Supplements Market Study @https://www.precedenceresearch.com/dietary-supplements-market Segmental Insights Product Insights Why is MRO Supplies the leading subsegment? Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) supplies held dominant share of the industrial distribution market because of their ongoing use in manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure. They are used regularly to keep operations running smoothly and on time. The increased importance of preventive maintenance and asset lifecycle management has also contributed to the need for MRO supplies as an always-needed, high-volume category. OEM supplies represent the fastest growing segment of the industrial distribution market. This is due to thegrowing use of industrial automationand the growth in manufacturing. As industries buy large quantity of higher-quality machines and equipment, the demand for original parts increases. In addition, as industries move toward producing customized products, the demand for OEM parts to accommodate these new production systems and precision engineering continues to grow across all industries. Application Insights Which Application Segment Dominates the Industrial Distribution Market? Offline industrial distribution market segment is expected to have the largest market share. While many industries are adopting digital procurement platforms for ease and efficiency; offline distribution will continue to dominate the market because of the strong relationships between distributors and businesses, as well as the need for the physical inspection and immediate availability of products. In-person transactions for bulk purchases and technical validation will continue to be the pr eferred method of transacting business for many industrial sectors because offline channels continue to have established dealer networks, warehouses and on-site support services. E-commerce is expected to be the fastest growing segment of the procurement industry due to the growing trend of businesses moving to electronic procurement platforms for ease and efficiency. Some of the key benefits of online channels include ease of product comparisons, price transparency, and delivery speed. In addition, companies that are using artificial intelligence to search for products are able to enhance the usability of the e-commerce experience for their customers and quickly source products online for their organizations through e-commerce channels. ✚Related Topics You May Find Useful: ➡️Power Distribution Unit Market: Explore rising demand for efficient power management in data centers and IT infrastructure ➡️Japan’s Pharmaceutical Distribution Market: Understand evolving healthcare logistics and drug supply chain modernization in Japan ➡️Chemical Distribution Market: Analyze global supply chain expansion and growing demand across industrial chemical sectors ➡️Distribution Transformer Market: Track increasing investments in electricity infrastructure and grid modernization projects ➡️Power Distribution Component Market: Discover rising adoption of advanced components for reliable and efficient power delivery systems ➡️Power Transmission and Distribution Market: Examine global expansion of smart grids and large-scale energy infrastructure development ➡️Distribution Automation Market: Gain insights into digital transformation and automation trends improving power distribution efficiency Industrial Distribution Market Companies What are the Major Developments in the Industrial Distribution Market? Segments Covered in the Report By Product By Application By Geography Thank you for reading. You can also get individual chapter-wise sections or region-wise report versions, such asNorth America, Europe, or Asia Pacific. Immediate Delivery Available | Buy This Premium Research Report@https://www.precedenceresearch.com/checkout/2450 You can place an order or ask any questions, please feel free to contact atsales@precedenceresearch.com|+1 804 441 9344 Stay Ahead with Precedence Research Subscriptions Unlock exclusive access to powerful market intelligence, real-time data, and forward-looking insights, tailored to your business. From trend tracking to competitive analysis, our subscription plans keep you informed, agile, and ahead of the curve. Browse Our Subscription Plans@https://www.precedenceresearch.com/get-a-subscription About Us Precedence Research is a worldwide market research and consulting organization. We give an unmatched nature of offering to our customers present all around the globe across industry verticals. Precedence Research has expertise in giving deep-dive market insight along with market intelligence to our customers spread crosswise over various undertakings. We are obliged to serve our different client base present over the enterprises of medicinal services, healthcare, innovation, next-gen technologies, semi-conductors, chemicals, automotive, and aerospace & defense, among different ventures present globally. Web:https://www.precedenceresearch.com Our Trusted Data Partners: Towards Healthcare|Towards Packaging|Towards Chem and Materials|Towards FnB|Statifacts|Nova One Advisor|Market Stats Insight Get Recent News: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/news For the Latest Update Follow Us: LinkedIn|Medium|Facebook|Twitter

L a laguna di Venezia è fatta di silenzi d’acqua, campanili lontani e barene che cambiano colore con la marea. Basta allontanarsi di pochi minuti dai flussi di San Marco per ritrovarsi in isole dove si sente ancora l’odore delle fornaci, del pesce appena scaricato, dei campi coltivati. Otto luoghi diversi, tutti legati da uno stesso filo: l’acqua salmastra della Laguna Veneta, un paesaggio culturale unico che merita di essere esplorato con calma e con mezzi leggeri, dal vaporetto alla bicicletta. Preferisci ascoltare il riassunto audio? Nell'articolo Come muoversi in laguna e quando andarci La laguna Veneta si estende per centinaia di chilometri quadrati e conta decine di isole, grandi e piccole. L’errore più comune è pensare “faccio tutto in un giorno”: le distanze sull’acqua sono diverse da quelle su strada, i tempi si dilatano e la bellezza sta proprio lì. Per raggiungere Murano, Burano, Torcello, Sant’Erasmo, Lido, Pellestrina, Giudecca e San Francesco del Deserto si usano quasi sempre vaporetti o barche: il trasporto pubblico collega i principali approdi, mentre per le isole più appartate o per itinerari personalizzati conviene affidarsi a tour in barca o imbarcazioni tradizionali come il bragozzo, che permettono anche di avvicinarsi meglio alle barene e agli scorci meno frequentati. Il periodo più interessante per esplorare la laguna va dalla primavera all’autunno, quando giornate lunghe e temperature miti invitano a restare all’aperto, tra fornaci, orti e spiagge. L’estate porta più folla ma regala il Lido nella sua piena vita balneare e le serate lunghe sulle fondamenta. In autunno e in inverno la luce si fa più bassa, le nebbie ridisegnano il paesaggio e le isole si svuotano: perfetto per chi cerca tranquillità e ritmi lenti. Un soggiorno di almeno tre o quattro giorni consente di affiancare la visita alla città di Venezia a una piccola “odissea lagunare”: un giorno nel nord tra Murano, Burano e Torcello, un altro tra Lido e Pellestrina, un terzo dedicato a Sant’Erasmo, Giudecca e, se organizzata in anticipo, San Francesco del Deserto. Le isole dell’arte e delle case colorate: Murano, Burano, Torcello Murano Murano Murano è la Venezia “artigiana”: un’isola attraversata da un canale centrale che ricorda, in versione ridotta, il Canal Grande. Qui l’aria profuma di vetro caldo e fumo di fornaci. Alle finestre dei laboratori si intravedono maestri vetrai che modellano una pasta incandescente trasformandola in vasi, perle, lampadari. Le botteghe espongono opere in vetro di ogni forma, mentre il museo del vetro racconta come la Repubblica abbia concentrato qui le fornaci per proteggere la città dagli incendi e custodire i segreti delle proprie lavorazioni. Visitare Murano ha senso se si entra almeno in un laboratorio, osservando da vicino il passaggio dalla massa informe al pezzo finito. Burano Burano Più a nord, Burano è il contrario della monocromia: una fila di case dalle facciate vivaci, ognuna di un colore diverso, che si riflettono nei canali stretti. L’isola è legata da secoli alla pesca e al merletto: nel museo dedicato si scopre come le trame fossero tramandate di madre in figlia, con pazienza quasi infinita. In pasticceria si assaggiano i bussolai o buranelli, biscotti a base di burro e uova, dalla consistenza compatta e dal profumo di vaniglia o agrumi, nati come dolce “di scorta” per i pescatori. In alcune calli meno battute si notano ancora le antiche barche a remi, memoria di una laguna in cui la voga era l’unico motore. Torcello Torcello Torcello, poco distante, è l’opposto della Burano animata: un’isola ampia, con orti, giardini privati, campi e pochissimi residenti. Camminando lungo il sentiero principale il rumore diventa ovattato e l’attenzione si sposta sui dettagli: un muretto di mattoni, una vite che sale su un pergolato, qualche trattoria sparsa dove ci si può fermare per pranzo. È un luogo che racconta la fase più antica della storia lagunare: qui sorsero alcuni dei primi insediamenti, oggi riconoscibili nelle sue chiese e nei resti monumentali. Una visita guidata aiuta a leggere ciò che a un primo sguardo sfugge: stratificazioni, leggende, collegamenti con la storia della Serenissima. Torcello è facilmente abbinabile a Burano grazie ai collegamenti frequenti in barca, meglio se inserita in un’unica escursione per ottimizzare gli spostamenti. Tra orti, conventi e litorali: Sant’Erasmo, San Francesco del Deserto, Lido, Pellestrina Venezia Lido Sant’Erasmo è la laguna agricola. Qui lo sguardo incontra campi coltivati, filari, piccoli casolari e strade che si prestano alla bicicletta. La Serenissima si riforniva da quest’isola per frutta e verdura, e ancora oggi gran parte dell’orto lagunare nasce qui. Tra le produzioni più note c’è il carciofo violetto, compatto, con foglie violacee che spuntano ordinatamente dai filari: un prodotto che finisce nei mercati veneziani e nei menu dei ristoranti. Una giornata a Sant’Erasmo può alternare un giro in bici tra i campi, qualche sosta in azienda agricola e un passaggio in spiaggia, lontano dal rumore cittadino. Esistono anche alloggi diffusi che permettono di fermarsi la notte, dormendo in laguna ma fuori dalla confusione urbana. Poco distante, in posizione più raccolta, l’isola di San Francesco del Deserto appare come una macchia verde in mezzo all’acqua, fatta di cipressi alti e mura di convento. Il suo nome ricorda il passaggio di San Francesco, e ancora oggi vi risiedono frati francescani che scandiscono la giornata con i ritmi della vita monastica. L’isola non è servita da trasporto pubblico regolare: per visitarla è necessario prenotare un’escursione abbinata al collegamento da Burano o utilizzare un mezzo proprio. Durante le visite guidate si accede al convento e al chiostro, spazi sobri, con pietre consumate e cortili interni silenziosi. È una sosta perfetta per chi cerca luoghi di raccoglimento e ha voglia di uscire completamente dalle rotte più affollate. Sul margine esterno della laguna, il Lido di Venezia separa l’acqua interna dal Mare Adriatico. È un’isola lunga, attraversata da viali alberati, ville in stile Liberty e spiagge sabbiose attrezzate. I veneziani hanno con il Lido un rapporto quasi rituale: la capanna in spiaggia per tutta la stagione è una tradizione di famiglia. In settembre arriva la Mostra del Cinema di Venezia, che porta tappeti rossi e proiezioni, ma per il resto dell’anno il Lido è un luogo da vivere in modo semplice: piedi nudi sulla sabbia, bici noleggiate vicino agli approdi, pedalate verso i Murazzi, le lunghe protezioni in pietra d’Istria che difendono l’isola dalle mareggiate e dall’acqua alta. Qui il suono costante è quello delle onde che si infrangono contro le difese, con il profumo di salsedine forte nell’aria. Più a sud, Pellestrina è una striscia di terra sottile, con la laguna da un lato e il mare dall’altro. I borghi di pescatori hanno case basse, barche tirate in secca, reti appese ad asciugare, e una vita quotidiana scandita ancora dalla pesca. La spiaggia è ampia e, proprio perché lontana dai circuiti più frequentati, resta spesso poco affollata. Verso l’estremità si trova l’oasi di Ca’ Roman, area di grande valore naturalistico, con dune e vegetazione costiera. Un modo coerente per esplorare Pellestrina è la bicicletta, percorrendo l’isola da nord a sud fino alla bocca di porto di Chioggia e fermandosi dove va l’istinto: un molo, una chiesetta, un bar di paese. Giudecca e consigli pratici per un viaggio sostenibile Giudecca La Giudecca è un caso particolare: geograficamente isola, amministrativamente parte del centro storico di Venezia, all’interno del sestiere di Dorsoduro. Si allunga di fronte alle Zattere e al Bacino di San Marco, collegata da linee frequenti di vaporetto. L’atmosfera è quella di un quartiere vissuto: panni stesi alle finestre, chiacchiere in campo, studenti universitari che animano calli e fondamenta. Passeggiando lungo il fronte che guarda verso San Marco si ha una vista ampia sulla città storica, con campanili e facciate che cambiano colore durante la giornata. Sul lato opposto, lo sguardo corre verso la laguna sud, aperta e ampia. Per gli spostamenti preferire mezzi pubblici, barche ecologiche, bici e voga alla veneta rispetto ai motoscafi veloci; pianificare gli itinerari in modo da ridurre gli spostamenti a vuoto tra un’isola e l’altra; scegliere alloggi diffusi su isole come Sant’Erasmo, Pellestrina o Giudecca per distribuire la pressione turistica fuori dalle zone più congestionate. Sul fronte gastronomico, la laguna è un laboratorio di cucina di pesce e ortaggi locali. Nei ristoranti e osterie si trovano piatti legati alla pesca di Burano e Pellestrina, verdure provenienti da Sant’Erasmo e dai terreni lagunari, ricette storiche veneziane reinterpretate. Assaggiare prodotti come il carciofo violetto, i biscotti buranelli, il pesce azzurro fritto o in saor significa comprendere quanto la vita quotidiana degli abitanti sia intrecciata con questo ambiente d’acqua.

Oracle’s betting everything on OpenAI. Will it pay off or pop the bubble? If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.See our ethics statement. If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.See our ethics statement. If you want to know whether the AI bubble is bursting, there’s only one publicly traded company that will tell you: Oracle. That’s right, the database company. Oracle has burned its boats and pivoted to AI, but not in any kind of usual way. It is not a foundation model builder like OpenAI or Anthropic, obviously. It’s not quite a neocloud, though it has entered the same bare-metal businessas CoreWeave. It is a software-as-a-service company that has made an audacious bet on a very specific future version of AI as Oracle’s traditional business has gracefully declined. It is significantly older than any of its AI competitors, save Microsoft, and it has decided its future involvesan enormous compute dealwith OpenAI, a company that does not make money. Whether OpenAI is good for its commitments to Oracle depends a lot on how much money it can raise and how quickly it can become profitable. The risk for Oracle is that it may be sinking a lot of money into building data centers for OpenAI, only for OpenAI to be unable to pay Oracle the $300 billion it agreed to in their contract. Oracle and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment. But the OpenAI play — and the pivot to AI generally — suggests a specific vision: The key place to make money isn’t training foundation models. The real money is inference, or using AI models to output results on data that isn’t in the training set. So the company has looked at some startups’ businesses and decided that they are actually just features that can be added to Oracle’s existing capabilities — which is pretty much what Oracle has been up to for the entirety of its existence. Oracle, of course, is already an enterprise business, so it has the existing relationships and large salesforce to go out there and sell its vision, one that suggests there isn’t much room for the AI stack to fragment. Rather, it will consolidate under existing players. Oracle intends to be the dominant player in that game. Wall Street wants to bet on AI, and it can’t bet on OpenAI because it’s not public yet. So the best way to do it now is through Microsoft and Oracle. Microsoft has a more complicated business, so it’s not a pure AI bet. Oracle, on the other hand, is cleaner. That means you can take the temperature of the entire AI boom by checking in on how many people are betting Oracle won’t repay its loans on time — those are the credit default swaps. Oracle’s stock price also reacts to assorted and sundry industry events, providing a bellwether about the AI revolution — or the AI bubble, depending on how you view it. But there’s always a tremendous gap between vision and execution, as Oracle’s history shows. “The orthodox company is low-growth and high-margin and makes him feel old and uncool.” Let’s get it out of the way: Oracle founder Larry “Bad Doggy” Ellison is out of his fucking mind. He has a short attention span, a willingness to promise things his engineers have not yet built, a tremendous ego, and a competitive drive that could power every AI data center on Earth and then some. Ellison is nominally the chief technology officer and executive chairman of Oracle, and Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia are nominally the co-CEOs. But Oracle has always been the Larry show, starring Larry, even when he’s busycheating at yacht racesor whatever. Oracle’s move to focus on AI means leaving behind the high-margin, low-growth, low-capital-expenditure database business that is Oracle’s bread and butter to jump to the low-margin, high-growth, high-capex neocloud business that Oracle has taken out $43 billion in debt to build injustfiscal 2026. Why do that? Well, according to Paul Kedrosky, a longtime VC at SK Ventures, Larry got bored. “This is the story of Larry forever,” says Kedrosky. “Whenever he left to go sailing, he’d say, ‘This company’s not as much fun as it used to be.’ The high-level take is that the orthodox company is low-growth and high-margin and makes him feel old and uncool.” In the 1990s, one of the reasons that Oracle became a hot property was Ellison. He was among the various futurists making predictions about what the internet would do to society. In 1996, Ellison appeared onThe Oprah Winfrey Showto hype what he called “the network computer.” (As part of the appearance, Oracle promised togive a network computer to each of almost 300 kidsat a primary school in Menlo Park.) This was a lightweight device, even one that could be treated as a throwaway, that would connect to applications stored online. If you are thinking,Boy, that sure sounds like a modern phone, you’re right. If you are also thinking,Boy, that sure sounds like the cloud, you’re also right. The network computer flopped. The iPhone, which kicked off the modern era of lightweight, disposable computing devices, was introduced more than a decade later, in 2007. Oracle veered away from its bold vision of the cloud, while a true believer peeled off to form his own company: Marc Benioff, who founded Salesforce in 1999. Amazon’s AWS venture into cloud computing was in 2006, a decade after Ellison had predicted that people wouldn’t need to keep software on their own computers. So why didn’t Oracle lead both of those revolutions, if Ellison saw them coming a decade out? Well, the iPhone was a consumer product, and Oracle made primarily enterprise databases. Oracle knew how to sell to businesses — it’s why they’d so thoroughly stomped competition such as Relational Technology Inc. andCullinetin the first place — but Ellison didn’t know how to make consumerschooseto buy things rather than get forced to use it by their employer. The failure of the network computer also made Ellison weirdly recalcitrant about the cloud. He refused to take a second crack at the ideauntil 2011, even mocking it as “complete gibberish.” Oracle never really recovered from its lost lead. Despite its strong enterprise software business,it lags Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba in market share, and is barely ahead of Salesforce. Given Ellison’s competitive streak —one of his biographies is titledEveryone Else Must Fail— this has to sting. The worst part might have been losing to one of Oracle’s biggest rivals, Microsoft. Still, the majority of Oracle’s business, as of its most recent earnings results, is “cloud and software.” The category represented 88 percent of the company’s revenue in the three months ended February 28th, which is the third quarter in Oracle’s 2026 fiscal year. (There are also hardware and services businesses, but for our purposes, they are negligible.) The majority ofthatis software support, which “substantially all” customers renew every year “in order to continue to benefit from technical support services and the periodic issuance of unspecified updates and enhancements” to the applications and infrastructure they also use. That brought in a shade under $5 billion in Oracle’s third quarter. The next biggest was “cloud infrastructure,” which had revenue of about $4.9 billion. The customer support business had zero percent growth in the third quarter. Its database and applications businesses, though very profitable, aren’t growing and may even be declining, says analyst Gil Luria of DA Davidson. The cloud business, on the other hand, is growing. It’s an “okay business, very fast-growing with low profitability,” says Luria. “Oracle cloud has single-digit margins, maybe at best teens. But they’ve been growing it very fast.” So when ChatGPT launched the modern era of AI hype in Silicon Valley, it was inevitable that Ellison would take an interest. By February 2025,Ellison was telling former UK Prime Minister Tony Blairthat AI was “a much bigger deal than the Industrial Revolution, electricity, and everything that’s come before.” In September, Oracle “shocked the markets” with a $300 billion deal with OpenAI to build data centers, one of the largest cloud deals ever. Oracle’s move into the bare-metal business — renting out servers to AI companies — can be thought of as an extension of the cloud business. Having missed the initial run on the cloud, it seems that Ellison has decided Oracle can’t be left out this time. When ChatGPT launched the modern era of AI hype, it was inevitable Ellison would take an interest In some ways, Oracle was an obvious partner for OpenAI. It’s one of the few Big Boys that isn’t trying to compete with Nvidia by building its own chips — though it does have a very close relationship with AMD. But there’s one other benefit that probably tickled Ellison,a longtime Microsoft haterwho even resorted to sending private detectives tosort through Microsoft’s trash: OpenAI’s biggest partner for computeused to beMicrosoft. The deal was pure, flashy, competitive Ellison — and propelled Oracle’s shares to an all-time high. But with the deal came another big personality: Sam Altman, who hasa reputation in Silicon Valleyas a sociopathic liar with a people-pleasing streak. OpenAI is the Sam Altman show, as becameveryclear in 2023when he was briefly deposed as OpenAI’s philosopher-king. Tying Oracle so closely to OpenAI meant that Oracle was no longer the arbiter of its own fate. And indeed, as OpenAI soon announced a series of other massive deals, Oracle’s shares fell. Now, Oracle serves essentially as apublic market proxy for betting on OpenAI’s future— for better and for worse. This time when Ellison predicted the future, he wasn’t the sole true believer, points out Nick Patience, the AI lead at the Futurum group. “It’s a more grounded bet” than the network computer, Patience says. Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai have basically the same vision. On the other hand, Ellison is “piggybacking on Sam Altman, which is probably a dangerous place to be,” Patience notes. Oracle’s OpenAI deal was basically kismet after Musk left it in the lurch Oracle’s OpenAI deal was basically kismet. Oracle had been working on a data center in Texas for Elon Musk, a friend of Ellison’s, who made an abrupt about-face when he decided his company xAI could build his own data center faster. Just as Musk left Oracle in the lurch, a LinkedIn message from OpenAI infrastructure chief Peter Hoeschele arrived in the inbox of a sales leader at Oracle,Bloombergreported. The resulting deal was significantly larger than the one Oracle had been discussing with Musk,with options to expand it further. To fulfill the deal, Oracle will build fivevery largedata centers. “All told, they’ll require millions of chips and consume 4.5 gigawatts of power — more than all the homes in Chicago,”Bloombergwrote of the deal. Oracle is planning to build them with an initial completion date in 2027, though according toBloomberg, that has already slipped to 2028. It’s a more aggressive bet than any other major company has made on AI, and one that the less reckless — or perhaps, less desperate — Microsoft shied away from. Oracle’s previous chief executive officer, Safra Catz, was skeptical of the financial benefits of the cloud. It had lower margins and required costly data centers,Bloombergreported, citing employees who’d heard Catz’s reservations. She was replaced last year, shortly after the OpenAI deal, by Magouyrk and Sicilia, who previously ran Oracle’s cloud business and applications. In the announcement, Ellison, unsubtly, is quoted saying that “Clay and Mike committed Oracle’s Infrastructure and Applications businesses to AI.” Oracle had burned the boats. OpenAI, for its part, needs Oracle for its investment-grade credit rating, notes Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor at Columbia Business School. OpenAI doesn’t have one, and couldn’t support the necessary compute buildout on its own. Effectively, OpenAI is renting Oracle’s creditworthiness. Of the hyperscalers, however, Oracle has the lowest credit rating. It also has the greatest debt load, even before the infrastructure buildout came into play. What’s more, when I say “Oracle is building data centers,” I am doing a little sleight of hand. Unlike Google and Meta, Oracle doesn’t actually build its own data centers. It’s leasing data centers that other companies are building on its behalf. In Abilene, Texas, that’s Crusoe, with whom Oracle has signed a 15-year lease; Oracle committed to paying more than a billion dollars a year despite Crusoe’s relative lack of experience, according toSemiAnalysis.,an industry newsletter. Crusoe’s inexperience is a relatively minor risk compared to the much larger one Oracle is taking on OpenAI, which is by far the biggest customer represented in Oracle’s remaining performance obligations (RPOs), which represent how much money Oracle is slated to earn from its existing contracts. Of the $553 billion in RPOs that Oracle reported in its most recent earnings release, more than $300 billion is OpenAI. So how’s OpenAI doing? In November 2025, Sam Altman sent a memo to OpenAI in which he wrote, “I expect the vibes out there to be rough for a bit.” The vibes had been rough for a bit before the memo, actually. There was the whole thing whereAltman got booted and then reinstated. Metaraided OpenAI for talent; several key OpenAI players such asIlya Sutskever,Bob McGrew, andMira Muratiwent on to found their own companies. Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s biggest competitors, isalsocomposedofformer OpenAI talent. The executive reshuffling is basically constant. That’s not all on the corporate chaos front. Because OpenAI is trying to go public, it had to repeatedly renegotiate its deal with Microsoft. Not only is Microsoft freed up to partner with other companies,like Anthropic— therevenue-sharing agreement between the two companiesends in 2030 (rather than whenever OpenAI hits a development milestone) and the total payments are capped. “OpenAI products will ship first on Azure, unless Microsoft cannot and chooses not to support the necessary capabilities,” Microsoft announced. But OpenAI can now partner with other cloud providers to try to build its enterprise business. OpenAI’s approach to AI is decidedly unfocused, especially in comparison to Anthropic. There’s something of a profit panic as the company tries to figure out how to make money from its scattershot AI enterprises, while Claude Code and Cowork from Anthropic emerged as the winners for enterprise AI spending. Anthropic doesn’t have image generation or video generation products. It has instead stayed laser-focused on the enterprise market. OpenAI has, by contrast, chased the consumer market, exposing itself to other kinds of risk in the process. The company is facing multiple lawsuits frompeoplewhosay ChatGPTencouraged loved onestokill themselves— and,in some cases, others. This has, perhaps predictably,resulted in political pressure. Also there’sa lawsuit from Elon Muskover OpenAI’s for-profit arm that — if Musk wins —may threaten its public offering. OpenAI’s chaos does not inspire confidence in Altman’s management skills This degree of chaos does not inspire confidence in Altman’s management skills. And OpenAI, like all AI labs, is a money furnace. Recently, OpenAI projected that it will spend$665 billion by 2030— $111 billion more in cash burn than it previously predicted. That’s not all. Its gross profit margins last year were lower than the company predicted, as it had to buy last-minute compute to meet demand. OpenAI projects it will be cash-flow positive in 2030, two years later than its rival Anthropic. Both companies are threatening to go public this year. The thing that’s driving up OpenAI’s costs is inference, the very thing Ellison is betting on. This is probably a positive sign for Ellison’s intuitions about AI use, but it might not be the best thing for his partner. OpenAI haspromised $1.4 trillion in its contracts. OpenAI recently raised$122 billion. “That could last them a few years,” Luria says. “I am 100 percent sure they can get to $1.4 trillion? Probably not, but they do have money now, and that makes a difference for Oracle.” Luria’s skepticism is understandable. Take Stargate, the flashy data center project that OpenAI announced, Altman standing shoulder to shoulder with Ellison and Donald Trump. The joint venture hasn’t hired staff and isn’t developing any data centers for OpenAI,The Informationreported in February, describing Stargate as a “shelved idea.” Earlier this month,The Informationdiscovered severalStargate leaders, including Hoeschele, ditched OpenAI; theywashed ashore at Meta. OpenAI didn’t get its planned 10GW of data center capacity from Oracle and SoftBank last year, either. Part of the problem for OpenAI is that its credit wasn’t as good as Oracle’s — so OpenAI just made its deal with Oracle directly. The two companies also made an unusual arrangement where if there was a delay or the project came in over budget, OpenAI and Oracle would share costs. (They also both benefit if things are under budget.) As for the other member of the project, SoftBank has its own OpenAI agreement, which has led to slapfights over who controls the 1GW facility in Milam County, Texas. OpenAI has signed a long-term lease with subsidiary SoftBank Energy, which would develop and own the data center. Between the complications with Oracle and SoftBank, it seems likely that OpenAI doesn’t have the money or the compute to achieve all of its ambitious goals. Despite all that, Altman is targeting a public offering by the end of 2026,The Wall Street Journalreported in January. That may be in doubt now, after theJournalalso reported OpenAImissed revenue and user growth targets. “Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told other company leaders that she is worried the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough,” theJournalwrote, citing anonymous sources. In response,Dealbookanalyst Harrison Rolfes issued a note explaining that OpenAI likely won’t go public this year. OpenAI is racing to beat Anthropic and Musk’s xAI, which has been subsumed by SpaceX andis trying to IPO this summer.SpaceX is seekinga valuation of $1 trillion or more. OpenAI’s most recent funding round gave it a valuation of more than $850 billion. Granted, valuations are more art than science, but it’s also the case that if OpenAI were to IPO with that valuation, it would bevalued at 28 times its projected 2026 revenue. By way of comparison, Nvidia — a company that is making an actual profit from the AI boom — is valued at 12 times its projected 2026 revenue. OpenAI’s rich valuation, the company’s long way to profitability, and its aim at consumers rather than enterprises may lead some investors to sit out the IPO,The Informationreported. If and when the mandatory paperwork associated with an IPO filing is made public, we’ll get a sense of exactly how challenging the environment is for OpenAI — but it seems that OpenAI doesn’t have an easy road to do everything it’s trying to do and still stay solvent. OpenAI is racing to beat Anthropic and xAI, and it’s got a long path to profit OpenAI is a flaky partner for Oracle. While that’s the largest challenge for Oracle’s data center buildout, it’s not the only risk. Payments on both Oracle’s bonds and its data center leases will occur on a fixed timeline. Anything that slows the buildout threatens Oracle — money will be flowing out on schedule, but if the build doesn’t happen on time, there may not be enough money flowing in. There are a lot of things that could potentially slow Oracle’s mad dash to build data centers: increasing objections from communities near data centers, supply chain risks from Trump’s war on Iran, and energy risks for the same. What’s more, Oracle has data centers in the now-destabilized Middle East, which could lead to surprise costs that have nothing to do with OpenAI, but nonetheless make it harder for Oracle to pay its bills. Increasingly, communities are objecting to the mad rush to build AI data centers, so much so that11 states are considering moratoriums. In the case of one of Oracle’s attempted data centers in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, the attempt to quickly build a data center bybuttering up local officials— without even really consulting the community the facility would be built in — is nowfacing several lawsuitsfrom a local environmental group. The data center, dubbed Project Jupiter, would emit more greenhouse gases than the state’s two largest cities, Albuquerque and Las Cruces, combined. The state’s land commissionerhas rejected an application for a segment of gas pipeline to powerthe data center. Though construction has already started, it’s still awaiting two air quality permits — and the decision, with an original deadline of April 22nd, has beendelayed several monthsto allow for a public hearing as opposition to the data center has mounted. Another Oracle-OpenAI data center, in Port Washington, Wisconsin, has similarly drawnpushback from locals. Several protesters were arrested at a city council meeting in December, and one was dragged out for chanting “Recall” at the mayor. Construction on this data center is also underway. Among the people who oppose the data center is thecomedian Charlie Berens, who has 3 million subscribers to his YouTube channel of mostly Midwestern humor. This data center project alsofaces lawsuitsfrom locals, includinga challenge to tax incentives for the projectworth nearly half a billion dollars. An investigation is now taking place about whether meetings that pushed the data center development forwardviolated open records laws; Port Washington has also been accused ofnot turning over public records in response to a request. The construction itself, going around the clock to avoid delays,has also irritated neighbors;new rules limit construction time. There are signs that the OpenAI and Oracle alliance could be getting shaky There are other signs that the OpenAI alliance may be shaky.OpenAI declined to expand the Abilene, Texas, data centerit partners with Oracle on, possiblybecause it doesn’t have the newest clusters of Nvidia chips. It wasn’t just OpenAI who didn’t want to work with Oracle on this; lenders didn’t want to finance an expansion with Oracle as the tenant, according toThe Wall Street Journal.Banks havereportedly grown wary of Oracle debtas private credit investors havegotten anxious about their funds. Should Oracle require more money, it may be harder to find. And now that Ellison’s pal Donald Trump has started a war in Iran with no end in sight, new risks are stacking up for data centers broadly — including Oracle’s. The New York Fed has said thatsupply chains are facing mounting pressure. In particular, Iran’s blockade on the Strait of Hormuz isa threat to the global helium supply; helium is used inmanufacturing semiconductors, and there isnothing that can replace it. There is alsoan aluminum crisis; the material is used in data center server racks and cooling units.Data centers had already driven up the price of aluminum, while also making it more difficult to manufacture aluminum in the US by increasing energy prices. Speaking of energy prices, there is one more obvious problem that has been created by the Iran war: more expensive energy. Infrastructure damage from the war, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has sent prices upwithout spurring new drilling. That may mean increases in the price of other kinds of energy as people seek out alternatives. Expensive energy could turbocharge objections to data center buildouts, as well as making those builds more pricey. It may also force purveyors of compute to raise their prices, which could make AI even more expensive than it already is. On top of all of that, Oracle’s existing data centers are also in greater jeopardy than before Trump went to war. A Dubai data centerhas been hit by debrisalready. Iran claims to be proactively targeting data centers from US companies, including Oracle, and has struck several Amazon facilities. Should Iran take out more Oracle hubs, the company may be forced to rebuild those at the same time as it attempts to build its AI centers — leading to a cash crunch. It may also limit revenue. An increase in the cost of construction and energy, a decrease in revenue, or both could make it much harder for Oracle to meet its lease and debt obligations, which are fixed. Repayment of the $43 billion Oracle raised in fiscal 2026 is split up over a series of years, starting in 2029 and ending in 2066, with a total effective interest rate of 4.9 percent. Now, on top of everything else, there’s the war in Iran In the next five years, Oracle will have to repay the $9.5 billion it borrowed in fixed-rate notes, plus another $500 million in floating-rate notes, plus interest. This suggests an aggressive view of what the company can accomplish in five years, since we know Oracle isn’t making enough cash right now to cover its operating expensesandcapital expenditures. To turn that around, Oracle has to build data centers, fast, to turn its theoretical future revenue into actual money. The bond market has reflected uncertainty about Oracle’s plans. In December, Oracle’s investment-grade notes were trading like junk bonds, becauseinvestors feared data centers would be delayed, according toBloomberg. Also in December, Oracle’s credit default swaps (CDS) — a kind of insurance in the case of a default —got expensive. But by February, investors werefeeling betterafter newly announced financing plans suggested that Oracle would avoid having its credit downgraded. After Oracle’s strong earnings were announced in March, the five-year CDS got cheaper — then, later that month,hit an all-time high, suggesting investors were nervous again. “Oracle’s CDS has become the credit market’s proxy for AI risk,” John Lloyd, global head of multisector credit and a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, toldBloomberg. In April, another$14 billion of bonds for an Oracle data center were issuedin a special purpose vehicle, keepingthe debt off Oracle’s balance sheet. Investors have reason to be nervous. More than half of the data centers scheduled to be built this yearmay be delayed by equipment shortages— or even canceled. While some builders — like Oracle’s partner Crusoe — are refurbishing old transformers or relying on other strategies, uncertainty around the AI buildout has been rising. It’s not all bad news for Oracle. For instance, ByteDance has been renting chips from Oracle to circumvent export prohibitions of Nvidia’s most advanced chips. According toThe Information,ByteDance has become one of Oracle’s largest cloud customers. Oracle also has a$2 billion stake in TikTok’s newly spun-off US operationsand hosts all of the company’s user data. What’s more,SemiAnalysishas suggested that in addition to deals in Northern Virginia, ByteDance is a major customer of Oracle’s in Southeast Asia. As ByteDance is planning to grow in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Oracle will benefit, according toSemiAnalysis. “The scale of the Oracle and Bytedance partnership remains under the radar,”SemiAnalysisnoted, rating Oracle’s GPU service as Gold onits most recent ranking chart. Oracle had strong results in its most recent earnings, too. The company did better than expected at keeping its costs low. It also showed strong growth in its cloud infrastructure business, and 90 percent of its database projects were on or ahead of schedule. “A strong record of on-time delivery is evidence of solid execution,”wrote Luke Yang, an analyst with the financial firm Morningstar. Still, Yang said that there was a lot of uncertainty around Oracle, since the AI landscape changes quickly. But more significant than the bare-metal business may be Ellison’s vision of private AI, deployed within databases Oracle already runs. Sure, Oracle has talked about efficiencies from using AI coding tools. That’s not really the big play, though. Oracle already has sensitive data for a number of businesses, including healthcare records. Having an AI software stack means being able to deploy AI agents into that data to better organize it — with fewer concerns about leakage than there would be with general-purpose third-party LLMs. “Training AI models on public data is the largest, fastest-growing business in history,” Ellison saidin December, on an earnings call. “AI models reasoning on private data will be an even larger and more valuable business. Oracle databases contain most of the world’s high-value private data.” “Training AI models on public data is the largest, fastest-growing business in history.” There’s reason to believe that training is no longer going to be the same kind of growth industry for AI bare-metal providers; inference will be. After all, one line of thinking goes, the big LLMs have already scraped everything available on the web. But that doesn’t really matter for the application of AI to businesses — inference is what they’d want anyway. Maybe they don’t have everything a business might need yet, says Patience, the analyst with Futurum. But it’s clearly where Ellison is heading. “I don’t think he’s early this time,” Patience said, suggesting this moment was unlike the network phone. “A lot of people would have to be completely wrong, so he’s more protected.” Oracle is also a go-to vendor for the Trump administration, Patience points out. Oracle has, for instance, justwon a contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesto modernize the agency’s data. It also justwon a similar contract with the Air Force. And now US government customers can use a number of Oracle services,including its generative AI. This has, perhaps understandably,freaked people out. Oracle has a history of unauthorized data collection — in 2024,it settled a class-action lawsuitclaiming that the company illegally compiled “digital dossiers” including where people browsed online, bought gas, banked, and ate, and sold the information to marketers. The same year, Ellison alsosuggested, in an analyst meeting, that AI and surveillance will make sure that “citizens will be on their best behaviorbecause we’re constantly recording everything that’s going on.” He described a world in which police officers, wearing Oracle body cams, tell their cameras they need two minutes to go to the bathroom. “We’ll turn it off,” Ellison says. “The truth is, we don’t really turn it off. What we do is, we record it so no one can see it. No one can get into that recording without a court order.” And an AI is always watching, Ellison says. “These are the kind of next-generation systems we can build using AI.” And of course, databases are central to the vision. “We need to unify all the national data, put it into a database where it’s easily consumable by the AI model, and then ask whatever question you like,” Ellison said inanother speech at the World Governments Summit. “Right now, countries’ data is fragmented.” Ellison’s prophecy is, effectively, government by database. AI tools and government contracts may make it competitive with Palantir, the current AI standard-bearer in assembling government dataso the secret police can stalk their victims. This vision is, obviously, bad news for democracy, but it’s great news for Oracle! I find myself curious about whether the company will simply use its private enterprise data to help add, hmmm,efficienciesto its government efforts, making it easier for surveillance-minded authoritarians to track citizens. Oracle has been wooing authoritarian governments, includingChina, and has suggested that “pretty much every governmentis going to want a sovereign cloud and a dedicated region for that government.” And because Oracle is so boring, most people may not even recognize it as a threat. Oh, and there’s one more thing. Besides the risk of Oracle snooping into your business, there’s also the possibility of regulatory capture — that is, because Ellison is so tight with the Trumps, what remains of the government watchdogs won’t stop it. That means there’s no one to prevent Oracle doing assorted dirty deeds — but presumably not dirt cheap. This may create some downside risk if, say, Democrats ever win back power, but perhaps Ellison is betting that if he deploys his technology correctly, that simply won’t happen. Which brings me, finally, to Oracle’s core competency: lock-in. A lot of companies remain on Oracle databases because it is difficult and expensive to relocate. If Oracle’s inference is good enough, the company basically becomes Hotel California for anyone who’s put data there — because to leave is to leave the inference behind. There’s bad news for democracy here, but good news for Oracle Despite some fairly serious risks to Oracle — largely from its OpenAI deal, and to a lesser extent from the war in Iran — the company may be positioned to succeed. The degree to which you have faith in Ellison’s vision is also the degree to which that vision is disquieting. Oracle’s AI buildout doesn’t necessarily make a lot of financial sense; Ellison may royally piss off his shareholders by the time this is all through. But making financial sense has never been Ellison’s strong point. And besides, what’s he going to do, letMicrosoftbeat him to the hot new technology? In Oracle’s most recent earnings, the AI buildout shows up on the balance sheet as capital expenditures. Its most recent earnings were for the third quarter of fiscal 2026, which ended in February. Oracle spent $39 billion on capital expenditures, more than three times as much as in the previous fiscal year. As a result, the company now has negative free cash flow. Oracle also told investors that it expected to spend a total of $50 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, and that it was forecasting $67 billion in revenue. In fiscal 2027, Oracle expects $90 billion in revenue. The company did not say how much it forecast in capital expenditures. Morgan Stanley analysts suggest Oracle will need “$100 billion or more for 2027 and the first half of 2028,”according toThe Wall Street Journal. “Oracle is about execution right now,” says Luria. “The number one thing is the ability to build data centers and deploy capital to create data centers.” The thing to watch for is whether Oracle can get financing. But even if everything goes smoothly on the building front, Ellison still has to deal with Sam Altman. If OpenAI’s chaos gets too out of hand, it may suck in Oracle, too. What happens to Oracle if OpenAI shits the bed? One possibility is that it sacrifices its software stock premium and gets priced like a utility, which is effectively what the bare-metal business is. Like the telecoms from the ’90s internet boom, it (and its bellwether status) fades in significance as the AI-native companies that survive an AI bubble bursting eventually emerge from the wreckage to reshape our society however that may go. It’s not impossible that the company goes bankrupt, if enough things go wrong at the same time. Because for Oracle to be the dastardly surveillance company of Larry Ellison’s dreams, it has to nail the timing. And that’s never been his strong suit. A free daily digest of the news that matters most. This is the title for the native ad

While never reachingGame of ThronesSeason 8 levels of outrage,House of the Dragonhas come under (mostly) justified fire forthe sheer amount of liberties it takes with the source material that it’s based on, going so far at points as to upset the author of the original IP so badly that he broke NDAs and posted spoilers on his blog (before ultimately removing them). Fans initially thought the tide would turn when Miguel Sapochnik was removed as co-showrunner, leaving only Ryan Condal, who claimed to be a dear friend of George RR Martin, to pilot the ship. Instead, Condal made a different decision, taking the series full-throttle into fanfiction territory. And while the departure from the canon lore is one of the (many) reasons that the final few seasons ofGame of Throneswere so unpopular, paintingHouse of the Dragonwith the same broad brush is unfair. There is no nearly complete series of novels guidingHouse of the Dragonin the same way asGame of Thrones. Instead, the series is based on a segment from a book calledFire & Blood, which serves as a historical account of House Targaryen, presented as a maester’s compiled texts. There are no character points of view, inner monologues, or close looks into the character’s motivations. And while some choices made in the first and second seasons of the show were point-blank ridiculous, Season 3 is already shaping up to be the biggest and best that we’ve had from the show—both in terms of the battles and the interpersonal conflicts. It was certainly a choice to have a famousGame of Thronesline play over the trailer released on April 27th—one that both angered and confused fans ofFire & Blood. “They say every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin, and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” The concept of Targaryen madness is one that was used flippantly by the showrunners ofGame of Thronesas a convenient excuse for Daenerys to go mad at the last second with no actual basis in the canon source material. And while it was a total failure there, it wouldn’t actually be entirely out of pocket in Rhaenyra’s case. She is a Targaryen character who would truly have earned madness, should that be the way this season goes for her. Born and raised as an afterthought to a brother who may or may not come along, Rhaenyra was taught never to feel secure in her place, not only in the line of succession but also in her parents’ affection. Then that baby brother is born, her father kills her mother to bring him into the world, and the baby dies only days later. Then her father, King Viserys, officially makes Rhaenyra his heir, though he does nothing to protect her from those who don’t want a woman ruling them. On top of that, he marries her childhood best friend, with whom she shared homoerotic tension, and goes on to produce a small army of male heirs whose sole purpose is to usurp her position. She’s then married off to a gay man with whom she can’t produce heirs, her affair with the only man who ever loved her produces dark-haired bastards that her homoerotic childhood friend makes it her mission to expose, and then said lover is set burned to death in his ancestral home before Rhaenyra finally makes the decision to shore up her power by marrying her war criminal uncle. She loses her daughter in the process of giving birth to her, just before discovering that her younger brother murdered her son. If anyone deserves to go crazy or be branded with “Targaryen madness,” it’s her. And despite certain fans being upset that there isn’t more focus on Aegon, the brother who has usurped her as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, as Rhaenyra’s main foil, the show has made clear that this is the Rhaenyra and Alicent show—a dynamic that is going to get violently messy in the upcoming season. And while that show isn’t reminiscent of what George RR Martin initially created, and there are some genuine issues with the narrative that Ryan Condal has fostered, it has fully become its own thing, setting up a third season that will finally feel like the show has found its footing. It’s unfortunate that it took as long as it did, but the final product of this season seems to be fully committing to the bit, owning that it’s morphed into something apart from the book. It does take itself entirely too seriously in places, but that doesn’t mean that we have to—in fact, embracing the absurdity of the story is half the fun withHouse of the Dragon(the other half is ¼ dragon battles and ¼ how ridiculously talented the cast is). Season 3 will also be gracing us with one of the most brutal battles featured in the story, one which will lead to a devastating body count and the death of one of the most beloved characters in the series. It also brings back the ultimate baddie that is Aemond Targaryen and his uncle, Daemon, the world’s most morally gray man in a blonde wig. There will also be religious fanaticism, lions used as weapons, and sea battles. If this show has anything going for it, apart from the beyond incredible dragons that it’s brought to life, it’s the characters, despite how they may differ from the source material. And there can be no question that the actors who portray them have given the performance of a lifetime in the process. What are you looking forward to most in the next season ofHouse of the Dragon? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to join in the conversation over at theComicBook forum.

Il deputato di Fratelli d’Italia Dario Iaia, segretario della commissione parlamentare Ecomafie, esprime apprezzamento per le nuove misure adottate dalla Capitaneria di Porto – Guardia Costiera di Taranto per il contenimento delle emissioni odorigene e dei composti organici volatili provenienti dalle navi cisterna operative nello scalo jonico. “Questa iniziativa, fondamentale per il nostro territorio, si propone di migliorare il sistema di controllo delle emissioni in un porto caratterizzato da un’intensa attività di movimentazione di idrocarburi. La sicurezza e la tutela dell’ambiente rappresentano priorità imprescindibili, e le misure adottate dalla Guardia Costiera mostrano un impegno concreto in questa direzione”. Nel suo intervento, Iaia sottolinea l’importanza delle attività di prevenzione e monitoraggio avviate nel porto di Taranto, evidenziando il ruolo delle istituzioni nella tutela dell’ambiente e della salute pubblica. “Congratulandomi con la Guardia Costiera di Taranto, voglio sottolineare l’importanza di queste misure per il nostro ambiente e per la salute dei cittadini. È fondamentale che le istituzioni lavorino insieme per garantire un porto sicuro e rispettoso delle norme ambientali. La vigilanza continua e la tracciabilità delle operazioni sono elementi chiave per la salvaguardia del territorio”. Il deputato manifesta inoltre sostegno per le future attività di controllo che saranno portate avanti dalla Guardia Costiera, finalizzate alla verifica del rispetto delle nuove prescrizioni da parte degli operatori portuali. “Queste azioni rappresentano un passo significativo verso un modello di sviluppo portuale più sostenibile, metendo al primo posto la sicurezza marittima e la protezione della comunità”. In conclusione, Iaia ribadisce l’impegno di Fratelli d’Italia nel sostenere iniziative legate alla sostenibilità ambientale e alla crescita responsabile del territorio. “Solo attraverso la collaborazione tra istituzioni e cittadini si possa costruire un futuro migliore per tutti”. Mi piace: Mi piace Caricamento...

Nuove disposizioni per limitare emissioni odorigene e composti organici volatili nel porto di Taranto. La Capitaneria di Porto – Guardia Costiera ha definito un nuovo percorso regolamentare destinato alle navi cisterna impegnate nel trasporto di idrocarburi e operative tra rada, approdi petroliferi e aree commerciali dello scalo. L’iniziativa nasce con l’obiettivo di rafforzare il sistema di prevenzione e controllo ambientale in un’area caratterizzata da intense attività petrolifere, soprattutto in vista della stagione estiva, quando l’aumento delle temperature può favorire la diffusione di fenomeni odorigeni. Il provvedimento è stato sviluppato in collaborazione con Arpa Puglia, il consulente chimico del porto, l’Autorità di Sistema Portuale del Mar Ionio ed Eni. Le nuove regole prevedono misure specifiche per il contenimento dei vapori di carico, dei gas e delle sostanze odorigene provenienti dalle navi cisterna, anche durante le soste in rada e le operazioni di ormeggio. Tra gli obblighi introdotti, il mantenimento in piena efficienza dei sistemi di bordo dedicati al controllo delle emissioni e il monitoraggio costante della pressione delle cisterne e, quando necessario, della temperatura del carico. I dati raccolti dovranno essere registrati per consentire eventuali verifiche successive e garantire la tracciabilità delle operazioni. “L’obiettivo — evidenzia la Guardia Costiera di Taranto — è rafforzare il sistema di prevenzione e controllo nell’ambito delle operazioni petrolifere portuali, attraverso misure chiare, verificabili e coerenti con gli standard internazionali. Si tratta di un intervento volto a prevenire i fenomeni odorigeni, gestire tempestivamente eventuali anomalie e garantire il giusto equilibrio tra operatività del porto, sicurezza marittima e tutela della collettività”. La Guardia Costiera ha inoltre annunciato che proseguiranno le attività di monitoraggio e verifica sul rispetto delle nuove prescrizioni da parte delle navi e degli operatori coinvolti, con eventuali ulteriori interventi a tutela dell’ambiente e della sicurezza portuale. Mi piace: Mi piace Caricamento...

The DJI Osmo Action 6 ($436) is the firstaction camerawith a square-format image sensor, ideal for content creators who want to shoot once and deliver video to both wide- and tall-screen devices. It records at up to 4K120 for slow-motion, at 8K30 for delivery to high-resolution displays, and uses a bright F2 aperture lens to improve video quality in dimly lit interiors. The camera captures pleasing video with saturated colors and smooth motion, gets excellent battery life, includes 50GB internal storage, and sports the tough, waterproof build you expect from an action cam. The Osmo Action 6 is a solid follow-up that offers enough upgrades over theAction 5 Pro(which is still available for $319) to justify spending a bit more, and earns our Editors' Choice award in the process. There's not a lot of variation in design among action cameras. Manufacturers have settled on a small, boxy design with front and rear displays and a wide-angle lens as the de facto standard for the category. The Osmo Action 6 colors within the lines; it's small enough to mount in a tight space (1.3 by 2.9 by 1.9 inches HWD), light enough to wear on a helmet (5.3 ounces), and built to survive rough-and-tumble handling. It can survive drops and work underwater to 65.6 feet without an external housing. The Osmo Action 6 drops the "Pro" designation from its predecessor, the Action 5 Pro, though I'm not sure what DJI's logic behind the name change is. The Action 6 is pretty much an Action 5 Pro with a few more recording modes and features. Maybe DJI just thinks the word Pro is overused in product names. I won't argue the point—if everything is referred to as 'Pro,' the meaning of the word is diluted. Names aside, the Action 6 is virtually identical to the 5 Pro on the outside. The camera uses an ultra-wide lens with fixed focus to capture action. It features DJI's RockSteady digital stabilization to smooth out handheld footage, and it works with the same magnetic mounting system as recent entries in the series to secure it to a helmet, vehicle, or the like. The Osmo has dual displays, one on the front and one on the rear, both with touch support. Likewise, it has only two buttons: a large Record control at the top and a mode switch on the left. It also supports voice control. The Action 6 uses the samebatteryas earlier models, dating back to theOsmo Action 3. That's good news for anyone upgrading or for creators who use multiple action cameras to capture a scene from different angles and don't want to keep track of which battery goes into which camera. The Action 6 has very good battery life among action cams. It gets 112 minutes of 16:9 4K60, 92 minutes of 4:3 4K60, or 84 minutes of 8K30 per charge, and didn't overheat at all during the rundown testing. The Action 5 Pro lasts a little longer, at 126 minutes at 4K60, while the GoPro Hero13 Black lags behind with just 80 minutes at 4K60. The camera includes 50GB of internal storage space, a slight increase from the Action 5 Pro (47GB), and it supportsmicroSDXC memory cards. It includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for pairing with the DJI Mimo smartphone app (available for Android and iOS) for file transfers, remote control, and over-the-air firmware updates, as well as a USB-C port for charging and wired data transfer. Mimo is useful and includes some templates to help you get started with editing, but DJI does not have an answer to GoPro's subscription service and its tight integration with the Quik mobile app. You'll have to pay for it, but GoPro subscribers get unlimited cloud storage with automatic uploads from the camera, plus an AI-powered Highlight edit that compiles your best shots from the day into a bite-sized clip. You can record audio with the built-in mic, or pair the Action 6 with one of DJI's wireless mic kits for clearer sound. TheMic MiniandMic 3are the latest, and the Osmo also works with theMic 2and USB-C microphones. DJI sells the Osmo Action 6 as a Standard Combo with a single battery, magnetic quick-release mount, and adhesive sticky mount for $436, or in an Adventure Combo with three batteries, a multi-charger, two magnetic quick-release mounts, an extension stick/tripod, and adhesive mount for $536. The Osmo's control scheme is typical among action cameras. It has only two buttons: a prominent Record button at the top to start and stop clips or take a still image, and a Quick Shift (QS) button on the left to cycle through capture modes. By default, QS only swaps between video and photo, but you can add others, including SuperNight, Portrait, Subject Tracking, Slow Motion, Time-lapse, Hyperlapse, and Playback. I'm glad you can pick and choose which modes you want to cycle through with Quick Shift, given the sheer number included in the Osmo—if anything, the camera hastoo manymodes. Because there are only two buttons, most of the changes you'll make to camera settings are done via its touch interface. The interface includes icons to switch to playback, change the capture mode, set resolution and frame rates, and adjust manual exposure settings on the main screen. There's also a full setup menu (swipe down to get to it). Both the 1.5-inch front and 2.5-inch rear displays use the same touch interface and OLED panels. The rear screen is roomier and easier to navigate, but the front screen is usable and convenient when you're self-recording. The camera supports voice commands, but they're pretty limited. You can say "start recording," "stop recording," "take a photo," and "shut down," and that's it. Voice control is most useful if you've got the camera mounted out of reach or you're wearing giant gloves for cold-weather sports. The Osmo Action 6 didn't launch with 8K recording; it was added in a post-release firmware update, but now offers 8K30 capture in addition to 4K120 and 1080p240. All modes support 10-bit color, either a standard color or a flat D-Log M profile, standard NTSC and PAL frame rates down to 24fps, and superb digital stabilization. The Osmo also supports time-lapse and hyperlapse, in-camera 4K slow motion, and 38MP stills in JPG or Raw DNG format. You may be enticed to record everything in 8K, a bleeding-edge feature with more pixelsthan most TVs. But there's not much, if any, actual improvement in detail at 8K versus 4K with the Action 6. I took a look at some frame grabs from different scenes recorded at both resolutions, viewing the 8K grab at full magnification versus the 4K zoomed into 200%, and, to quote a famousmeme from The Office, they're the same picture. This makes sense on a technical level—the Osmo uses a Quad Bayer sensor that reads out every pixel for 8K, but merges multiple pixels to create an oversampled picture at 4K, and encodes both resolutions at the same compression rate. Both 4K and 8K video looks great in moderate to bright light. The 4K capture mode supports frame rates and aspect ratios that you can't get from 8K, which is locked at 16:9. At 4K, the Osmo also supports 4:3 up to 120fps, and a 1:1 square aspect at up to 60fps. Both of the boxier looks get more picture height than 16:9 and are useful for creators who want to pull out 16:9 widescreen and 9:16 vertical video from the same footage. This is a feature that's missing from the Action 5 Pro but is something GoPro has already had for a few generations: theHero11,Hero12, andHero13 Blackall use 8:7 aspect-ratio sensors. Aside from the change in aspect ratio, the Action 6's sensor delivers very similar image quality when compared with the Action 5 Pro. There is a difference in low light, however. The Action 6 is the first action cam to use a variable aperture lens, an F2-4 design. At F2, it captures twice as much light as the Action 5 Pro's F2.8, so video recorded in dim light is brighter and shows better detail. Even so, the Action 6 isn't a killer camera for dark interiors. The 4K video from my aging iPhone 13 shows less noise and is better exposed, but the Action 6 handles early morning and evening twilight well. We'll have to wait and see if GoPro's forthcomingMission 1 Profinally breaks through and goes toe-to-toe with smartphones for darker interiors. On the other end of the spectrum, the Action 6 stops down to F4 to cut out incoming light, which is handy for scenes with very bright light. It's not enough to record footage with cinematic motion blur under the sun—you'll still want a strongneutral densityfilter for that look—but I won't knock DJI for including the option. The DJI Osmo Action 6 is one of the best small video cameras for action sports, and its square format recording is ideal for content creators and vloggers.

ATHENS, Greece, April 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX), (the “Company”), a global shipping company specializing in the ownership and bareboat charter-in of dry bulk vessels, today announced that, through a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, it has entered into a time charter contract with Refined Success Limited, for one of its Capesize dry bulk vessels, the m/v New York. The gross charter rate is US$27,500 per day, minus a 5.00% commission paid to third parties, for a period until minimum February 1, 2028 up to maximum March 31, 2028. The charter is expected to commence on May 1, 2026. The m/v New York is currently chartered, as previously announced, at a gross charter rate of US$17,600 per day, minus a 5.00% commission paid to third parties. The “New York” is a 177,773 dwt Capesize dry bulk vessel built in 2010. The Company also announced that, through a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, it has entered into a time charter contract with Oldendorff GmbH & Co. KG, for one of its Ultramax dry bulk vessels, the m/v DSI Pyxis. The gross charter rate is US$16,000 per day, minus a 5.00% commission paid to third parties, for a period until minimum June 15, 2027 up to maximum August 15, 2027. The charter is expected to commence on May 3, 2026. The m/v DSI Pyxis is currently chartered, as previously announced, at a gross charter rate of US$13,100 per day, minus a 5.00% commission paid to third parties. The “DSI Pyxis” is a 60,362 dwt Ultramax dry bulk vessel built in 2018. The employments of “New York” and “DSI Pyxis” are anticipated to generate approximately US$23.76 million of gross revenue for the minimum scheduled period of the time charters. Diana Shipping Inc.’s fleet currently consists of 36 dry bulk vessels (4 Newcastlemax, 8 Capesize, 4 Post-Panamax, 6 Kamsarmax, 5 Panamax and 9 Ultramax). The Company also expects to take delivery of two methanol dual fuel new-building Kamsarmax dry bulk vessels by the second half of 2027 and the first half of 2028, respectively. As of today, the combined carrying capacity of the Company’s fleet, excluding the two vessels not yet delivered, is approximately 4.1 million dwt, with a weighted average age of 12.43 years. A table describing the current Diana Shipping Inc. fleet can be found on the Company’s website, www.dianashippinginc.com. Information contained on the Company’s website does not constitute part of this press release. About the Company Diana Shipping Inc. is a global provider of shipping transportation services through its ownership and bareboat charter-in of dry bulk vessels. The Company’s vessels are employed primarily on short to medium-term time charters and transport a range of dry bulk cargoes, including such commodities as iron ore, coal, grain and other materials along worldwide shipping routes. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words “believe,” “anticipate,” “intends,” “estimate,” “forecast,” “project,” “plan,” “potential,” “may,” “should,” “expect,” “pending” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, Company management’s examination of historical operating trends, data contained in the Company’s records and other data available from third parties. Although the Company believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies that are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond the Company’s control, the Company cannot assure you that it will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. In addition to these important factors, other important factors that, in the Company’s view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand for dry bulk shipping capacity, changes in the Company’s operating expenses, including bunker prices, drydocking and insurance costs, the market for the Company’s vessels, availability of financing and refinancing, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, tariff policies and other trade restrictions, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, including risks associated with the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and related sanctions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, including the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, vessel breakdowns and instances of off-hires and other factors. Please see the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a more complete discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement, or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Corporate Contact:Margarita VeniouChief Corporate Development, Governance &Communications Officer and SecretaryTelephone: + 30-210-9470-100Email:mveniou@dianashippinginc.comWebsite:www.dianashippinginc.comX: @DianashipInvestor Relations/Media Contact:Nicolas Bornozis / Daniela GuerreroCapital Link, Inc.230 Park Avenue, Suite 1540New York, N.Y. 10169Tel.: (212) 661-7566Email:diana@capitallink.com

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of ServiceandPrivacy Policy. From the start, cars were built wrong. At least, that’s what Chrysler’s head of automotive research, Carl Breer, thought in 1930. Automobiles had never been built to be aerodynamic, he posited, and he was right. A few years earlier, he’d consulted aviation pioneerOrville Wright (the younger Wright brother), who suggested he build a wind tunnel. The results were damning: Every car Breer tested wasmore aerodynamic running backward than forward. That’s because earlycarswere boxy behemoths, built like motorized carriages. At the time, Buckminster Fuller—American architect, designer, and futurist—was reaching a similar conclusion but from an altogether different angle. While readingToward an Architecture,the 1923 manifesto of Swiss-French architect and theorist Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, Fuller encountered a table of wind resistance diagrams. The table revealed that an ovoid body—blunt nose, tapering tail—came closer to aerodynamic perfection than anything else a designer could draw. He immediately sketched the blueprint for a car. Breer and Fuller had simultaneously discovered the teardrop. The shape’s automotive moment, however, proved brief. Thephysicswere right, but the designs were hard to sell, and the abundance of cheap fuel for most of the 20th century made aerodynamic efficiency optional in a way that suited automotive makers in Detroit just fine. Now the teardrop is returning, mostly in electric vehicles like the Lucid Air, Hyundai Ioniq 6, and Mercedes-Benz EQS where battery range matters. The superior physics were understood nearly a century ago. The practical benefits, it turns out, were discretionary—until now. InDecember 1930,Popular Scienceintroduced American readers to Sir Dennis Burney, designer of the colossal English airshipR-100. Burney had just built a car so aerodynamic that, asPopular Sciencenoted, “the wheels scarcely touch[ed] the ground” at 80 miles per hour. In fact, the car ran faster with its heavy metal body on than when stripped to its chassis. Burney had simply applied the logic of airships to the road, including a rear-mounted engine, sunken headlamps, and no projecting parts. With its “crescent-shaped back,” it looked, the magazine observed, like a “monster beetle” scooting through London traffic. It also cut fuel consumption in half. The physics behind the teardrop shape were not new, but they were new to cars. AsPopular Science’s Robert E. Martin explained in aFebruary 1934 featureof the streamlining movement, wind pressure increases dramatically the faster a car goes. That means “eighty-five percent of the engine’s power is required just to force the body through the air” at highway speeds. Engineers like Carl Breer, who had begun taking aerodynamic principles seriously, built wind tunnels and carved wooden test blocks into every imaginable shape. All of it was done to improve wind resistance, also known as the drag coefficient or Cd. Eventually Breer and others all came to the same conclusion: The ideal car shape had a blunt, rounded nose in front and a long, tapering tail—just like a teardrop. In a teardrop configuration, air flows smoothly around the widest point and rejoins cleanly in its wake, creating minimal turbulence, similar to the cross-section of an airplane wing. A perfect teardrop achieves a drag coefficientnear 0.04. Every conventional car of the era, with its flat radiator face and boxy cabin, had the geometry exactly backward, posting drag coefficientscloser to 0.70. In the 1930s, cars moved through the air more like a brick wall than a gliding bird. After dozens of experimental models, by late 1932, Breer and his colleagues at Chrysler, Owen Skelton and Fred Zeder—a teamdubbed the Three Musketeers—had developed a hand-built prototype that would become theAirflow, Detroit’s most ambitious answer to the teardrop’s aerodynamic ideal. While Breer’s team was quietly refining its design through painstaking engineering and wind-tunnel trials, another man was moving even faster. Buckminster Fuller was not a man who let engineering get in the way of a good idea. In 1928, when he encountered Le Corbusier’s ovoid diagram, he didn’t see a starting point for careful research, he saw the automotive future. Fuller copied the shape, added three wheels and inflatable wings, and began telling anyone who would listen that his car was about to reinvent transportation. According to a 2022 biography byAlec Nevala-Lee,Inventor of the Future, it took Fuller five years to find funding for his Dymaxion car. Fullercoined “Dymaxion”from dynamic maximum tension, which encapsulated his philosophy of doing more with less. He applied the term to other inventions as well, such as the Dymaxion house, the Dymaxion bathroom, and the Dymaxion map—all of which were meant to be hyper efficient. Fuller eventually found an unlikely financial sponsor for his Dymaxion car:Nannine Hope Dale Biddle, a socially prominent Philadelphian who had recently made national headlines by abandoning her husband and three young children to seek adventure in the Alaskan wilderness. Snowbound for 11 days in an isolated cabin before a chartered airplane pulled her out,Biddle, whose family’s fortune came fromsilk imports and Pennsylvania Railroad stock, was well-acquainted with the risks of chasing an unconventional idea wherever it led. To bring the Dymaxion car to life, Fuller teamed up with William Starling Burgess, a financially-strapped, four-times-divorced ship and aircraft engineer. The partnership was fraught with tension from the first day. When Burgess put both their names on the sign outside their Bridgeport, Connecticut, workshop, Fuller seethed. In his 1934Popular Sciencestreamlining craze feature, Martin referred to Fuller’s prototype as “the Dymaxion of W. Starling Burgess, the Dream Car”—an attribution that suggested who Martin believed was doing the actual engineering. The car that emerged from that uneasy collaboration was nearly 20 feet long, several feet longer thanthe 1930s 13-foot average, and seated eleven passengers inside an aluminum shell. It had three wheels—two front, one back—and was steered from the rear like a boat. When the Dymaxion car debuted in July 1933 in Bridgeport, the fanfare eclipsed its serious engineering problems. The rear wheel wobbled and suffered severe tire wear. Worse, the car experienced lift at high speeds, making it difficult to steer, a problem that was never solved. On the morning of October 27, 1933, the Dymaxion was being driven through Chicago when it skidded on Lake Shore Drive, rolled, and killed its driver, Francis Turner. Two passengers were seriously injured. In his biography of Fuller, Nevala-Leereconstructed the crashfrom contemporary newspaper accounts, official records, and Fuller’s own contemporaneous notes. Fuller claimed the car had been struck by another car. In fact, it had rolled on its own because it lacked basic safety architecture, which Fuller acknowledged in private correspondences. The Dymaxion—the teardrop movement’s most famous artifact—never recovered. Biddle pulled her support, later married Burgess, and Detroit hardly shrugged at Fuller’s Dymaxion sideshow. While Fuller was staging his Dymaxion debut, Breer’s team at Chrysler was putting the finishing touches on the car that would bring the teardrop ideal to American showrooms at scale. The Chrysler Airflow, introduced at theJanuary 1934 New York Automobile Showalong with its mid-range DeSoto model, was the most aerodynamic mass-produced car ever built up until that point. “In the last year or two,” wroteThe New Yorker, “there have been several tentative moves toward breaking away from the conventional box-on-wheels shape, but nothing quite so radical as the Airflow Chryslers and DeSotos.”Timemagazine,previewing the 1934 auto show, called the new DeSoto “an approach to the sweeping curve of a tear drop.” It was Walter Chrysler’s bid to eliminate the automobile’s boxy behemoth legacy; as the magazine put it, Chrysler wanted to claim “the distinction that he made the buggy a bugaboo [a ghost, i.e. relic of the past].” After numerous prototypes, the Three Musketeers had finally built the car that physics demanded. But the pricey new models did not impress the American public. Critics called the Airflow bug-eyed and rhinocerine,according to a 1977 retrospectiveby Howard Irwin inScientific American. Irwin also noted that one reviewer compared the Airflow’s rounded front end to a human face covered with a stocking. A Chrysleradvertising blitzpromoted the Airflow’s “floating ride,” improved speeds, and engine performance. What the ads chose not to mention was the one advantage the physics actually guaranteed—fuel efficiency of 18 to 22 miles per gallon, high for a car its size. But fuel efficiency was on neither manufacturers’ nor consumers’ minds. DeSoto sales fell 47 percent in the first summer. Chrysler, facing financial pressure, rushed to graft increasingly conventional grilles onto the rounded nose, retreating year by year from the very aerodynamic principles that made the car more efficient. By 1937, the Airflow was discontinued. The most carefully engineered car of its era had lasted four years. The problem wasn’t the shape or the science: It was the American consumer. Across the Atlantic,the Tatra 77, introduced in 1934, had demonstrated that a teardrop-shaped car could find an audience. The Tatra’s rear-mounted engine, dramatically tapered tail, and stabilizing rear fin made it one of the most aerodynamic mass-produced cars of the decade, and it sold—in Europe. A version of the teardrop design found its way into Ferdinand Porsche’s Volkswagen Beetle, developed the same year the Airflow debuted, and drawing on the same European teardrop tradition embodied by the Tatra. But the Beetle’s rounded shape came at a significant aerodynamic cost. The Tatra 77, committed to the teardrop ideal, achieved areal-world drag coefficient of approximately 0.36. The Beetle, with its friendlier face and clipped version of the ideal teardrop tail,landed at 0.46, barely better than the boxy sedans the streamliners had set out to replace. In the 1940s, seven years after the Airflow’s disastrous debut, General Motors introducedfastback profileswith tapered rear ends almost identical to the Airflow across all its divisions simultaneously—Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac, and eventually Chevrolet—under the marketing banner “Sport Dynamic.” This time, nobody called the shape rhinocerine. It sold steadily for nearly a decade before GM discontinued it in the early 1950s, yielding to consumer demand for wide-bodied cars and tail fins. The teardrop had proved it could find an American audience, but it couldn’t find a reason to stay. With gasoline cheap and abundant, consumers weren’t concerned with fuel efficiency. Detroit built what the market demanded, and American consumers wanted the box. Boxy cars held their ground almost exclusively for half a century. But as electric vehicles make headway today, the calculus of car design is shifting. Every fraction of drag coefficient that engineers can shave translates directly into miles of range, and range is what sells electric cars. For the first time since Breer built a wind tunnel, the physics argument has become a commercial argument. The teardrop isn’t just graceful—it’s necessary. TheLucid Air, currently the most aerodynamic passenger car in the world, achieves a drag coefficient of 0.197—a number that would have seemed absurd to Breer, lower than anything his wind tunnel could have predicted for a full-size passenger sedan. TheMercedes-Benz EQSfollows at 0.20. TheHyundai Ioniq 6, at 0.21, may be the most significant of the group because it’s the first teardrop-inspired car priced within reach of mainstream buyers. Visually, these cars share what 1930s designers were reaching for with a roofline that begins falling before you expect it to, a rounded nose that pushes through air rather than confronting it, and seamless body transitions. They are not true teardrops—no mass-produced car can be because appendages like wheel wells, windows, and mirrors all conspire against the ideal. But they are closer than anything that has existed between the Airflow’s discontinuation in 1937 and today. Even so, history has a way of repeating itself. Automotive reviewers called the Mercedes EQS a “jellybean” or “egg-shaped.” It isn’t a big seller. Kia, meanwhile,deliberately designedits newEV3 with a boxier silhouette, as did theRivian R2—the teardrop shape, in other words, had to be hidden. Andsales of Hyundai’s aerodynamically superior Ioniq 6continue to trail the boxier Ioniq 5’s, which is notably cheaper. Buyers keep choosing the box. The teardrop shape was always right. Breer knew it in 1930 when he reviewed the results of his wind tunnel. Martin knew it in 1934 when he offeredPopular Sciencereaders a progression of silhouettes, asking what the car of the future would finally look like. Even Fuller knew it, though he spent more energy managing his investors and reputation than solving his engineering problems. What nobody could solve was us. We keep telling automotive engineers we want efficiency and then we buy the box—SUVs, minivans, pickups. The teardrop keeps winning the physics argument, but we still aren’t taking the physics seriously. InA Century in Motion, Popular Science revisits fascinating transportation stories from our archives, from hybrid cars to moving sidewalks, and explores how these inventions are re-emerging today in surprising ways. In 1871, cities almost got moving sidewalks. Why are we still waiting? During WWI, a daredevil pilot helped invent the first ‘drones’ In 1916, hybrid cars could’ve changed history. But Ford wouldn’t allow it. A century ago, suspended monorails were serious mass-transit contenders Why don’t cars have hood ornaments anymore? 2025 PopSci Best of What’s New The 50 most important innovations of the year

Ubicación del esapcio de la ZAL Port donde se situará la futura hidrogenera./ Port de Barcelona Cristina Buesa ElPort de Barcelonaha dado un paso decisivo ensu estrategia de descarbonizaciónal adjudicar aSympH2onyla construcción y explotación de lafutura hidrogenera del recinto. El proyecto, licitado en septiembre del año pasado, supondrá una inversión superior a los 20 millones de euros, según han informado desde la autoridad portuaria y se trata de unainfraestructura clave para el suministro de hidrógeno verde a vehículos y maquinaria portuaria. La nueva instalación se ubicará en unaparcela de unos 7.000 metros cuadrados en la ZAL Prat, junto a las principalesáreas logísticas de El Prat de Llobregat y la Zona Franca. Su puesta en marcha permitirá abastecer a camiones, autobuses y equipos portuarios, "actuando como palanca para laprogresiva transformación de flotashacia modelos de cero emisiones", aseguran. El proyecto, adjudicado en el consejo de administración de este miércoles, va más allá de una hidrogenera convencional. Incluye tanto laproduccióncomo elsuministrode hidrógeno verde, además de soluciones integrales de movilidad. Entre ellas, unidades móviles para repostar maquinaria que no pueda desplazarse hasta la planta y la posibilidad de conexión futura mediante canalizaciones a grandes consumidores industriales. En términos técnicos, la planta contará con unacapacidad de electrólisis de 3,1 MW en 2030, ampliable hasta 6,2 MW en 2032. A pleno rendimiento, podrá producir hasta 540 toneladas anuales de hidrógeno verde. Este se generará in situ mediante electrolizadoresalimentados con energía 100% renovable, garantizando un combustible neutro en emisiones, en línea con los criterios ya fijados en el concurso público lanzado en 2025. Accesos a la ZAL del Port de Barcelona, la primera plataforma logística que se construyó en el Estado./ Zowy Voeten La concesión, otorgada por unperiodo de 40 años prorrogables, incluye también la urbanización de los accesos y la construcción de una rotonda para facilitar la operativa de entrada y salida de vehículos. La adjudicación consolida el papel de SympH2ony comosocio tecnológico del puerto en la transición energética. La compañía,creada en 2024 por Toyota Tsusho Europe y Messer, tiene como objetivo acelerar la implantación del hidrógeno en sectores difíciles de electrificar, como el transporte pesado y la logística. Su propuesta en Barcelona se enmarca en una estrategia más amplia para desarrollar unecosistema europeo del hidrógeno, combinando producción, infraestructuras de repostaje, vehículos de pila de combustible y servicios asociados para la gestión de flotas. La nueva hidrogenerase integrará en elPlan de Transición Energética del puerto, junto a iniciativas como laelectrificación de muelles(Nexigen) y los proyectos fotovoltaicos en la ZAL. Con ello, el enclave busca consolidarse comohub regional de producción y distribución de hidrógeno verdey avanzar en la sustitución de combustibles fósiles en la cadena logística. Noticias relacionadas y más La infraestructura, cuyaentrada en operación estaba prevista inicialmente para 2028 tras la licitación, se perfila como una de las primeras de estas características en el sistema portuario español, tanto por su capacidad como por su modelo integral de producción y suministro. Suscríbete para seguir leyendo