cars will beep (even) more starting in July

by

For two years, since June 2024, all new cars have been beeping. They whistle a lot. It is the first disappointment that every driver experiences when they put aside their old car and decide to buy a new one. In Spain, where The average age of the vehicle fleet is 14.6 yearsbuying a new car is the closest thing to experiencing the jump into a black hole and moving into the future. And those who have had the opportunity to brand new car approved from 2022 or purchased as new from 2024 will have experienced that irritable feeling of checking that your new car beeps every now and then. The most obvious thing is with the intelligent speed assistant which, as I commented in this articleit can turn into hell. Now, starting July 7, 2026, every new car must have new driving assistance… or surveillance systems. Driver monitoring will be more proactive to alert the driver in case of distractions so that he can correct his behavior and thus avoid an accident. More surveillance, more beeps To understand all this, you have to go back a little before 2020. Then the European Union approved a project called Vision Zero with which we want to reduce by 50% the road fatalities registered between 2020 and 2030 with those who died between 2010 and 2020. The ultimate objective is to reach zero deaths in 2050. To carry out this ambitious aimthe European Union carried out the obligation to implement a series of safety systems with the aim of reducing accidents. This project has three phases, of which the first came with a huge battery of new systems. As stated in the Regulation (EU) 2019/2144From July 2022, all new cars approved they have to be equipped, among otherswith systems like smart speed assistantemergency braking or the reversing camera. And with the driver fatigue and distraction assistant. In the second phase, it was contemplated that from 2024 every new car had to be sold with the previous equipment, regardless of when the car had been approved. That is, if you buy a car right now, it will have to have these systems. And starting on July 6, 2026, the next phase begins. From the next day, every new registered car must have an even more advanced system to monitor driver distractions and fatigue. Yes, indeed, we are facing an advance of what is already known. What was mandatory until now was the system known as Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning o Drowsiness and Attention Assistant (DDAW) and from now on cars will have to have the new Advanced Driver Distraction Warning o Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW). What changes? The first system is more passive than active. The one known as DDAW which is mandatory at this time, analyzes whether or not the driver keeps his eyes on the road and warns when this does not happen. However, it bases its operation on small movements on the steering wheel and general control of the vehicle but, by itself, it is not clear whether we are looking at the mobile phone or simply looking at the rearview mirror repeatedly because we are going to merge onto a highway. The new ADDW system, as explained by our colleagues from Motorpassionis more proactive and it does monitor the movement of our eyes and head but it also has three areas mapped. If our eyes are distracted by something that has happened in a space where it is impossible to keep our attention on the road, such as the roof, the system will alert us. If, on the other hand, the system detects that we are looking at a window or at the central area, where the screen is located, it will allow a few seconds to pass. If the driver keeps his eyes on one of these spaces, the car will begin to beep and send sound and tactile signals (such as the vibration of the steering wheel). The system will activate automatically after six seconds as long as we move between 20 and 50 km/h. Once this threshold is exceeded, the warning will arrive after just 3.5 seconds. He problem with this type of assistants is that sometimes they are much more intrusive than we would like as drivers. We already commented in Xataka that if not well implemented, the speed assistant that works with sign recognition can be all hell. Especially in the city, where the streets constantly change boundaries, the warnings can become desperate. In our experience, the same thing can happen with fatigue detection assistants. If you bought a car after 2022, you may have noticed that your car may beep when, as we said, you are simply checking the rearview mirror to enter a very congested road. The objective of this new system is to be more careful and not fall into these false positives. However, some studies assure that this extensive security package can be too overwhelming for older drivers (who would also benefit the most) and? many others disconnect them Tired of the constant beeping. Some of them, such as speed assistant or distraction monitoring, They are activated with each new ignition and it is mandatory to move between the menus to disconnect them in the vast majority of cars. In addition, this decision by the European Union has also garnered some criticism for increasing the price of vehicles. Especially Daciawhich was the queen of offering the most basic car possible on the market, has complained bitterly about this but what cannot be denied is that part of the increase in car prices comes hand in hand with these new mandatory security improvements. Photo | Xataka and Mazda In Xataka | The industry has been filling cars with complex safety systems for years. The only problem is that we don’t use them

For some reason that no one can fully decipher, Madrid has insisted on having the largest Ferris wheel in the world.

by

The Ain Dubai It is a 250 meter high Ferris wheel located in the Bluewaters Islandin the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making it the biggest of the planet. At least his kind. For reference, the famous London Eye around 135 m. However, the reign of meganoria Dubai might not last long. A group of Spanish investors has proposed to build a similar structure of 260 m, a unique piece that would redefine the skyline of the city. They have even given it a name: Panorama Tower. The most curious thing is not the project itself, but Madrid’s determination to carry it out against all odds. A meganoria in Madrid? That’s how it is. And if you have followed the Madrid chronicle of the last five years you will know that it is not exactly a new project. Its origins can date back to at least March 2020, when the then vice mayor Begoña Villacís wakefulness that the City Council was working to provide Madrid with the largest Ferris wheel in Europe. Although Villacís came to meet with a company interested in the project, the pandemic and the political changes (the leader was part of C’s, a group that was left out of the Consistory in 2023) made the meganoria would stay in the drawer. Since then the topic has warmed the political debate and there has even been talk of different locations for the structure, including Madrid Rio and the park Tender Galvanalthough without becoming a priority real. Click on the image to go to the tweet. What has changed? That the project seems to have gained oxygen. That is what follows from an exclusive published a few days ago by The World in which a few news about the future Panorama Tower are revealed. According to the newspaper, the project has the support of the organization Madrid Business Forum and it seems to have aroused the interest of an investment group with Spanish capital that, although it has chosen to remain anonymous, would be willing to provide funds to raise the wheel. It is not a minor detail if you take into account that The World talks about the investment being around 300 million. Is it the only new thing? No. In fact the above is not even the most important thing. The real novelty is that the meganoria has found a new horizon. Although in recent months the debate had focused on its possible location in the Tierno Galván park, now its promoters are looking towards another area of ​​the city: the future development of Madrid New North. To be more precise, the focus is on a municipal plot which houses the EMT garages and is not far from the ‘Four Towers’ from Madrid. Is it that important? Yes. That the promoters are now betting on Madrid Nuevo Norte is important for several reasons. First, because of what it would represent for this new urban development in Madrid, which aspires to become one of the great financial, technological and business centers of Europe. Second, because, if Torre Panorama finally goes ahead and the meganoria becomes a new tourist icon, it would help decongest the center. What about the previous location? The choice of Madrid Nuevo Norte would also mean giving up the Tierno Galván park, a location that was controversial because the rejection of the residents of Arganzuela to the project. In fact, they came together 15,000 signatures against the meganoria. At the moment the Consistory only has recognized that it is “open to studying the technical feasibility” of a ferris wheel, although it has not yet received any “formal” proposal. Regarding the possibility of building it on the plot that the EMT once used, remembered that its use is “endowable”, so it “could be used” for that purpose. Do we know anything else? Yes. Beyond its size or location, one of the details that most attracts attention about the project is the effort that its promoters are putting into moving it forward. Even rethinking locations. In 2020, when it was talked about for the first time On the subject, Madrid Río was targeted. It even slipped that the idea had attracted to the firm Circular View, which had previously tried without success to promote a similar structure in Valencia. Years later the focus shifted to Tierno Galván. The location actually rang so loudly that in August 2024 The City Council even hired a geotechnical study to clarify whether the park has the necessary characteristics to accommodate a structure of that caliber. Its results were revealed a few months ago, in march. And although the change in location has caused them to lose interest, they help us understand the dimensions of the Ferris wheel much better. And what will it be like? According to the information collected in that study, replicated a few days ago The Worldthe Ferris wheel would measure up to 260.4 m high, the equivalent of a 62-story floor. With such a size it would easily surpass the Crystal Tower (249 m) and would become the tallest building from Madrid and Spain. It would also far surpass the Ain Dubai. The construction would sit on an area of ​​800 m2 and, instead of having the traditional structure of the London Eye or Ain, it would rise as a “ferris wheel tower”, with shops, commercial areas, leisure spaces and a panoramic viewpoint. The objective: to provide Madrid with its own ‘Eiffel Tower’. Images | Madrid City Council and Wikipedia In Xataka | Madrid has turned Manzanares into a new tourist attraction with LEDs. The neighbors have something to say

Amazon wanted its employees to continue using AI. They have just cut their losses by asking that “you do not use AI just for the sake of using it”

by

Amazon wanted to force its employees They will use AI as if there were no tomorrow. It implemented a tool that measured that usage, but after a few weeks the company realized something: people were using AI for absurd and worthless tasks. That has made Amazon make a decision forceful: abandon this initiative completely. what has happened. Amazon has had to cancel an experiment that measured the performance of its employees based on their use of corporate AI tools. The reason is simple: the engineers had begun to cheat and took the opportunity to automate completely useless and redundant tasks with the sole objective of climbing positions in the ranking. The labor scam has also absurdly increased the computing and infrastructure costs of the company itself, so the experiment has failed. The controversial Kirorank. The service in question was a scoreboard internally named Kirorank. It measured the activity of Amazon developers within Kiro, the “Claude Code of Amazon.” Amazon management wanted 80% of its programmers to use AI every week, an ambitious goal. What the developers ended up doing to score points with their bosses was deploying autonomous agents based on MeshClaw —the version of OpenClaw from Amazon—so that they would run processes in a loop and devour tokens for almost no purpose. The era of tokenmaxxing. Amazon Senior Vice President Dave Treadwell had to intervene this week before the staff to announce that developers no longer had to use this tool. Although he admitted that the experiment had originally been designed with “good intentions,” the practical result ended up being an economic hole due to the tokenmaxxingthat newly coined term that defines the action of artificially inflating the consumption of tokens to simulate productivity. “Please don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI,” the executive demanded of his engineers, urging them to focus on creating better products instead of burning server resources. Cost through the roof. Treadwell’s announcement is no small matter, because this shows that companies have realized that cost control is necessary with AI. Companies like Anthropic—of which Amazon is the largest investor and whose Claude model they use intensively—have recently migrated from flat monthly fees to a per-use pricing model based strictly on token consumption. With this new billing scheme, the fact that the engineers dedicated themselves to “playing” with the bots to rise in the ranking significantly multiplied the bill that Amazon had to pay. Meta suffered the same problem. The Amazon case is not an isolated event. In the Meta and Microsoft offices identical situations have been experiencedwith employees sabotaging internal AI usage rankings through massive token consumption. The irony for Amazon is tremendous: the company has been executing waves of massive layoffs to cut costs and be able to finance its gigantic investment plan in data center infrastructure and AI. Your theoretical capex for 2026 It is estimated at 200,000 million dollars. Lesson learned: AI must be used well. The failure of this “gamification” of work has ended with Amazon abandoning this experiment. To prevent developers from cheating again, a company team is going to change metrics. Instead of measuring raw token consumption, they will analyze so-called “normalized deployments.” From now on, the goal will be to measure how many times the interaction with AI results in useful lines of code that are truly integrated into the company’s products. In Xataka | Customers demand that a human solve their problem. The surprising thing is that if humans serve them they think they are an AI

With the heat in Andalusia, my PC is crying out for a new cooling system. These are the ones I like the most

by

It’s not June yet, but it’s already hot. Inside my apartment, since the sun is shining all day, it is very noticeable. This, of course, doesn’t help my PC, which starts making a hell of a noise because of the air cooler I have mounted. I wanted to change the box alonebut it will also fall a new cooling for the processor: this one from Corsair that is discounted to 91.99 euros. CORSAIR Nautilus 360 RS Liquid CPU Cooling – 360mm AIO – Low Noise – Direct Connection to Motherboard – Intel LGA 1851/1700, AMD AM5/AM4 – 3X RS120 Fans Included – Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Easy-to-install liquid cooling without lights There are several reasons to choose this Corsair cooling. The first of them is that I have several things from this brand at home and they all work great for me. The price is also quite attractive, because although we have had it cheaper on other occasions, right now it has a discount that makes it a very interesting quality-price option. Especially if, like me, You don’t want it to have those additions that increase the price (RGB lighting, I’m looking at you). I search an AIO liquid cooling (that is, not a personalized one, which is very expensive) that is simple and does its job very well. This Corsair Nautilus fits there very well because it has a 360 millimeter radiator with three 120 millimeter fans eachso we can expect very good cooling for the PC CPU. Another key thing for me is that it makes little noise and it does not exceed 20 dBA, although the speed of the fans is adjusted depending on what your PC needs at all times. It’s easy to install and is compatible with both AMD and Intel processors, making it suitable for almost any user. It does not have RGB lighting or a screen in the pump areabut I think that’s great: they are additions that are good, but they make the product more expensive. There are other options within the Corsair catalog and from other manufacturers, but quality-price, I think this Nautilus is one of the best we can buy right now. Other liquid cooling that is on sale CORSAIR iCUE Link Titan 240 RX LCD Liquid CPU Cooling – FlowDrive Cooling Engine – Intel LGA 1851/1700, AMD AM5/AM4 – 2X RX120 RGB Fans – iCUE Link Hub Included – White The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CORSAIR Nautilus 360 RS ARGB Liquid CPU Cooling – 360mm AIO – Direct Connection to Motherboard – Intel LGA 1851/1700, AMD AM5/AM4 – 3X RS120 ARGB Fans Included – White The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CORSAIR iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD Liquid CPU Cooling – FlowDrive Cooling Engine – Intel LGA 1851/1700, AMD AM5/AM4 – 3X RX120 RGB Fans – iCUE Link Hub Included – White The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | corsair In Xataka | Buy and assemble your PC in parts: guide to choosing processor, SSD, RAM and graphics card In Xataka | Liquid cooling or air cooler? What to choose so that your CPU doesn’t smoke without having to spend a fortune

The AVE to Extremadura has taken a key step in its connection with Madrid. It’s a small step that takes us back a decade.

by

They say that things in the palace go slowly. We could say the same about high speed. Not only because “high-speed” trains are taking longer than ever, but also because the construction of each new line resembles a birth that lasts decades. For example, the AVE to Extremadura. A quarter of a century has now passed since the project was approved. 25 years. And what we continue to have are connections typical of the 70s until we enter Extremadura where, coincidentally, the pace is already accelerating past Cáceres. We don’t lie. In 1970whoever took a train to Extremadura would arrive at the current Monfragüe station in 181 minutes. Today if everything goes well it will only take 20 minutes less. More than half a century after passing times collected in this guideit still takes more than three hours to get from Madrid to Plasencia. And right now it is necessary to stop at the aforementioned station and take a bus because the train no longer goes there. At least, in Extremadura they can boast since last December of having Cáceres and Badajoz connected, now, by high speed. Since the last days of the year, it is possible to cover the journey in 50 minutes. It is the result of works that, although they have taken time, have ended up being completed. A milestone that they cannot boast of in Castilla-La Mancha. And, 25 years after beginning to study where the AVE will pass on its way to Lisbon, a new step forward has been taken. One that also takes us almost ten years back. One step forward, Toledo. One step back When it was planned that an AVE would connect Madrid with Extremadura, it was decided that the work would have two large, clearly differentiated sections. One of them would be Madrid-Oropesa, the second Talayuela-Cáceres. With its obvious delaysthat second section is close to completion and its completion past Cáceres is what has allowed the arrival of high speed in that interprovincial Extremaduran section. And, as they point out in this great review of the diary Today Despite all the dates that have occurred in this quarter of a century, the end of the project could have been very advanced if the La Mancha section had been built at the same speed. However, since 2008 the various parties involved have been discussing what to do with the passage through Toledo. Or, rather, whether or not the train should pass through Toledo. That year, with the environmental impact report of the Madrid-Oropesa section already approved, the final approval was given to the informative study that contemplated a connection with the Andalusian corridor next to the Toledo town of Pantoja. The idea was to take a branch of this line towards Extremadura and thus save costs. The works, however, were not carried out. The 2008 crisis wiped out the project and it was never launched. Without machines working, the environmental report expired and that was when the Ministry of Public Works indicated that the AVE would pass through Toledo. We are already in 2017. The Government’s proposal was that, by passing through Toledo, the line would attract a greater number of travelers since the line would connect with a city that is a World Heritage Site. Of course, this meant traveling more kilometers and increasing travel time because Toledo is located further south than the first proposal. The idea was rejected by local authorities from the first moment. And the passage through Toledo It’s delicate. The Executive’s proposal has always been to take the AVE to the current station, which is just two kilometers in a straight line from the city center. But that means building a viaduct to overcome the passage of the Tagus, which has received continued rejection from local governments and the neighborhood platforms that consider that the image of the city would be damaged. Their proposal was to build a new station in a nearby industrial estate. This is how the year 2020 was reached, with an informative study in which it was proposed to subdivide the section into four parts: Toledo, Torrijos, Talavera de la Reina and Oropesa. They also showed their rejection of this project in Torrijos, which led to more bureaucracy and carrying out a complementary study in 2022. This document was presented in 2024 and had the approval of this town the following year… but in Toledo, as we have said, they still do not view the project favorably. In order to streamline the project, finally The Ministry of Transport has finally approved a new informative study that would contemplate building two branches from the Andalusian corridor. They explain in Today that if the branch goes ahead it would have its origin in Pantoja (as planned from 2008 to 2017) and that it would allow passage in both directions with trains of Iberian width and international width. However, it would be necessary to use trains capable of making this jumpsince the rest of the route to Extremadura is built on Iberian gauge. That is, right now what is being studied is the same to the conclusion that It was arrived in 2008 and that remained on the agenda until 2017. At least, as an alternative until it is decided whether or not the AVE to Extremadura passes through Toledo. And, if it happens, where is it going to do it. Photo | Gunnar Ridderström, Jaime Lillo and Falk2 In Xataka | The theory said that the entry of the AVE into Galicia would plummet aircraft prices. Practice is something else

Science also begins to study the effect of art and culture

by

“Ah, a lot of gym. But it works the brain a little too.” When Shakira uttered this phrase, immediately converted into a global meme thanks to her session with Bizarrap, she certainly did not intend to lay the foundations for a new scientific hypothesis about aging. And yet, in the midst of the era of biohackinglongevity supplements and timed wellness routines, a recent British study has just put the focus exactly there: on the brain, emotions and culture. We have been hearing for years that the secret to aging gracefully involves count grams of protein, lift weights, nail eight hours of sleep, avoid glucose spikes and of course reach the sacrosanct 10,000 steps a day. Longevity has become a cocktail of science, aesthetic obsession and multi-billion dollar industry. However, a team of researchers from University College London (UCL) has put an unexpected ingredient in the shaker: visiting museums, getting lost in a good book or vibrating at a concert also tangibly influences how our body ages. The investigation, published in the scientific journal Innovation in Aginganalyzed data from 3,556 British adults over 50 years of age. Pulling the thread of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA)—one of the most ambitious European projects on the subject—scientists crossed two seemingly unconnected worlds: cultural habits and physical biomarkers. On the one hand, they recorded how often these people went to the theater, visited galleries, listened to music, danced or painted. On the other hand, they measured their biological clock through blood tests and epigenetic data. The main conclusion was that those who participated in cultural activities at least once a week showed biological aging approximately 4% slower than those who only carried out this type of activity a few times a year. Furthermore, according to one of the indicators used by the team, the most culturally involved people had a biological age close to one year younger than the least culturally active participants. Professor Daisy Fancourt, lead author of the study, explained in the UCL statement that the results suggest that “artistic and cultural activities should be considered beneficial health behaviors, similar to physical activity.” The museum is not a magic pill It is advisable to curb your enthusiasm: the study does not say that reading Tolstoy will take away your wrinkles or that an exhibition replaces a good cardio session. Nor does it guarantee that listening to Clara Schumann automatically lengthens your life. What is evident is a strong correlation. People who often participate in cultural activities have better aging indicators, but correlation does not imply causation. As I well remembered Guardianmany experts insist that this type of research should be interpreted with caution. People who frequently consume culture also tend to share other factors: higher educational levels, higher incomes, less financial stress, healthier lifestyles, and a stronger emotional support network. Although the authors adjusted the statistics to isolate variables such as smoking, previous physical exercise or socioeconomic status, cleaning the equation of all confounding factors is an almost impossible task. Still, the findings dovetail perfectly with an increasingly robust line of science that underscores the biological impact of emotional health and social connectedness. According to the magazine Healththe secret is not in the museum or the book itself, but in what happens inside us when we enjoy them: stress is reduced, isolation decreases, the brain is stimulated, we regulate our emotions better and we receive a good shot of dopamine. Art would not cure by itself, but it would trigger physiological processes that do stop biological deterioration. And that, without a doubt, changes the terms of the conversation. Beyond muscle and metabolism Perhaps the truly revolutionary thing about this study is not that “4% slower”, but the paradigm shift it puts on the table. We have been understanding healthy aging for decades almost exclusively through physical parameters: diet, sweat and cardiovascular prevention. All of that remains essential. In fact, the study itself does not at any point question the benefits of physical exercise. But contemporary science is embracing a broader idea: aging is not just a metabolic or muscular process. It is an emotional, mental and deeply social process. Concepts as the “cognitive reserve” —the protective shield that the brain creates against deterioration thanks to continuous intellectual stimulation— are already common in neuroscience. Learning, having stimulating talks or being impacted by a work of art strengthen that shield. At the same time, disciplines such as psychoimmunology they are teaching us how loneliness, chronic stress or depression punish the body through inflammation and hormonal imbalances. Social isolation is already a major cardiovascular risk factor. This is where culture jumps out of the drawer of mere “entertainment” to reveal itself as a key tool for physiological well-being. The interesting thing is that the study does not talk about extraordinary habits or impossible routines. It talks about everyday practices such as reading a few pages before going to sleep, listening to music on the way to work, commenting on a movie after the cinema and going to an exhibition on any given Sunday. Small cultural gestures that, according to this line of research, could have more biological impact than it seemed. In fact, in the UK this has already jumped from theory to practice. The British health system has long been promoting “social prescription” (social prescribing), a strategy where doctors refer patients to community and cultural activities as a complement to traditional medicine. Reading groups, art workshops, choirs or gardening are prescribed to combat anxiety, cognitive decline or depression in older people. Daisy Fancourt herself is a pioneer in this field, documenting in his book Art Cure how art tangibly intervenes in physical and mental health. The antidote to the stress of hyper-optimization That this study has gone viral reveals something deeply contemporary: collective exhaustion in the face of the tyranny of productive well-being. Today, wanting to live longer seems too similar to an endless spreadsheet– Measure steps, macronutrients, heart rate, REM sleep, and ice water immersion. In such a gridded panorama, … Read more

In 1910, a comet approached Earth. And half of Spain panicked when they believed that she would die from poisoning.

by

In 1908, while reviewing the spectroscopic analysis of the tail of a comet, astronomer Daniel Walter Morehouse realized that it was full of toxic gases (such as cyanogen). The publication of the discovery made half of humanity’s hair stand on end. Above all, because there were just two years left until the Earth crossed paths with the largest known comet: the Halley. Plus, it was very close. Every year, between April 19 and May 28, our planet crosses the trail that Halley has left in its wake over the last few million years. This is what we know as the Eta Aquarids: a shower of very fast stars that peaks this year on the early mornings of May 5 and 6. In 1910, we encountered the comet on May 18. Our grandparents could almost touch it with the tips of their fingers. And that’s where the problems began. As explained Pedro Ruiz-Castell, Ignacio Suay-Matallana and Juan Marcos Bonet A few years ago, the vast majority of astronomers “seemed to be clear that this presence did not pose a danger to the visit of the comet. After all, “the tail of the comet was much less dense than the most perfect vacuum that could be produced in the laboratory”, what effect could such a tail have, no matter how many toxic gases it carried with it? However, the people she went crazy. Whether they were justified or not (which I already say they were not), the doubts about the extension of the comet’s tail and, “consequently, about the possibility that our planet could pass through it and be involved in it” became mainstream. So much so that José Comas i Solà In La Vanguardia on January 23 he even said that “we have been waiting for him (Halley) for 76 years to give us nothing but dislikes“. The confessionals filled to the brim In the end, as constantly happens today, “astronomers do not cease, even without intending to, to alarm the public with the statement that from May 18 to 19 we will have to pass through the tail of Halley’s Comet. On the one hand they assure that nothing bad will happen, and on the other they enumerate the dangers that await us on that day” said El Restaurador de Tortosa. But it was not something uniquely Spanish. Wherever there was a newspaper, there there was dozens of news stories dedicated to denying the hoaxes and prophecies that spread on the street. During those weeks, enormous sales were made. amounts of oxygen in pharmacies throughout Europe and thousands of wills were written before the imminent catastrophe.” In England, many citizens were convinced that “the comet is a chariot of fire, sent by the Supreme Being to take the soul of King Edward to heaven” who had just died on May 6. In Italy there were hundreds of psychotic outbreaks motivated by the comet and from the United States news came of “the strange rites celebrated in the countryside during the early mornings by African Americans in the south”. In Spain, the correspondent of The Impassionate in Bilbao, he wrote on May 18 that “the famous comet is the obligatory topic of all conversations. Many people see the critical moment arriving with real fear, and as proof of this, this morning an extraordinary number of faithful could be seen in the communion boxes in the churches. The priests, even trying to be brief and lenient in the court of penance, were not able to dispatch all those who requested confession, and tonight the churches were full. Tomorrow there will be a almost cometary queue before the sacred tables” Luckily, astronomers they were right and the passage of Halley did not end life on Earth. It did leave us priceless scenes of what would become, with the passage of time, hoaxes, collective hysteria and scientific journalism. Oh, and he “renewed” the material that we come across every year in the month of May: the wonderful Eta Aquarids. Image | Frank Cone In Xataka | Mysterious lights have been appearing in a remote valley in Norway since 1811. And we still don’t know what they are In Xataka | We had always believed that galaxies preceded black holes. James Webb has discovered something else

It’s the billions of cigarettes a year that pay for everything else.

by

In the midst of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign in 2013, the Chinese Government came to officially ban that at banquets and public events of officials there would be cigarettes on the table. The detail seemed symbolic, but it reflected the extent to which tobacco was embedded in the political and economic culture of the country. The silent business that sustains too much. When talking about the Chinese economy, the conversation usually revolves around of electric cars, solar panels, batteries either rare earth. However, one of the most important financial pillars of the Chinese State remains much older, less glamorous and much more profitable: tobacco. I counted this week the new york times that China consumes about half of all cigarettes on the planet and sells about 2.4 billion units a year, a figure so gigantic that it turns the country into a global anomaly. While much of the world reduces tobacco consumption, China has gone in the opposite direction. And it is not just a cultural or health issue. Behind it there is an immense economic and political machinery: the state tobacco monopoly generates around 244 billion dollars annually in benefits and taxes, an amount equivalent to about 7% of all Chinese central government revenue and comparable to the country’s official defense budget. The personal contradiction of the “boss”. The paradox is even more striking because Xi Jinping stopped smoking years ago and, according to reported the Timesto people present in private conversations, went so far as to describe smoking as a serious problem for China. Plus: during his first years in power there seemed to be a certain political will to tighten restrictions, even banned smoking for officials during official events and Beijing adopted limitations in indoor spaces, in addition, in 2015 taxes on tobacco were raised. Even Peng Liyuan, the Chinese first lady, publicly participated in anti-smoking campaigns with Bill Gates. But the momentum quickly faded. The reason seems obvious: the Chinese State depends too much of cigarette money. The same government that promotes futuristic industries and constantly talks about technological modernization continue financing part of its stability thanks to millions of people smoking cheap three-dollar packs. The most powerful monopoly in the country. The heart of the entire system is the State Tobacco Monopoly Administrationan extraordinary structure even by Chinese standards because it regulates the sector and at the same time controls the dominant company that makes virtually all of the country’s cigarettes. That is, the regulator and the business are the same thing. Its economic power has translated into direct political influence. The heads of the organization have a rank equivalent to that of vice minister and several Chinese academic investigations have openly pointed out that the monopoly has blocked or diluted many important health initiatives. The clearest example came around 2017, when an attempt was stopped to implement a national ban on indoor smoking and moved the responsibility to local governmentswhere restrictions are usually weak or barely applied. Financing much more than tobacco. The most revealing thing is that tobacco money is no longer just supports local budgetsbut also some of the great strategic priorities by Xi Jinping. The monopoly has invested more than 1 billion of dollars to strengthen the Chinese financial system and has also participated in the giant national semiconductor fund valued in about 100,000 million. In practice, part of China’s commitment to chips, high technology and industrial independence is being financed thanks to smokers. In producing provinces like Yunnan, tobacco taxes represent more than half of the municipal budget. That explains why so many local governments resist even to moderate measures against smoking: restricting consumption means opening huge holes in finances already weakened by the real estate crisis and the economic slowdown. The great world exception. The Chinese case also breaks several global trends. While in many countries vaping has reduced part of traditional consumption, in China the State hardened quickly regulations on electronic cigarettes and limited flavors and points of sale, preventing them from eroding too much of the classic business. There are also no aggressive health warnings like in the West: Chinese packages still show national symbols and discreet messages instead of shocking images about diseases. Although the smoking rate has dropped slightly Because fewer young people are getting into the habit, the total sales volume continues to grow. Partly because China still has hundreds of millions of smokers and partly because tobacco also functions as a social valve in a context of growing economic pressure. A battle that you don’t want to win at all. The result is a deeply contradictory situation. China officially recognizes that tobacco It is a health problem gigantic and maintains public objectives to reduce the number of smokers, but at the same time financially dependent that millions of people continue to buy cigarettes every day. The Chinese political system itself has created a perverse incentive where really combating smoking would involve hitting a fundamental source of income for local governments, banks, strategic investments and even part of the national technological project. That is why China’s big hidden business is not only in the battery factories or rare earths that dominate international headlines. It is also in a state monopoly that sells almost half of cigarettes on the planet and whose revenue helps support much of everything else. Image | SoQ錫濛譙, Steve Evans In Xataka | It’s never too late to quit smoking: the lungs have an incredible capacity to regenerate In Xataka | Fertility rates have plummeted around the world. There is an unnoticed suspect: tobacco

The Social Security reform has opened the door to working longer. Early retirement will remain half closed

by

Social Security is pushing those who can continue working to delay their retirement as much as possible, but it resists modifying one of the most discussed rules of the system: the penalty in the pension of those who they retire earlyeven when they accumulate more than 40 years listed. The flexible retirement reform contemplated in the Royal Decree 416/2026 will come into force on August 28, launching the Government’s strategy to extend working life of workers and contain pension spending. What changes with the reform. The new flexible retirement regulation seeks to encourage more people to extend your working life as much as possible voluntarily and can make part of their pension compatible with a salary, something that current regulations did not allow. The idea is not to force anyone to continue working beyond the legal retirement age, but rather offer more incentives so that those who can and want to do so, keep working. The person who is already retired, instead of stopping working completely, can do so part-time. In exchange, they will receive a salary for their work and a supplement to the proportional part of the pension. In this way, someone retired can obtain a higher income while still active, and will receive 100% of their pension again when they stop working. That is, if someone retired receive a pension of 1,000 euros, and for working 32 hours a week (80% of a full day) they will pay you a salary of 1,000 euros, your pension will be cut in that proportion, but the sum of salary (1,000 euros) and pension (200 euros) will provide you with greater monthly income. The current regulations force you to choose between working or receiving the pension. Put obstacles to early retirement. The demographic pyramid in Spain, in which there are fewer and fewer young people to maintain the pension system and a longer life expectancy, has forced successive governments to take measures to maximize working life of employees to continue contributing. This has led to the extension of the retirement age, which has been progressively delayed since 2011 to go from 65 to 67 years in 2027. The other measure approved in the pension reform of 2024 to discourage early retirement is to apply some reducing coefficients to the retirement pension, so that the more you anticipate retirement, the less pension you receive in return. Contribute 40 years without reward. One of the problems posed by the application of reducing coefficients is that those workers who already exceed the maximum limit of years of contributions necessary to access ordinary retirement at age 65 (38 years and six months or more by 2027), will not be able to retire early. without penalizing themand end up getting paid a lower pension than other workers with fewer years of contributions. This group has already organized under the association Asjubi40 and different political groups with representation in Congress have carried out proposals to eliminate this grievance to workers with long contribution periods when they want to advance their retirements. As and how he published The Independentvoluntary early retirees bear an average reduction coefficient of 11.36% and receive an average pension of 2,002.58 euros per month, after retiring at an average age of 63 years and two months. In the case of involuntary early retirement, the average reduction rises to 18.9%, the average pension stands at 2,100.42 euros per month and the average retirement age drops to 61 years and ten months. The unaffordable cost of stopping working. The reason given by the Government for not eliminating these reducing coefficients It’s simple: removing those penalties would be expensive. The Executive estimates an additional cost of 3,358 million euros per year for Social Security if the reducing coefficients are eliminated for those who retire early after having contributed 40 years or more. Of that figure, 1,345 million would correspond to voluntary early retirement, and 2,013 million would correspond to those retired involuntarily, that is, those who have been affected by ERE, business closures, force majeure or other cases considered by the General Law of Social Security. Social Security cannot assume it. Although Spain is registering record numbers in terms of number of members. It closed 2025 with a budget deficit of 5.58 billion euros. Once again, we are facing a record to be treated of the smallest deficit of the last 14 years, as as highlighted The Confidential. But it is a deficit, after all. However, the incorporation of contributions such as the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI), has contributedIn 2026 alone, 1,162.23 million euros will be added to the Social Security Reserve Fund, which reached a total amount of 15,267 million euros last March. In Xataka | From the “Great Resignation” to the “Great Early Retirement”: the labor market loses the experience of those over 55 years of age Image | Pexels (Joaquin Carfagna)

Quietly, a mobile phone manufacturer is skyrocketing in Spain. One that hits right in the nostalgia

by

There was a time when it seemed that consumers only had eyes for Xiaomi when looking for an affordable mobile phone. Things are starting to change. The data of Omdia For the first quarter of 2026 they show a significant drop compared to 2025 for the Asian manufacturer, with Motorola taking center stage. The numbers. The European phone market grew 2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, with Samsung as the big name. The company, according to data from the consulting firm, already has a 38% share, its best number in years with a growth of 3%. But Apple. The good global results of the iPhone 17 They already left us a clue about what could happen in Europe. Apple grew 9.9%, thanks to relatively affordable price models such as the iPhone 16e and the commercial success of its new models. Apple remains in second place, but with a striking fact: it sold 8.8 million iPhones compared to Samsung’s 12.6, and still grew at three times the rate of its rival. Samsung depended largely on the Galaxy A16 4G to sustain their numbers. Xiaomi. The Chinese company maintained third place, although its fall was the most pronounced. Xiaomi falls no less than 15% in Europe, although the numbers have fine print: the company sold fewer phones, but the ones it did sell were more expensive. Xiaomi’s average price (ASP, Average Selling Price) rose by 21%, mainly after the launches of the series Xiaomi 17 and the good sales of the Xiaomi 15T. It is a strategy that is working for them: although they sell fewer units, they sell much more expensively. Mainly, the markets in which these ranges worked the most were France, Germany and… Spain. And Motorola arrived. Motorola has been obsessed with the Spanish market for some time. It knows that we like quality-price phones, and that the buyer still has a certain nostalgia for a brand that always had a good product. Thanks to its expansion in Spain and Portugal, the company has grown 17% year-on-year, with almost two million units sold. A quick look on Amazon makes it easy to understand what’s going on. Motorola has a barrage of phones available at competitive prices, clean software that does not generate any type of friction, and an acceptable update policy. to stay. Motorola has a clear market strategy in which Spain is a fundamental market: affordable and accessible mobile phones. For its part, Xiaomi is turning towards Be increasingly premium to improve your margins. A golden opportunity for a manufacturer that once flooded Spain with Moto G, to once again travel the path of commercial success. In Xataka | Motorola Edge 70 Fusion, analysis: putting 7,000 mAh in such a thin mobile phone seemed like magic. The trick is under the hood

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

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

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

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