The legendary Renault plant in Valladolid is “reinvented” with an old acquaintance: the combustion engine

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The historical map of car factories in Spain is blurring with the evolution of the industry and the transition towards electrification, which has brought an unequal destiny for all of them: uncertain future of Ford in Almussafes to the Cupra bastion in Martorell. In the middle of the peninsula and emulating the village of Asterix and Obelix, an irreducible combustion engine factory that still resists: the Renault of Valladolid. But staying with the combustion engine does not mean staying stuck in the past: the historic Valladolid plant, which has such iconic models behind it as the Renault 4 CVpromises to continue writing history with Tilting Gravity Die Casting, the technique that changes how the heart of hybrid engines is manufactured. And Valladolid is the first factory in Spain to use it. New technology and more production. Horse Powertrain has invested 45 million euros at the Valladolid plant to install a head gasket manufacturing line using the Tilting Gravity Die Casting process, the first with this technology in the state. The new facility, which will occupy 3,500 square meters, will increase cylinder head manufacturing by 20% (from 300,000 to 360,000 units) and will require 150 new permanent jobs. Context. We are talking about the old Renault from Valladolid, but it has little of that 1953 Renault: today it is powered by Horse Powertrain, a joint venture formed by Renault 45%, Geely 45% and Aramco 10%. The formation is not coincidental: Geely provides the Chinese technological muscle, Renault its experience in the sector and the Saudi oil company is more than just financial muscle: it is interested in the combustion engine having the longest possible run. In Valladolid, Horse does not manufacture cars: it manufactures the hybrid E-Tech engines of the Captur, Symbioz, Clio, Austral and Rafale, the “heart” of a good part of the Renault range in Europe. And not only from Renault, but also from the group’s brands, which makes it strategic in that a single engine can end up in several different models. Why is it important. The bet is not minor: Valladolid is one of Horse Powertrain’s most strategic plants, which confirms that this is not a local experiment but a first-class industrial decision. The new technology allows engines to be manufactured with a more precise design and greater durability, something essential for hybrids, whose constant start-stop cycle subjects the components to greater thermal stress than a conventional engine. And the context justifies it: although almost one in five cars sold in Europe is already electric96% of those circulating they still have a non-plug-in motor. An inertia of more than 250 million vehicles that will not disappear in a decade. At a business level, the support is unquestionable. Its CEO highlighted that this investment “further demonstrates Valladolid’s leadership as a world-class automotive plant.” On the other hand, it is the first plant of this type in Spain and has been considered as a Priority Industrial Project by the Government of Castilla y León. What is Tilting Gravity Die Casting. Head gaskets are traditionally made of aluminum through a molding process, which leads to the possibility of air bubbles forming inside. And if there are bubbles, there will be microporosities and the structure will therefore be weaker. The TGDC solves this in a seemingly simple way: the aluminum no longer falls into the mold, but rather the mold is tilted so that it flows slowly and uniformly, thus minimizing turbulence and the risk of air. Bridging the distances, like when you pour beer into a glass. The result is a more homogeneous and structurally more integral piece that better withstands use and deterioration. In addition, this method requires less machinery and shortens production cycles. The push of Spain in the European industry. At the 2024 Paris motor show, then-Renault CEO recognized that the French unions were demanding the hybrid vehicle projects in Valladolid and Palencia due to the lack of demand for their electric models in the Douai and Maubege factories, however this latest movement is a complete “non, merci”: Spain not only does not give up production but also expands and modernizes it. Spain is the second state that manufactures the most vehicles in the old continent and this operation reinforces that position in the segment that endures the most: the hybrid. The question that remains in the air is whether De Meo’s successor will maintain the same commitment to Spanish plants in the face of French union pressure. Renault’s roadmap, which the brand plans to update soon, will give clues. In Xataka | Renault is a firm defender of the hybrid car and has its key factory in Valladolid. We have been there to know your future In Xataka | Given the tariffs on China, the CEO of Renault is clear who the European electric car should imitate: China Cover | Xataka

Sam Altman is laying the foundations for post-humanism as the philosophical current of the AI ​​era. It’s not good news

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“But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes about 20 years of life and all the food you consume during that time to become intelligent.” These two sentences were enough delivered at the India-AI Impact Summit 2026to set the networks on fire. But Sam Altman didn’t stop there. “Not only that, it took the widespread evolution of the 100 billion people who have lived and who learned not to be eaten by predators and to understand science and so on to create you,” continuous. Therefore, the criticism about “how much energy is needed to train an AI model” They are extremely unfair. And it’s curious. The most “unpopular” technology in history… Not because it is not understandable (or even because it is not reasonable). It’s funny because Altman and the rest of the AI ​​bigwigs don’t seem to realize that they are making every effort to make AI extremely successful. unpopular among the population. Maybe it’s nothing new. Maybe it’s something similar to what happened with fabric making machine salesmen in the midst of the industrial revolution. Maybe it’s something similar to what motivated movements like that of the Luddites and the reason why dozens of historians rewrote their history as that of poor technophobes. What has changed is that we are now broadcasting it to the entire world — and live and direct. And very insistently. Although the discourse they use to ‘sell’ their technology to investors, technical elites and politicians around the world can only be understood at a public level as a very sophisticated way of saying: ‘human things get in the way.’ Or not so sophisticated, of course. …that is finding its “public” Team Mirai Over the last few years, in fact, the process has become less and less subtle and more blatant. It is not something that is limited to AI companiesbut it is an increasingly clear phenomenon: people speaking to a convinced hyperminority while alienating the vast social majority. And artificial intelligence is the tip of the spear. And it wouldn’t be a problem if there weren’t something else: the current great technological battle is not only technical, it is ideological, philosophical and of values. For the social changes they hope to be successful, it is necessary to move the ‘Overton window’ as quickly as possible. And it’s working. The best example is Japan: in the last election, Team Mirai ran. As Antonio Ortiz explainedis “a new Japanese party founded by engineers” with “a fairly accelerationist program: government chatbots and databases for transparency of donations and to make politics ‘faster’, reduce paperwork and achieve an increase in productivity to compensate for the labor shortage.” Well, those people just got 11 seats and 7% of the votes. In a way, two apparently contradictory processes are two legs of the same phenomenon: the discourse becomes more explicit as the population becomes more related. And changing the world is also (and above all) changing ideas. We tend to have a softened vision of social changes. However, there are several psychosocial processes that are usually key for these to be carried out: delegitimization (“what ruled until now no longer deserves obedience”), demonization (“those who hold these ideas are evil”) and dehumanization (“they are not human, moral norms do not apply”). You don’t always get to the last step, but some degree of moral disconnection it is necessary. And the artificial intelligence revolution (and all the tensions it brings) continues to show similar signs: for years, accelerationist and posthumanist groups have been ‘operating’ in the shadow of the great social and political discourses. Now, however, they face it: as the AGI approaches, everything we thought we knew (on a social, economic or institutional level) is useless. Or so they try to make us believe. And the best example is that of Altman: the CEO of OpenAI does not have to declare himself a posthumanist to lay the rhetorical tiles through which these discourses will travel: when you convert the human into energy cost comparable to an AI model, you are lowering the bar to justify “anything” in the name of efficiency But what exactly is all this talk about posthumanisms and accelerationists? Although they are two different philosophical traditions (posthumanism questions classical humanism and lays the foundations for its improvement, while accelerationism is a family of ideologies that propose accelerating certain dynamics – technological or capitalist to provoke radical social change), the truth is that in recent years they have ended up coming together. And, beyond that, they are providing the mental framework that allows certain decisions to be made that, in other scenarios, would not be socially acceptable. When the human being ceases to be the ideological ‘center’ of the system, acceleration becomes the great political principle and the AGI becomes the utopian destiny of a post-scarcity society (the modern equivalent of the Christian heaven or the Marxist classless society), everything that opposes this — rightly or wrongly — will become old, outdated or outdated. Altman’s statements in India are not an accident: they are part of the delegitimization of the current system of values ​​that the next revolution needs and, as we see, is already underway. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “A place of joy with pain”: the phrase that summarizes the Aztec philosophy to be happier in this life

A study shows that we pay more attention to doctors if they are rude and arrogant

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Lovers of medical series may have a reference in their mind, such as Gregory Housea brilliant but insufferable doctor noted for his sheer arrogance. Fiction here taught us that we forgave him for his bad manners simply because he was a genius who saved lives, although now we may wonder what would happen in real life:we would put up with a doctor like that? science wanted to respond to this, pointing out that as patients we would not only tolerate it, but that we would pay much more attention to it than to a kind doctor. A paradigm shift. Although it may seem absurd, the doctor-patient relationship is something that It’s about cultivating from your own career of medicine in their first courses in order to achieve greater empathy and closeness to the patient. Something that, beyond the good manners that one should have, also serves as another diagnostic tool. But the fact that as patients we are much more obedient to a somewhat borderline doctor is something that has surprised, and that is why it has been dubbed the ‘Doctor House effect’. Here the objective was unravel a mystery of human communication: How a lack of civility affects our ability to be persuaded when it comes to our health. The experiment. To test our impression with these doctors, the team conducted three experiments with almost 200 participants. The premise here was quite simple, as it focused on evaluating how people reacted to different types of health advice, playing with variables such as the experience of the person giving the advice or the politeness of the person speaking. The results. These They have attracted the attention of a large part of the communitysince it breaks what doctors have been instilled in since their careers. What was seen is that, when the advice came from an expert in the field, the use of very arrogant language turned out to be much more persuasive than an affable and polite tone. In other words, acting like Dr. House was working much better than he imagined. But curiously, this study shows that there is a double standard. In this case, if the person giving the advice was not an expert authority figure, the exact opposite happened: using arrogant language destroyed credibility, with courtesy being the only way to persuade the patient to follow the most appropriate medical advice. Because Are we attracted to being talked down to? This is the question we may be asking ourselves right now, and science suggests that the key does not lie in a strange clinical masochism, but in expectations and how we manage care. Here we must understand that in our modern society there is an unwritten social contract that dictates that we must be kind and polite, especially in environments like a doctor’s office. But when a health expert abruptly breaks that rule and constantly swaggers at us, our brain goes into a state of alert. And this “unexpected rudeness” acts as a switch to capture a massive amount of our cognitive attention. The scene is clear in this situation: when we are surprised by a doctor’s borderlineness when we did not expect it, we process his message much more deeply. And the impact is so strong that persuasion works regardless of the initial relevance we gave to the topic being discussed or the biases with which it was arrived at. Not so fast. Obviously, the conclusions of this 2026 study are not a carte blanche for health professionals to start insulting us in our next medical check-up, but it does teach us a lesson about human communication and how sometimes not everything is as we think in an idyllic mind. In Xataka | Spending all day scrolling on Instagram or TikTok has a very specific effect on your brain: it dwarfs

The emptied rural Spain has been revealed as the great energy engine of the State

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Spain is a State full of contrasts. At a demographic level, the population density is concentrated in Madrid and coastal cities, that is, 30% of the territory concentrates 90% of the people. It is “tight Spain.” The rest, approximately five million people, occupy 70% of the territory, in the interior of the peninsula. More people consume more resources, which puts two realities on the table: Madrid consumes more and generates less energy than anyone else and that emptied Spain is the energy engine of the State, as the report summarizes “The energy transition in the Spanish rural environment” prepared by Monitor Deloitte. The most striking fact: 84% of renewable energy generation comes from rural environments. Context. In the collective imagination we associate energy production with large nuclear or fossil fuel installations, but nothing is further from current reality. Spain is carrying out an energy transition collected in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan with the objective of reaching 81% electricity generation from renewables. And it’s on the right track: the report of the Spanish Electrical System of Red Eléctrica for 2023 It showed that it had already exceeded the 50% quota. At specific moments, has reached 100% supply. Listing renewable sources by their importance, we find wind energy prominently, followed by photovoltaic and hydraulic energy. Where. In rural territory, in that sparsely populated place where natural resources and space abound. The report highlights regions such as Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and Aragón as hubs precisely because of their availability of soil and climatic resources (radiation and wind). Why is it important. Because the State needs that emptied Spain and its resources to successfully carry out its energy transition. Without that territory or its available resources, there is no decarbonization or energy sovereignty. Obviously a paradox occurs: that the most populated places are those that produce the least energy and vice versa, which generates a territorial imbalance. However, this deployment of infrastructure can become an opportunity to promote local employment and thus establish the population. Finally, agrivoltaics is revealed as a way to modernize the agricultural sector, making it possible to make cultivation for food compatible with energy supply, all on the same soil. In figures. In addition to this substantial share of 84% of renewable energy from rural areas, the report reveals other interesting figures: There are 15 provinces with critical population density (

68% have serious damage

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More than half of the Spanish road network accumulates serious or very serious damage. This is how it specifies the latest report of the Spanish Road Association (AEC). And according to the study, the deterioration has skyrocketed in recent years and the bill to fix it now exceeds 13,000 million euros. Among all the Autonomous Communities, Aragón occupies the last place in the ranking of the roads with the worst condition. A problem that does not stop. In July 2025, the AEC published its audit on the state of the national road network, and according to the association, the roads are in the worst state “since the late 1980s.” In 2022, the AEC estimated in its audit that there were about 13,000 kilometers of roads that had very serious pavement damage. Today that figure is close to 34,000almost triple in just three years. What exactly does “serious impairment” mean? He report The AEC distinguishes two levels of urgency. On the one hand, there are 34,000 kilometers that need immediate reconstruction (in less than a year) because they present serious structural damage: deep potholes, what is technically called “crocodile skin”, longitudinal and transverse cracks, and peelings in the asphalt. On the other hand, another 20,000 additional kilometers require intervention within four years. In total, more than 54,000 kilometers, out of a total network of 101,700, are in a more or less compromised situation. The invoice. The accumulated road maintenance deficit amounts to 13,491 million euros, according to the AEC, which updated the figure in 2025 taking into account inflation and the increase in the cost of materials and labor. Compared to 2022, the cost necessary to fine-tune the infrastructure grew by 42.7%. Of that amount, 4,721 million correspond to the State network and 8,770 million to roads managed by autonomous communities and provincial councils. Aragon tops the ranking. According to the association, 68% of its road network presents serious deterioration, sixteen points above the national average. As the AEC says, it is the only community that is at a “critical” level, which implies that most of its roads are not only bad, but require practically immediate action. The deficit per kilometer in Aragon reaches 150,632 euros, also the highest in the country. The motor expert Alfonso García ‘Motorman’, analyzed the figures in the COPE program Putting the Streets, counting that “riding on our roads and highways has become a risky activity.” The state in other Communities. Just behind Aragón, with 59% of its network in serious condition, are Castilla-La Mancha and Galicia. They are followed by Asturias, La Rioja, Castilla y León and the Region of Murcia, all above the 52% national average. At the opposite extreme, the communities with the lowest percentage of deteriorated roads are the Valencian Community (32%), the Madrid Community (38%) and Extremadura (40%). Driving on bad asphalt is expensive. According to AEC calculations, driving on a road in poor condition can increase fuel consumption by up to 12%. Only during July and August of last year, the association estimated that the overspending on gasoline and diesel derived from the poor condition of the roads would exceed 270 million euros, considering the more than 100 million journeys long-haul that the DGT provided. According to the report, the deterioration of the pavement also forces the average speed to be reduced by 10%, which makes the transportation of goods more expensive and, as a consequence, pushes up product prices. AI enters the scene. Until recently, the AEC audited roads with a classic visual inspection methodology, that is, with evaluators traveling sections on foot or by vehicle. In 2023 the transition to a digital inspection system based on artificial intelligence. A vehicle equipped with sensors travels along the road at up to 90 km/h and collects images that are later processed using artificial vision in the cloud. The result is a sample of 4,000 kilometers compared to the 300 that were previously analyzed with visual methodology. What solutions are proposed. The AEC has been calling for years for a specific and stable financing fund for road maintenance, which would combine public budgets, European funds, pay-per-use systems and public-private collaboration. Also point to a possible financing route that has no extra cost for drivers: making the special hydrocarbon tax also paid by rail, maritime and air transport. Thus, they say, some 4,091 million euros would be generated annually, enough to liquidate the accumulated deficit in just over three years. A few weeks ago, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, announced an injection of 1,629 million euros to face the situation, although at the moment it is far from being enough. Cover image | Commons In Xataka | As soon as the war in Iran began, Spanish gas stations had already done something: start raising prices

Google is going to build a mega data center in a state where the drought is atrocious. Your cooling plan: use air

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The American state of Texas has been dealing with heat wavesdroughts and a increasing pressure on its aquiferswhich makes it on paper one of the worst places to set up a data center. Well, Wilbarger County in Texas is just the place chosen by Google to set up your next data center. But big tech hides an ace up its sleeve: it is not going to use water for cooling, but air. Context. Briefly, a data center is an industrial facility full of servers where information transmitted over the internet, such as AI responses or your Google photos, is stored and processed. And if your personal computer requires cooling when it has been working with a certain intensity for some time to dissipate heat, more of the same with servers, which operate 24/7. The usual thing in these plants is to use thermal dissipation systems with water, either with chillers, evaporation or direct cooling with immersion, thermally efficient solutions, but problematic if water is scarce. The problem? That Texas is an oven that is not for buns: its drought is pressing. But Texas is not a foreign place for Google: it has been in that state for more than 15 years, where it has operational centers in Midlothian and Red Oak and already plans to build two more campuses in Armstrong and Haskell Counties. It’s very serious. The project. The Wilbarger County data center will reduce water use so much that it will restrict its application to basic campus uses such as kitchens and services. As? Google has not provided details of the technology, only that it will be advanced air cooling. Cooling with air in such a hot scenario implies greater energy consumption, so the problem now becomes electricity. What Google proposes is a “Power first” model. In short: the data center goes hand in hand with its own renewable electricity generation plant. Google’s energy partner for this project is AESone of the largest producers of renewables in the US, with whom it has a 20-year energy purchase agreement at an agreed price. This is how both win: AES has stability to build the plants and Google has the guaranteed supply and price. Furthermore, according to Google, they already have the land and the interconnection signed, which saves bureaucracy and launches the project into the construction phase. Why is it important. Because according to EESI estimatesa medium-sized data center can consume 416 million liters per year for thermal dissipation alone, the equivalent of a thousand homes. And if there is a shortage of water, allocating it to meet the needs of a data center is hardly justifiable. Wilbarger’s project solves this with air cooling, removing the precious commodity of water from the equation, but also from the electrical grid itself: Google cooks it and Google eats it (with the help of AES). Given that the demand for computing continues to grow, a model that does not consume water or overload the network emerges as a solution to a resource management problem. In figures. For Google, Wilbarger County is not a pilot plant and its size demonstrates this: 0 liters of water for cooling. The project will provide 7,800 MW of power to the Texas grid. The agreement between the technology and energy companies is for 20 years. Google advertisement an investment item of 40 billion dollars for Texas in November 2025 and has provided a $30 million fund to boost energy initiatives in Texas from 2026 to 2028. It won’t be easy. Although Google has been cryptic when it comes to reporting what the technology, its capacity and needs will be, the reality is that when cooling with air in a hot climate, the pressure is transferred to the electrical grid. On the other hand, and although this specific project points the direction of a possible solution to this problem, we will have to see if and how it can be scaled, because there are more and more data centers and the climate is increasingly more extreme. In Xataka | Google doesn’t have rockets, but it is going to install data centers in space. SpaceX and Blue Origin rub their hands In Xataka | Data centers in space are the finger, Google’s purchase of an electrical company is the Moon Cover | Google Data Centers and Ganapathy Kumar

We look for the perfect locator for your keys, wallet or suitcase

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For some time now, Apple’s AirTag has captured the attention of the most forgetful users, thus becoming an accessory for keys, wallets, bags or suitcases and always having them located. Over time, competitors have not stopped appearing. If you have been thinking about buying a device of this type for a while and don’t know which one to decide on, the time has come to analyze some of the best options that is on the market to make your choice easier. Technical sheet of all these locator models Xiaomi tag Apple Airtag 2 Motorcycle tag Tile by Life360 Matte samsung smart tag 2 Dimensions and weight 46.5 x 31 x 7.2mm 10 grams Diameter: 3.19cmThickness: 0.8cm 11.8 grams Diameter: 3.19 cm Thickness: 8 mm 7.5 grams 38x38x7mm 8.9 grams 28.8 x 52.4 x 8mm 13.75 grams TECHNOLOGY Bluetooth v5.4NFC (Apple Find My only) Bluetooth LEU2 chip (ultra wide band)NFC Ultra wide bandBluetooth Low Energy long range bluetooth Life360 Network Bluetooth 5.3 UWB SPEAKER Integrated piezoelectric buzzer Integrated 75 dB at 10 cm Integrated Integrated water resistance IP67 (30 min at 1 m depth) IP67 (30 min at 1 m depth) IP67 (30 min at 1 m depth) IP68 IP67 (30 min at 1 m depth) compatibility Google Android Find HubApple Find My Apple Find My Google Android Find Hub Google Android FindHubApple Find My Only Samsung Galaxy phones with Android 9 or higher autonomy Replaceable CR2032 battery(Shelf life: 1 year) Replaceable CR2032 battery(Shelf life: 1 year) Replaceable CR2032 battery(Shelf life: 1 year) Replaceable CR2032 battery(Shelf life: 1 year) Replaceable CR2032 battery (up to 700 days of autonomy in low consumption mode) price From 14.99 euros (1 unit) From 49.99 euros (pack of 4) From 27.99 euros (1 unit) From 99.99 euros (pack of 4) From 24.90 euros (1 unit) From 104.34 euros (pack of 4) From 24.26 euros (1 unit) From 80.36 euros (pack of 4) From 15 euros (1 unit) Which locator is best for you according to your case? With so many models of Bluetooth locators, you may feel lost, but we are going to try to simplify things a little to help you choose one or the other. Next, we are going to analyze which is the locator that best suits you according to the mobile phone you have and your needs and budget. One of the essential things when it comes to understanding these devices is that They use the network of nearby users to locate each other. The AirTag works because there are millions of iPhones passing nearby and the same goes for those compatible with Android’s Find My network. In Spain, it must be taken into account that there are more Android mobile users than iPhones, while Tile (which we will also analyze later) only works if users have the Tile app installed, so if you live in a lost town, it will not be of any use to you. Of course, all of them have in common that they feed themselves through a standard button cellwhich will cost you two euros to change it a year and you will forget to charge the device. In addition, they are IP67 certified, which means they will survive without problems if you drop your keys into a puddle or the toilet, for example. Apple AirTag, the king of precision and the perfect one for iPhone users He Apple AirTag2 It is the absolute reference for iPhone users. The pursuit of precision is taken to another level thanks to the new U2 chip, allowing you find objects almost 60 meters away with an arrow that guides you step by step. In addition, its integration with the Apple Watch and the accessories ecosystem (such as cases and keychains) is unattainable for the rest. The best thing about its chip is that it is very powerful and precise, allowing your phone to tell you that the object is “two meters to your right” with a centimeter precisionsomething that normal Bluetooth does not do. In addition, it is considered one of the best since there are many iPhones in the world (and also in Spain), which makes locating objects much easier. Faced with this precision, the AirTag has a but and that is that it sells you an incomplete product. The AirTag is a smooth disk, so if you want to hang it on the keysyou will have to spend between 15 and 40 euros on a keychain. Apple AirTag (2nd generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2: exclusive for Samsung users He Samsung SmartTag2 It is intended only for company mobile users. This makes it compete head-to-head with Apple since it also offers precision search (UWB), although it adds some extra functions, such as a physical button used to control home automation. A good example of this would be that, when you get home, you can configure that a double click on the keychain turns on the lights in the living room. In addition, you will not have to spend more on accessories, because it comes with a hole for can hang it directly on the keychainwhich is a benefit for your portfolio. Samsung – Samsung SmartTag 2 white. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi Tag, the victory of quality-price and valid for any mobile Whether you have an Android mobile or an iPhone, the Xiaomi Tag It is the most economical and versatile alternative you will find. Of course, its design is somewhat larger, but You will not need an accessory to hang it on the keychain. It has arrived, without a doubt, to break the market, offering everything that a locator offers but at almost half the price. Of course, its weak point is precision. It doesn’t have ultra-wideband (UWB), so you’ll have to forget about the dates on the screen. With this model you will have to play “hot or cold” guided only by the beep, unlike Samsung, Apple or Motorola models. The … Read more

Generation Z has found the remedy to streaming subscription fatigue: buying DVDs again

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Sales of DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD stopped their decline in 2025. They only fell 9% compared to declines of more than 20% in the previous two years. What is the reason for this slowdown? To an unexpected factor, an unforeseen audience: young people from Generation Z who are filling video stores, promoting labels boutique like Criterion and Arrow and turning the physical format into a gesture of resistance against the massification of streaming. Plummet. For more than a decade, the physical format market in home video followed a downward trajectory that seemed irreversible. Between 2019 and 2023 it was reduced by 40% in the United States alone, and the disappearance of chains such as blockbuster it reinforced the feeling that the album was an exhausted medium. In 2024, DVD and Blu-ray sales were below a billion dollars for the first time. Gasping. However, in 2025 a different phenomenon has been detected: the physical disk market generated 870 million dollarsthat is, it only decreased by 9.3% compared to the previous year. What’s more: in the 4K UHD segment (which allows high-quality viewing at home), US consumer spending grew 12% year-on-year. All this in an extremely unfavorable context: with the unstoppable growth of streaming (19.8% in 2025), the physical format represents only 1.4% of total home entertainment. Fed up with streaming. The overdose of supply in streaming is ultimately causing a tiredness effect. According to recent studies47% of American consumers say they pay too much for their insurance services streamingand 41% consider that the available content does not justify the price. The average number of subscriptions per household has been four for a couple of years, an amount that could be at its critical point. DVD solution. Added to this saturation is a problem that film fans know well: the platforms are unreliable and the catalogs change without prior notice. Movies and series disappear for reasons ranging from the completion of exploitation contracts to tax reasons. In a ‘Los Angeles Times’ piece that has investigated this interest Of the youngest to recover physical formats, some young people under thirty spoke about how they became interested in cinema during the pandemic, describing DVD collecting as an act of rebellion against the fragmentation of streaming. Blockbuster, meeting point. That same article talks about renovated versions of old video stores as meeting points for these new collectors. Of course, it is something that mainly concerns the United States, where such specific types of businesses make sense: Vidiots, in Los Angeles, also functions as a movie theater, and is registering its highest revenue peaks since its opening, with an average of 170 daily rentals. Also from there is Cinefile, which has 500 paying members. Visiting the video store functions as a social activity that streaming cannot offer and the community dimension is key to understanding why the phenomenon exceeds pure nostalgia. And you don’t have to go to such specialized stores: Barnes & Noble, one of the few large chains in the country that maintains a space dedicated to the physical format after the withdrawal of Best Buy and Target, speaks of a double-digit percentage growth during the last year. And they point out that the demographic profile of their buyers is increasingly younger. Stamps boutique. The situation experienced by domestic editions is completely unprecedented in the history of the medium: while the major studios reduce their commitment to the physical format, independent labels are experiencing a moment of expansion. Criterion Collection speaks of “significant year-over-year increases” in sales. The cult film specialist Vinegar Syndrome also experiments similar trends. Of course, sales are incomparably lower than the good times of the physical format, but we are not talking about residual phenomena either. In Spain alone, for example, there are half a dozen labels specialized in reissues of films that cannot be found in streaming (El 79, Cameo, Gabita Barbieri, Trashorama…) that survive crises and recessions alluding to a loyal audience and a cinema that cannot be seen any other way. The inevitable comparison. It is inevitable to think of an analogy with the vinyl recoverythe cassette and the VHS that the previous generations, Millennials and Gen-Xers, have carried out. This has been going on since the mid-2010s, in a mix of nostalgia, vindication of the physical and endless discussions about audio and video qualities. Two decades latervinyl is facing its eighteenth consecutive year of growth, with $1.4 billion in sales (the highest figure since 1984) and 44 million units in stores, surpassing the CD for the third consecutive year. The key difference is that vinyl has an industrial infrastructure that supports it: record companies that prioritize the format, active manufacturers and a distribution chain. The physical video, on the other hand, loses player manufacturers and the big studios prioritize streaming about the disc editions. Video game consoles, eternal support of the format, already have institutionalized versions of their hardware without disc readers. At the moment, the recovery of DVD and Blu-Ray is an isolated phenomenon. But those who we keep listening to cassettes We know better than to look over our shoulders at a format that seems dead. Header | Photo of Lance Anderson in Unsplash In Xataka | Despite streaming, I still buy Blu-Rays and DVDs. But the reason has nothing to do with image quality.

The mayor of Lisbon has turned it into a magnet for European startups

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Carlos Moedas does not feel like a conventional politician. The current mayor of Lisbon and former European Commissioner for Innovation recently insisted in which his training as an engineer marked his management. The idea: less rhetoric and more structural solutions. And it certainly seems to carry out this proposal, because it is leading a transformation that seeks to position the Portuguese capital not only as a tourist destination, but as one of the most relevant technological nodes in Europe. unicorn factory. The nerve center of this transformation is the call Unicorn Factorya hub of innovation that was launched in 2022 and that has become the flagship project of its mandate. Since its creation, this initiative has multiplied its size by five, and today it already houses thematic divisions specialized in cutting-edge sectors such as AI, blockchainhealth or green technologies dedicated to the agricultural field. The success is tangible: 17 “unicorn” companies (valued at more than $1 billion) have moved their operations to the Portuguese capital. Attracting startups. Moedas explained in comments to Financial Times how the real challenge of Lisbon is not to see companies born, but to help them grow. The project attracted 300 companies in 2025, a figure that represents notable growth from 250 the previous year. Among them there are companies with founders from the US, Brazil, or Denmark. Favorable conditions. To attract these startups Moedas has used several levers. The first is to sell Lisbon for what it is: a safe capital with a great quality of life. The second is to highlight that the tax regime for qualified immigrants is advantageous, and there are also tax credits for R&D, which of course is a strong argument for companies that consume a lot of resources in those initial phases and can thus receive aid in this process. But. The road, Moedas openly acknowledges, is not without potholes. Portuguese bureaucracy remains complex – the same thing happens in Spain – and that can deter entrepreneurs. The mayor of Lisbon states in the interview that a good part of his time is spent talking on the phone with foreign founders and helping them overcome these bureaucratic barriers. “Politicians do not create jobs, the markets create them,” he repeats: their job is to facilitate, not hinder, or at least that is the message. Competence. Although the activity is notable, there are founders of companies who know that the market is raffling them off. María Ribeiro Soares, from Immersiv Studios, warned of the difficulty retaining talent compared to markets with higher wages such as the United Kingdom or Germany. The other venture capital. There is another peculiarity in this entrepreneurship market. Lisbon startup founders have realized that while traditional venture capital is cautious, the so-called family offices are very willing to bet on these projects. These investors, often experienced, high-net-worth former founders, provide funding but also advice. Lisbon is not alone. The rise of Lisbon as a technological node is also accompanied by other Portuguese innovation centers such as Braga and Porto, where, for example, the biotechnology sector flourishes. There is also a direct connection with universities oriented to this market, and in that northern region of Portugal alone there are already some 1,200 startups with a combined valuation of close to 9 billion euros, according to the FT. The other great challenge. Portugal’s efforts to attract external talent have led to the arrival of numerous digital nomads, but this has had a counterproductive effect: it is causing an exodus among young Portuguese. They cannot access a housing market adapted to the pockets of those nomads, who charge triple. Rental prices have skyrocketed, and that has created tension that the mayor must manage. Image | EU2017EE Estonian Presidency | Aayush Gupta In Xataka | Portugal’s radical proposal to stop touristification: an underwater cable that connects with the US

We have been adoring bananas all our lives for their potassium. Science points to raisins as the true “super snack”

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In recent years it is easy to see on social networks like TikTok or Instagram different ‘specialists’ in sports or nutrition bombarding with different food supplementswith the best ‘super foods’ for good nutrition and more. However, in a corner of the pantries we may have a food that we despise, but that can give us many benefits in our daily diet: raisins. A great ally. A product that may be hated by many people because of its texture, but has been introduced by different nutrition experts as a very interesting option. The reason lies in the dehydration process, since raisins surpass very popular fresh fruits such as strawberries or bananas in nutritional density. The why. When we remove the water from a grape, what is left is a bomb of bioactive nutrients. This is what verified databases like the USDA and FatSecret point to, since a standard serving of 40 grams of raisins provides about 120-129 calories, between 1 and 2 grams of fiber and around 300 mg of potassium. And this is where the odious comparison comes in with the historical king of potassium and the one almost baptized as the treatment for soreness after sports: the banana. On paper, a medium banana has around 350-425 mg of potassium, while raisins, being dehydrated, They can reach 860 mg of potassium per 100 grams. In this way, we are talking about a brutal concentration of minerals that are key for the nervous and muscular system. What does science say? Far from being a simple grandmother’s remedy, the impact of raisins on our health is widely documented in different articles. One of these is an analysis published in 2017 which brought together almost 22,500 adults and revealed large numbers. Specifically, regular raisin consumers had 34% more fiber in their diet, 16% more potassium and on top of that they consumed 17% less added sugars. The results here were a 39% reduction in the rate of obesity and a 54% lower risk of metabolic syndrome. Effect on pressure. Beyond being a food that can be very attractive to gym lovers with the aim of alleviating soreness and also reducing sugar consumption, it can be ideal for our blood pressure. Here science has been able to see that the phenols and polyphenols of raisins have a powerful antioxidant effect, and that is why in patients with diabetes and hypertension, consume three servings a day manages to reduce blood pressure between 5 and 8 mmHg. But it doesn’t stop there, since it can also lower glucose levels after eating something and reduce very important inflammatory markers. At the digestive level, a 14-day trial showed that the fiber in this food acts as a powerful prebiotic, promoting the growth of butyrate-producing bacteria in our intestinal microbiota, which are known for their anti-inflammatory effect. Perfect fuel. Right now in the sports world there are a large number of products that promise to be a great pre-workout with artificial energy gels. In this case they have a moderate glycemic index, which translates into having sustained energy during training without the dreaded “bird”. But science pointed out, after analyzing triathletes, that taking raisins before exercising prevents DNA damage much more effectively than consuming equivalent amounts of pure glucose. Although beyond muscle there are other benefits, such as improvements in spatial memorywhich justify the famous Spanish saying: “For memory, corners of raisins”. Something that also seems like it belongs to older people, but that science has proven. It still has sugar. Clearly, raisins have many benefits, but it doesn’t mean you have to have a free bar of this food. And it should not be considered that way because in its composition it has natural sugars in the order of 24 to 28 grams per 40 gram serving. Although it does not behave in the body the same as white coffee sugar, since thanks to its matrix of fiber and phytochemicals, excessive consumption can cause glycemic spikes. That is why the recommendation that can be made is clear: moderation is the key. Images | Anshu A Jorge Alberto Vega Barrera In Xataka | Food has been filled with contradictory messages: a sports nutritionist helps us understand what’s behind it

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