December is the key month for rain in half of Spain: if we miss it, we will go back to square one

For months, one of the favorite activities of half of Spain was entering embalses.net and see how the country’s water reserves were. If we did, the most common reaction could only be described with one word: tranquility. The water impounded on December 1 was 54.02%. That is 3% more than the same week last year and, mind you, almost 10% above the average of the last 10 years. Everything seems in order, but the story is always more complicated than it seems. Because, while these data seem to improve, more and more towns declare their tap water ‘non-drinkable’‘. That is to say, despite everything, we cannot lose December. A key month for water in Spain. Meteorologist César Rodríguez Ballesteros said it a few days ago“climatologically, December is one of the rainiest months of the year in Spain. Of the 2621 stations on the map, it is the rainiest at 1075, the 2nd rainiest at 385 and the 3rd at 236.” It is true that it does not rain the same way or at the same time throughout the country. It is obvious, but it is good to keep it in mind: the eastern peninsula — DANAs territory — the most important months it’s september and, above all, October. In the heart of the Ebro and Duero Valley, the key month it’s may. And, curiously, in the Cerdanya area, the rainiest month it’s august. However, I insist, by extension (almost half of the country) and location (the parts of Spain with the greatest storage capacity), December is a key month. Above all, after a very dry october and a barely normal November. In Xataka Catalonia has prohibited filling swimming pools due to the drought. For your hotels the solution is easy: buy water in France And, a priori, we have good news. As we explained a few weeks agothe start of December 2025 in Spain would be marked by a very active Atlantic circulation thanks to a significant “negative NAO”. The ‘NAO’ is the ‘North Atlantic Oscillation‘ is what meteorologists call the eternal “give and take” maintained by the Azores anticyclone and the Icelandic low, the two major atmospheric phenomena that govern the meteorology of the North Atlantic. When the index we use to “measure who is winning” is negative, the Azores anticyclone is weaker than normal and, for this reason, it cannot block deep Atlantic storms. The direct consequence is that they circulate further south than normal: right at our latitude. {“videoId”:”x8npqne”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”DROUGHT What if we can’t reverse it?”, “tag”:”Webedia-prod”, “duration”:”262″} A mattress that can disappear at any time. Looking at the data, even in the most optimistic analysis it is clear that we are coming from very dry and irregular autumns: our water system is affected and the water cushion can evaporate very quickly in spring. To do? As experts often repeat“the (next) droughts are managed with full reservoirs.” Now, even provisionally, they are. It’s time to prepare for summer. However, everything seems to indicate that we will not do so. And, in that at least, yes we have experience. Image | Copernicus In Xataka |In the middle of one of the most extreme droughts in living memory, Catalonia has had an idea: start cutting down trees (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news December is the key month for rain in half of Spain: if we miss it, we will go back to square one was originally published in Xataka by Javier Jimenez .

Paramount launches hostile takeover bid to acquire Warner

The punch on the table that Netflix gave last Friday announcing its purchase of Warner Bros. left the film industry shaking. The action was so aggressive that we spent the weekend wondering whether the regulatory systems would allow a purchase that brought Netflix very close to a monopoly. What was not so predictable was that Paramount, another of the actors involved in the bidding in recent weeks, would launch a hostile takeover to try to take over Warner even more aggressively. What point are we at? Netflix surprised on Friday with the announcement of the purchase of Warner Bros. for a value of 72,000 million dollars. Only seventy-two hours later Paramount counterattacked by launching an even more ambitious takeover bid, valued at $108.4 billion. The maneuver consists of appealing directly to Warner shareholders by bypassing the board of directors, giving rise to one of the most aggressive corporate confrontations that the entertainment industry has seen in years, and which some describe as “a bidding war worthy of Succession“. What is at stake. Paramount’s strategy seeks to snatch Netflix’s control of one of the most emblematic studies of cinema history, owner of franchises such as DC superheroes, Harry Potter, Looney Tunes, the entire HBO television history, including ‘Game of Thrones’, and a film and historical archive of incalculable value. The offer from David Ellison, CEO of Paramount, aims to $30 per share in cashsurpassing the $27.75 offered by Netflix. Three months of offers. Monday’s hostile bid does not come out of nowhere, but rather as the culmination of three months of efforts by Paramount. David Ellison began his pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery in September, when he presented a first proposal of $19 per share that was quickly rejected by the board of directors chaired by David Zaslav. Far from being discouraged, the CEO of Paramount progressively escalated its offers: $22 on September 30, $23.50 on October 19, and $26.50 on December 1. In total, Paramount submitted six formal proposals in just twelve weeks, all of them rejected or ignored by Warner. The breaking point came when Ellison raised his offer to $30 per share on December 4, a proposal that according to his own statements never received a response. “I sent a text message to Zaslav telling him that the $30 was not our final offer,” Ellison revealed.suggesting he was willing to bid even higher. Flawed process. During a conference call with investors on Monday, Paramount executives publicly accused Warner of “not meaningfully engaging” with any of their proposals, denouncing what they considered a “flawed” auction process that favored Netflix from the beginning. Faced with this systematic blockade, Ellison has ended up opting for the most confrontational route: appealing directly to shareholders, bypassing the board that had repeatedly rejected his offers. How they differ. The two proposals on the table to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery differ in their structure and scope. That of Netflix contemplates the acquisition of the Warner Bros. film studios and the HBO Max streaming platform, leaving out the entire cable television business, which includes assets such as CNN, TNT and TBS. These traditional chains are expected to split in the third quarter of 2026. Since then, the estimated time to close the operation ranges between 12 and 18 months. By contrast, Paramount’s proposal takes an entirely different approach: $30 per share, all in cash. Ellison, for his part, wants to buy Warner Bros. Discovery outright. Paramount argues that this comprehensive approach provides $18 billion in immediate liquidity for shareholders more than Netflix’s mixed structure ($23.25 in cash and $4.50 in Netflix shares). Paramount promises to close the transaction in 12 months, shortening the timeline. Other takeover bids. The current battle between Paramount and Netflix over Warner Bros. Discovery is not an isolated phenomenon. There are precedents in February 2004, when Comcast launched $54 billion hostile takeover bid about The Walt Disney Company. Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, detected an opportunity in the midst of the internal crisis that Disney was going through under the leadership of Michael Eisner, whose management had generated growing discontent. Comcast wanted to take control of ESPN. The operation did not work because the Disney board closed ranks so as not to lose its independence. It was precisely Disney and Comcast who found themselves in a wild bidding war to take over 21st Century Fox in 2018. What started as an initial offer from Disney of $52.4 billion in stock escalated quickly: Comcast counterattacked with $65 billion all in cash. Disney raised its offer to 71.3 billion and Comcast ended up abandoning the bid. Both precedents illustrate recurring patterns: detecting weaknesses in rival companies, escalating offers and using political connections to influence regulatory processes, as we will see below. The political factor. What distinguishes this operation from any precedent in Hollywood history is the geopolitical dimension and the direct connection to the White House. Regulatory documents filed Monday with the SEC reveal a financing structure that has generated controversy: the Paramount offer is supported by Affinity Partnersthe private investment firm that directed by Jared Kushnerson-in-law of President Donald Trump. Three Middle Eastern sovereign funds participate alongside Kushner: the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the sovereign fund of Abu Dhabi and the Qatar Investment Authority. These investors were not mentioned in Paramount’s initial press release, being relegated to mandatory regulatory filings. According to official documents, all of these partners have agreed to expressly renounce any corporate governance rights, including the possibility of appointing directors or influencing strategic decisions. This resignation is not accidental: seeks to avoid the gaze of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the government body that examines foreign investments for reasons of national security. Enter Kushner. Kushner’s presence complicates everything. Since leaving the White House after Trump’s first term, Affinity Partners has raised approximately $3 billion, including a $2 billion direct investment from the Saudi fund. Kushner cultivated an especially close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his time as a presidential … Read more

Google changed the news to summaries made with AI. Now the European Commission has something to tell you

In March of this year an earthquake shook European publishing houses. The reason was that Google implemented AI Overviews in your search engine. This means that, where links to media news previously appeared, a summary made with AI now appears, with the detriment that this entails for the media, which in some cases They have lost up to 50% of traffic. Now the European Commission has taken action on the matter. What has happened? The European Commission has formally opened a new antitrust investigation against Google. The reason this time is the use of content from media outlets and YouTube creators to feed their AI summaries, all without compensating the creators. The investigation will try to elucidate whether Google is distorting competition by placing unfair rules on the media, while its access to content (especially in the case of YouTube) displaces other competitors of AI companies. In the words of Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice President for a Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition at the European Commission: “AI is bringing remarkable innovation and many benefits to people and businesses across Europe, but this progress cannot come at the expense of the fundamental principles of our societies. That is why we are investigating whether Google has imposed unfair conditions on publishers and content creators, while putting developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules.” Why is it important. The research involves questioning the model that Google has built around its generative AI, but it also calls into question the entire problem of the use of foreign content by these tools. Opens the door to reconfiguring the AI ​​market, imposing limits and compensation for original content creators The impact. As we said, the arrival of AI summaries has had a huge impact on media traffic. If readers receive the response without having to make a single click, that traffic is lost and not only that: it is unrecoverable. The worst thing is that to give that answer, Google drinks from the information published by those same media. In the case of YouTube, creators are required to accept a clause so that their content can be used for different purposes, including train your AI. Consequences. The investigation has just begun and there is no set date for its conclusion, which could take years. They will study whether Google has violated the article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and the article 54 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position. If Google is eventually found to have breached these rules, the Commission could force them to take measures to comply with the law, such as compensating creators, allowing them to opt out of having their content appear in summaries, or even removing summaries across the EU, in addition to a possible fine. And now they go… It is not the first time that Google has faced monopoly accusations in the EU. In fact, it is the technology company that accumulates the highest fines. The highest was 4.3 billion for abuse of dominant position with Androidfollowed by 2,950 million for their abuse in the advertising market. He also had to pay 2,420 million for Google Shopping and 1,490 million for AdSense. Images | UnsplashEuropean Commission In Xataka | The EU has spent years fiercely fighting monopolies. Teresa Ribera has other plans for telecos

can no longer contain the radiation

On February 14, 2025, an explosive drone Shahed 136Iranian-made and possibly launched by Russia, pierced the structure of confinement at Chernobyl reactor 4, considered one of the greatest feats of modern engineering and designed to contain radiation from the worst nuclear disaster in history. Shortly after, Europe confirmed an open secret: plugging the “gap” was going to take a long time. The consequence has now arrived: Chernobyl is once again a problem. The impact and deterioration. The structure that was to guarantee a century of nuclear safety at Chernobyl has entered into a critical phase after the drone attack that pierced and burned he New Safe Confinementthe gigantic metal arch installed in 2016 to permanently seal reactor number four and contain any leaks of dust or radioactive gases. The IAEA mission, after examining the state of the exterior coating, has confirmed that the structure has lost its essential function: no longer confines radiation as designed. The post-impact fire, which remained active for weeks When an impermeable internal membrane caught fire, it forced emergency crews to open hundreds of holes in the deck to locate embers, multiplying potential escape routes and further compromising the integrity of a system designed to be airtight for generations. The “good”. That no increases have been recorded in the radiation levels in the surroundings, although the loss of tightness implies that an internal incident, even a minor one, could generate environmental dispersion in a complex where tons of radioactive material remain encapsulated inside the old Soviet sarcophagus, already exhausted in its useful life and never completely sealed. The perforated sarcophagus The fragility of a colossus. The sarcophagus is not just any structure: it is the largest mobile installation ever built, a metal arch as tall as a 30-story building and heavy as a battleship, financed by more than forty countries to allow (finally) the safe dismantling of the reactor destroyed in 1986. Its mission was twofold: contain the toxic legacy of the past and provide a stable environment to remove, piece by piece, the remains of the molten core. But he february attack It opened a fifty-square-foot hole, damaged the main crane, and exposed a deeper problem: repairing a shield of this size and sensitivity is extraordinarily difficult. The urgent thing. The most compromised areas are in areas where radiation prevents working normally, and moving the arch to intervene from the outside entails structural and exposure risks that still have no clear technical solution. IAEA experts insist on the urgent need to control humidityreinforce anti-corrosion programs and plan permanent repairs before progressive deterioration turns the current situation into a cumulative risk. An environmental threat. The impact of the drone, which Ukraine attributes to Russiahas not only left physical consequences on the structure: it has introduced a new vulnerability vector in an area that was already occupied in 2022, when Russian troops crossed the nuclear exclusion during their advance towards kyiv. Since then the enclave has become a symbol of the extent to which war can reopen dangers that Europe believed contained forever. The loss of function of the shield does not imply an immediate disaster, how they emphasize both the IAEA and independent specialists, but it does increase the probability that an internal accident or a future incident will cause the release of radioactive dust towards an exterior that is no longer hermetically isolated. Plus. The absence of leaks detected today does not reduce the severity of a deterioration that, if not corrected, can amplify any problem operational in a facility where dismantling work has been delayed for years precisely because of the war. The balance between technical stability, environmental risk and vulnerability to attacks is thus profoundly altered, in a context in which restoring security will not be quick, cheap or easy. The technical challenge. The recommendations of the IAEA Director General, Rafael Grossi, insist on a complete and urgent restoration that stops the degradation of the shield and recovers its confinement function. However, the intervention it’s complicated: Handling damaged materials in a radioactive environment requires conditions that war does not guarantee, and moving the structure to work on it can generate mechanical stresses and unwanted risks. Thus, Ukrainian authorities and international teams will have to decide how to act on a system designed to be immovable for a hundred years, now weakened by fires, drilling and prolonged exposure. Meanwhile, Europe is witnessing a strong reminder that nuclear infrastructure is not only vulnerable to the passage of time, but also to the dynamics of a conflict that has crossed all possible borders, including that of a disaster that forever marked the memory of the continent. Image | State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, Picryl In Xataka | A Russian drone has opened one of the largest engineering works. The problem: it was the sarcophagus of Chernobyl reactor 4 In Xataka | Europe built a shield to contain radiation from Chernobyl. A Russian drone drilled into it, and it has been open since then

An era of a lot of free time is coming, because we will no longer have jobs

Imagine a future where humans no longer have to work because AI does everything for us. It is an idea that has been in the mouths of figures of the stature of Bill Gates and Elon Musk, who believes that “working will be optional”. Now it adds Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024and his approach is quite pessimistic. An idyllic future. Depending on who says it and how they say it, the future sounds like a utopia where humans dedicate themselves to living life in a kind of permanent retirement. This is what is distilled from speeches like that of Elon Musk, who is committed to a universal basic income so that only those who want to work can work. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, and Bill Gates are not so forceful in saying that AI will completely free us from work, but they do believe that it will be the definitive boost to the four-day workweek in even three days. Or not so much… Geoffrey Hinton has joined the debate and, as we are accustomed tohis position is much more pessimistic. During a debate with Bernie Sanders at Georgetown UniversityHinton talked about the impact that AI will have on the labor market and his prediction is that AI will make human work obsolete, causing mass unemployment with unprecedented economic and social impact. A different threat. Technology has destroyed many jobs, but for Hinton this technological revolution is different from others because “People who lose their jobs will have no other jobs to go to. If AI becomes as intelligent as people, or more so, any job they can do can be done by AI.” He believes that it will mainly affect office positions, calls “white collar” professionssuch as analysts, customer service positions or junior programmers. Side effect. During the talk, Sanders and Hinton criticized the path that large companies are taking with billion-dollar investments in data centers for AI. “If you’re wondering where these guys are going to get the billions of dollars they’re investing in data centers and chips… one of the main sources of money will be selling AI that will do the work of employees for much less money,” Hinton said. However, he pointed out that this will have a collateral effect: “If the workers do not get paid, there will be no one who will buy your products…they haven’t really thought about the enormous social disruption we will have if there is very high unemployment.” The promise of AGI. For these predictions to be fulfilled, both the most optimistic and the most pessimistic, an AGI is needed (a general artificial intelligence that is as capable as a human being). AI companies have been around for a long time making us believe that the AGI is about to fallbut the promise of imminence seems more related to a need to finance the insane investment than to reality. The most sensible voices, such as Andrej Karpathy, suggest that the AGI will take at least another decade to arrive. Hinton admitted that AI still fails at basic tasksbut warns that we are still in the early stage and “it is improving exponentially.” Although in this case he did not give a date, according to previous statementssees it “quite likely that at some point in the next 20 years AIs will become smarter than us.” The impact of AI on employment. That AI takes our jobs has become one of the great fears of society. At the moment the studies that are being carried out point in different directions, from those that say that It’s barely impactingto those who say that it mainly affects the recent graduates entering the job market. According to the World Economic Forum report92 million jobs are expected to be destroyed by 2030, many of them due to automation facilitated by AI. However, it also foresees the creation of 170 million new jobs, also associated with the arrival of AI. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | AI and its impact on the labor market: how the perception of its arrival varies by country, explained in a graph

This has free facial recognition, night vision and two-way audio

have a surveillance camera At home it can give us a very important extra security. Not only to monitor the home if we are not at home, but also to be able to take a quick look and see what our children and pets are doing. Although there are many options, Going for one with 4K resolution can give us extra detail that really matters. If we look for one of these, one that stands out the most is undoubtedly the Tapo C260: camera that we have available from 69.99 euros. Tapo C260 – Indoor WiFi Surveillance Camera, Home Security, 4K 8MP 360°, AI Detection, Local/Cloud Recording, Physical Privacy, 18x Zoom, Tracking, Two-Way Audio, microSD The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 4K resolution, night vision and even facial recognition As we say, we have many options on the market if we are looking for a new surveillance camera. Most usually offer 1080p or 2K resolution, which may be enough for tighter budgets. Now, the ideal is to bet on one that reaches up to 4K, since thanks to this we will have a series of advantages that, in practice, are noticeable. The first and most obvious is that, by having more resolution, they will offer us a greater detail when recording image. This will allow us to identify faces or small objects more easily. In addition, a higher resolution also allows us to zoom without the sharpness of the image disappearing. In that sense, the Tapo C260 is ideal if we are looking for a new indoor surveillance camera. In addition to this resolution, it is capable of reaching up to 18x digital zoom and has 360 degree panoramic viewso we will not have blind spots with it. Even at night and in very low light, since it has color night vision. It also has facial recognition and artificial intelligencetwo free functions that will allow the camera to automatically detect people, pets or even baby cries. It also has intelligent automatic tracking, ideal for the camera to follow the movements of our pet, for example. To all of the above, we must add that the camera also has flexible storage, since it supports microSD up to 512 GB or we can use the cloud to store your data. All without forgetting that it also uses two-way audioideal for real-time communication. As we said above, this Tapo C620 is designed for interiors. But, What if we look for an option for outdoors? So maybe it suits us more the Tapo C660 Kitan alternative that also has 4K resolution, 360-degree panoramic vision, smart functions, night vision and in this case has IP65 protection against dust and rain. Not only that, but it also has a solar panel and battery, so it has autonomous operation that does not require a plug. It is available for 159.99 euros. 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 | TP-Link In Xataka | Best surveillance cameras: which one to buy and 11 recommended models for indoors, outdoors, babies and pets In Xataka | Best tablets. Which one to buy and 8 recommended models for all pockets and needs

That the US authorizes Nvidia’s H200 to reach China is not a concession, but a plan. They prefer money to competition

The chip war between China and the US has mutated from a blockade to a commercial transaction. Donald Trump has announced that he will allow Nvidia export its high-performance H200 chips to China. The authorization carries an unprecedented condition: the US government will receive a 25% commission about these sales. This “reverse tariff” transforms China containment into a source of income, breaking with the strategy of total suffocation and offering a lifeline to Nvidia in its most critical market. End of free blocking. The decision is a direct result of a meeting last week between Trump and Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. The White House’s logic has changed: it argues that this measure is carried out under strict national security conditions, extending the model to competitors such as Intel and AMD. It is a movement that formalizes what was already intuited a few months ago, when Nvidia managed, after a first meeting with Trump, lift veto on bottom H20 chip. At that time, a precedent was already established of transferring 15% of income to the country, a figure that now scales to 25% for the most powerful hardware. Tap on the image to go to the original post A dose for China. That they chose this chip is no coincidence: the H200 is significantly more powerful than the H20—the trimmed model that China had started to boycott— but it is still behind the cutting-edge Blackwell architecturewhich is still banned. According to advisors such as David Sacks, the North American country seeks to keep China addicted to its technology: if they are denied all access, they are forced to look for alternatives of their own. In fact, Huawei has already admitted that it will take two years to match the performance of the H200, making this chip the perfect tool to slow down Chinese development while monetizing its need. Cracks and black market. The reality is that the total blockade was failing. Recent investigations showed how Chinese companies used shortcuts through Indonesia to access the power of banned chips. Furthermore, the second-hand market had become the main avenue for China get H100 and A100 GPUs off the radar. By allowing the sale of the H200, the US is trying to regain control over a flow that already existed, but in the shadows. At the same time, the Department of Justice announced “Operation Gatekeeper” to dismantle smuggling networks in countries like Hong Kong. China’s response. The great unknown is precisely this, the reception of the news in Beijing. Although Trump claims that Xi responded “positively,” the reality on the ground seems different. China has been for months banning your local businesses buy Nvidia chips to promote its domestic industry. The CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China) came to investigate the H20 looking for rear doorssomething that generated a climate of mistrust that not even the previous July agreement managed to completely dissipate. Jensen Huang, who warned about the danger of an “AI silk road” If the US continued to block sales, with this pact it gets a golden opportunity to not lose a market that represents 13% of its income, although its Chinese clients must now pay the price of American geopolitics. Cover image | Composition with images from Nvidia and RawPixel In Xataka | China has just redrawn the map of strategic minerals: its new rules on rare earths target the United States

We thought that Nike and Adidas were unbeatable. Asics is overtaking them on the right

Running is more than a fashionable sport, it is a way to achieve social statusa lifestyle that not everyone understands. As with anything that has a large fan base, there is an industry making a profit and in the case of running the number one object of desire is shoes. When we think about sports shoes, the brands that come to mind for almost everyone are Nike and Adidas. However, for a long time have been ceding the throne to new brands. Asics is one of those brands and has already managed to take advantage of them in a highly coveted segment: that of running shoes over $90. Asics is going like a shot. They tell it in Nikkei Asia. In the last investors dayAsics boasted of having been crowned the public’s favorite running shoe brand in the premium segment. In the first nine months of the year they achieved a 17.4% market share in Japan, the United States and Europe, which places it in first place in the ranking. Asics has been able to take advantage of the running boom that occurred in the pandemic and its share price has increased eight-fold in the last five years. In August, Asics reached a market capitalization of 3 trillion yen (about $19.4 billion). Forecasts are very optimistic and indicate that profits this year will grow by 17.9%, reaching 800 billion yen ($5.17 billion). Source: Google Finance Margins. Nike and Adidas remain much larger in terms of total revenue, at $46.3 billion and $27.3 billion respectively. What is truly striking is that Asics’ profit margin is much higher. This year’s forecasts put it at 17.5%, more than double that of Nike, which posted an 8% margin in 2024. Adidas is at 5.6%. Rudder turn. Things weren’t always so good for Asics. In 2012 there was criticism of the brand because its athletes did not achieve good results at the London Olympics, there was even talk that one of them He retired due to a shoe problem. They also did not do very well in Rio 2016 or Tokyo 2020, so they created a new development team taking into account the feedback from the athletes and They defined their strategy for the coming years. Variety. Asics has opted to diversify and offer a wide variety of models within the premium running segment. Where the competition offers a handful of models, Asics has five large categories, each focused on a specific characteristic (rebound, stability, speed…) and within each category it has at least three models, making its catalog one of the most extensive and covering everyone from casual runners to professional athletes. Cheap shoes don’t sell. A curious detail is that, at the same time that they have increased their offer of sneakers above $90, they have reduced their catalog of cheaper models because sales are going down. It so happens that, after the pandemic, the running shoes that sold the most were the cheapest, but now what sells best is high-performance footwear. It makes sense: those who started running in 2020 have greatly improved their level and cheap shoes are no longer worth it. High-end running. Asics’ most cutting-edge running model is the Metaspeed Ray. They cost 300 euros and their main attraction is that they weigh only 129 grams, but the most popular running shoes They are the Novablast, which cost half the price. Nike has always been the benchmark in sports footwear and competes with the Pegasus 41 and the Vaporfly 4, but in the running shoe showcase it is no longer the queen. In addition to Asics, there are other brands such as Brooks, Saucony or Hoka that have also made a name for themselves in recent years. Image | Dmitry on Pexels In Xataka | With the Vaporfly Nike already made us run “faster”: with Amplify it literally wants to give us a motor

Your race to modernize is breaking what has always worked

The promise of Windows 11 was to deliver a modern operating system, but four years later, that modernization feels like a permanent work in progress. While adoption of the system remains slow—although reached Windows 10— some users face an experience weighed down by patches that often turn into bugs. An invisible change that breaks things. From 2023Microsoft accelerated an under-the-hood migration: abandoning the classic and efficient technology that drew windows, to embrace WinUI and the XAML-based Windows App SDK. The goal is to unify the design, but the execution is taking its toll. WinUI introduces changes which, if not optimized perfectly, make the system suffer: it chokes waiting for data in the same thread that draws the interface. This explains why the browser feels heavy or why the start menu and taskbar they disappear after security updates. In fact, in a community meeting which you can see on YouTube, confirm their mission to migrate legacy surfaces to WinUI 3 to modernize the OS, admitting the difficulties that have arisen. It’s not just design. Beyond the UI layer, the latest version of the OS has been a minefield where Microsoft has had to constantly rectify. The result is components that have been failing, both due to WinUI and for reasons unrelated to it: The interface: contextual menus were born slow and cluttered, forcing Redmond’s redesign them now to fix the usability problem they created. Even their own managers have admitted publicly that the Start Menu “is very annoying” and needs corrections. Stability: we have suffered since updates that caused blue screens for processor incompatibilities to specific performance issues on AMD chipspassing through surreal glitches where the file explorer overlapped to other windows. Security: the renewal of the OS has reached disrupt vital functions such as “Local Authority Protection” (LSA), unintentionally disabling it with a patch. The community acts as a patch and resistance. Given the slowness to fix latest visual bugusers have taken control. The discovery is revealing: disabling the modern command bar (based on WinUI) using tools not only eliminates white flashes, but speeds up program loading and reduces RAM consumption. But this community has also been reluctant to Windows 11: they use tools like Rufus to bypass the TPM requirement (controversial at launch) or modified versions like Tiny11 to clean bloatware. It seems that the advanced and enthusiastic user prefers to modify the system rather than accept Redmond’s official vision. The nostalgia cycle. All this fuels the eternal debate about the “good” and “bad” versions of Windows. Today many idealize Windows 10 for its stability, forgetting that in its first years it suffered fierce criticism for forced updates and privacy. Windows 11 seems to be stuck in that difficult phase of the cycle, aggravated by requirements that left out many functional PCs. Open Source to the rescue? As Microsoft pours resources into the ARM revolution and Copilot+ PCsthe desktop does not finish fine-tuning. The company seems aware and recently announced plans to make WinUI open sourcein order to accelerate the improvement of the base technology that currently hinders the system. Perhaps involving more developers will help make this interface development framework cleaner and more stable, although it does not imply that the bugs in Windows 11 (proprietary code) will be fixed because of this. However, the developer community is skeptical, pointing in specialized forums that WinUI has performance issues. Until Microsoft manages to make this new element as solid as the classic, and satisfy the enormous hardware park that installs it, Windows 11 will continue to pay the toll of modernity with some occasional instability. Cover image | Composition with images by Pepu Ricca and Javier Penalva for Xataka In Xataka | The ghost of IBM: Satya Nadella’s great challenge is to prevent Microsoft from becoming a technological fossil

It’s not just “nerves”, it’s sabotage to the cells

Without a doubt, it is one of the phrases that we have heard ad nauseam: stress makes us hair falls out. And if this occurs in autumnthe increase is much greater. The problem is that science had not found a clear correlation to be able to say that this was 100% true. What we knew was that stress raised the cortisol and that this altered the growth cycles, but we lacked the ‘how’. Something that we have already managed to solve. A path for treatments. Without a doubt in the aesthetic world there is a great demand for treatments that solve baldness problems how are shampoos, vitamin supplements and without a doubt the option of hair follicle transplant They are on the order of the day. That is why understanding exactly why hair falls out in certain situations can end up helping to develop a greater number of medications. The study. The good news we have on the table comes from a study published in the magazine cell supported by previous research that has found the missing link regarding stress and hair loss. A priori it could be thought that cortisol, the so-called ‘stress hormone‘ could be responsible for this loss. But science has taken a turn of the helm by pointing to an electrical overload of the nervous system that would literally be frying the hair cells. The fighting system. Our nervous system has two very clear parts. One we call ‘parasympathetic‘which is the body’s brake and is active when we are most relaxed. But, on the other hand, we have the ‘sympathetic’ that is activated in times of stress, to increase heart rate or tension. It is precisely this system that causes this undesirable effect, especially because when activated it produces epinephrine or norepinephrinewhich is a powerful vasoconstrictor that causes the muscle to have more blood, tension to increase or the heart rate to skyrocket. And this is precisely the substance that travels to the hair follicles, being almost like a poison for the stem cells that are responsible for regenerating hair. As. All the cells in our body need energy to function, as if they were a small factory. Energy is ‘generated’ in what we call mitochondriawhich literally take oxygen from the blood to produce a reaction that releases the energy that the cell will use to do all its tasks such as synthesizing the necessary elements that our hair has. The problem is that with the arrival of norepinephrine to the cells, these mitochondria die, and a production system without energy is condemned to die. And this is precisely what happens to the cells of the hair follicle, causing the system to collapse and accompanied by hair loss. This is something that has been demonstrated in mice, where by blocking the entry gates of norepinephrine to the hair follicle cell, hair loss was blocked. The immune system. Beyond the effect of norepinephrine, we also find the effect of our own defenses. And there are many factors that can activate the immune system around the follicle, which explains why stress is such a common trigger of alopecia areatawhich is an autoimmune disease where the body itself attacks its own follicles as if they were something foreign when it is its own thing. The future of baldness. As we mentioned before with this door open, pharmacology can now do its job by looking for ways to block the effect of norepinephrine in these cells without affecting the rest of the body (where it is very necessary). Although not stressing and having a calm life, the truth is that it can be the best possible treatment for both baldness and other diseases, although in today’s society it is undoubtedly a great challenge. Images | Gustavo Sanchez In Xataka | Minoxidil seemed like the great miracle drug against baldness. A Google-funded pharmaceutical company has just surpassed it

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