Month: January 2026

After 20 years of works and 4,000 million euros, Asturians demand one last thing for the AVE: traveling with their dog

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“Our dogs are family. They are not an extra suitcase, they are an essential part of the trip. Europe is already ahead of us by allowing dogs of all sizes on trains. Why can’t Renfe be just as modern and empathetic?” With these words and the support of more than 5,000 signatories, Isa Díaz Yusta, who promotes a petition on Change.org, summarizes the feelings of Renfe travelers in the north of the country as stated The New Spain. And the train company does not allow the access of dogs weighing more than 10 kg on the routes that go to Galicia, Asturias or the Basque Country. That impossibility has open a wound in northern Spain. The aforementioned request is not the only one. With almost 5,000 supports, another user of the same platform also has a petition open for Renfe to allow dogs weighing more than 10 kg to travel on these routes. “We can’t always drive or leave them with someone. Many of us need the train to go see family or for work, and leaving our colleagues behind is not an option,” says the promoter on this occasion. Arancha Gómez, again another Change.org user, asks that the possibility of carrying accompanying dogs be expanded on all lines operated by Renfe. It is the same thing that Laura Serena asks for, whose request has already been collected more than 26,000 signatures. I don’t have a driving license, so I depend entirely on public transportation. And, although I have been waiting for a change for years, Renfe only allows traveling with dogs weighing more than 10 kg on four routes. FOUR!!. The rest of the country remains inaccessible for those of us who travel with large dogs. Not without my dog Indeed, as noted in the last petition, Renfe only allows traveling with dogs weighing more than 10 kg on limited routes. Since the petition was launched, Renfe has been expanding the destinations in which you can travel accompanied by large dogs but, for now, the only AVE available are still the following: Madrid-Barcelona Madrid-Zaragoza Madrid-Alicante Madrid-Valencia Madrid-Seville Madrid-Málaga Madrid-Granada However, the company The possibility of traveling with dogs is not enabled between 10 and 40 kg on all high-speed and long-distance lines. On the contrary, dogs of this size and any other can ride on Cercanías trains. If we want to travel with a dog weighing less than 10 kg, Renfe allows us to do so on all AVE, long-distance, AVLO, medium-distance and metric gauge trains. Except in the latter, the pet can travel in a carrier that does not exceed 60x35x35 cm for a surcharge. On those trains that have places specifically reserved for dogs to travel, you can pay 35 euros so that the pet does not travel in the carrier. However, as we say, only on selected routes you can travel with dogs weighing more than 10 kg. In this case, it is mandatory to fill out a document discharging the company’s responsibilities and another to confirm that we are aware of the regulations. The dog will travel in the adjacent seat and this cannot be chosen because there are pre-established places for this purpose. Furthermore, in these cases, the company provides a travel kit and has a series of standards and recommendations that are summarized in this document. In the delivered kit there is a seat cover and a mat to place on the window seat. The dog must be on a leash of a maximum of 1.5 meters and with a muzzle. In all cases, only one pet is allowed per traveler, but in the particular case of dogs weighing more than 10 kg, no more than two pets are allowed per car on the same train. Furthermore, on the Madrid-Málaga and Madrid-Granada corridors, only one pet of this size is allowed per train. Asturian users, as we have seen, complain about this type of restrictions for a line that It opened in 2023 after 20 years of work (13 years late) and a investment of 4,000 million euros. Even on lines that do allow it, some travelers also complain that the purchasing process can be too complicated. They explain in the blog Pipperontour that not all trains on the enabled lines allow traveling with dogs and, furthermore, this possibility only appears to be added in the last step of the purchase process, which makes it difficult to get a ticket. To try to make everything clearer, Renfe has a space where all frequencies can be consulted that allow large dogs but the aforementioned blog states that this list is not always updated. To all of the above we must add that it is no coincidence that some of the popular petitions requested through the Change.org platform come from northern Spain. In one of them it is remembered that Gijón is one of the cities in our country with the most registered dogs and Asturias is the Autonomous Community with the most dogs per inhabitant of our country. Photo | john crozier and Phil Richards In Xataka | “In 1961 it took Bilbao three hours and five minutes. Now it takes three and ten”: Cantabria and Spain’s drama with the train

a fishing rod and a car with missiles

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The drone war has become a volume war, and that forces Ukraine to find solutions that work not just once, but, if necessary, a hundred times a night: if Russia launches waves of Shaheds and decoy devices to saturate, the response cannot always depend on expensive missiles, heavy radars or scarce systems. The latest inventions are the best example. Creativity without luxury. What is emerging is a “field” air defense, mobile and pragmatic, where the decisive factor is not so much the perfect design but the capacity. to react quicklymove even faster and shoot down enough to keep the sky usable. In this framework, two apparently absurd ideas (a light car armed with missiles guided and an interceptor drone with what seems a fishing rod) are displaying an implacable logic: if the enemy turns the air into a highway of cheap threats, you turn the shootdown into a simple, repeatable and adaptable gesture. A buggy with missiles. The first surprise is a platform that seems more typical of an improvised patrol than an anti-aircraft battery: a light four-wheeled vehicle, an all-terrain buggy type, capable of moving through mud, open fields or roads and launch guided missiles from a rear-mounted dual launcher. Its value is not only in shooting, but in arriving on time: Shaheds fly above 160 km/h and the margin between detecting, positioning and shooting is minimal, so mobility becomes an operational survival condition. Instead of waiting for the drone, this air defense goes out to look for ithe places himself where he should, throws and moves again. That a single endowment has accumulated more than twenty demolitions suggests that, at least in certain sectors and windows, the system is functioning as a “rapid sky closure” tool, a type of anti-aircraft fighter that does not need large infrastructure to produce results. Hellfire on the ground. The most striking technical detail is the type of ammunition: due to its shape, the launcher is reminiscent of American Hellfiresmissiles originally designed for aerial platforms such as helicopters or armed drones, and which in advanced variants can act in “fire and forget” mode thanks to radar guidance. On paper, it is a huge leap compared to emergency solutions such as truck-mounted machine guns, which suffer when the enemy increases altitude, increases numbers and complicates engagement. But here it appears central tension of this war: shooting down a relatively cheap drone with a comparatively expensive missile is, in economic terms, an uncomfortable decision. Still, war is not decided by unit cost alone, but by the ability to prevent the enemy from hitting infrastructure, exhausting defenses, and normalizing damage. In some circumstances, pay more for each demolition may be rational if it avoids strategic impacts or preserves other critical munitions. The “fishing rod” The “fishing rod” in the sky. The second idea looks directly like a trench invention: an interceptor drone equipped with a protruding rod and a hanging thin rope, tensioned by a small weight, which is used to entangle the propellers of enemy quadcopter drones. In practice, the interceptor does not need to explode or land a perfect hit: he just needs to go over it, “comb” the target and let it the thread do the work dirty, turning physics into a weapon. If you like, it is an elegantly brutal response to a modern problem: when electronic warfare evolvesdrones become more resistant to the blockade and the jammingso the mechanics that cannot be “patched” with software gain value again. Tangle a propeller is the most direct way of telling a drone that it doesn’t matter how smart it is: without rotation, it will fall. Antijamming and the tangible. These tactics reflect a deeper adaptation: the battlefield is pushing both sides to combine electronic jamming with physical solutionsbecause the duel between countermeasures and counter-countermeasures no longer guarantees stable results. Nets, ropes, cheap interceptors, controlled crashes, “captures” in flight: everything points to a trend where the shooting down of drones small ones is less like classic air defense and more like a craft accelerated by urgency. Even outside Ukraine they are being tested net throwers integrated into drones or portable devices, but here innovation does not come from laboratories, but from units that need something to work as soon as possible. Two threats, two solutions. Furthermore, the interesting thing is that they do not compete with each other: each system seems optimized for a type of prey different. He missile vehicle points to the large and repetitive problem of fixed-wing Shahed/Geran style drones, fast, persistent, used in mass attacks and sometimes accompanied by decoys to saturate. The “fishing rod”, on the other hand, is a more surgical tool. against quadcopterswhich usually operate near the front, spy, correct fire or attack with light ammunition. One is road hunting against targets that they come from afarand the other is hand-to-hand fighting in the airalmost a contact combat. Together they draw a clear map: Ukraine is not looking for a single miracle solution, but rather a toolbox where each trick covers a part of the enemy’s arsenal. The cost war. It we have counted before. Ultimately, it all comes back to the same dilemma: how to tear down a lot without going bankrupt. Ukraine is already using FPV interceptors fast that can cost very little compared to traditional systems, but require an operator, expertise and pursuit time, which limits their scalability. That missile buggy It offers “cleaner” takedowns and with less human burden in the final guidance, but it forces you to select carefully when it is worth spending that shot. The “cane” it’s the opposite: an attempt to make the demolition as cheap as a simple gesture, extreme economy. In other words: air defense is no longer just advanced technology: it is tactical accounting applied to the minute. Image | Ukraine Air Command Central In Xataka | Bombing your own trench is a kamikaze tactic. Until Ukraine has turned it into a Russian butcher shop: the “second course” In Xataka | The “zombies” of the … Read more

We will increasingly see more “verified” SMS against fraud. The important thing is to understand how they really work

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We live watching our cell phones and what appears on their screen, from a notice from the bank to a code to authorize a payment. This dependency has turned the text message into fertile ground for deception, with campaigns of smishing that imitate well-known companies and sneak into conversations that seem legitimate. The problem is not only technical, it is trust: distinguishing at a glance who is really on the other side. For years, SMS has treated legitimate and fraudulent messages equally, and that neutrality is exactly what attackers exploit. Malicious campaigns detected in Spain show how names and formats of known entities are copied to gain the trust of the recipient. These messages are designed not to raise suspicion. And often, when doubt arises, it is too late to react. Say ‘hello’ to verified messages. Faced with the erosion of trust in traditional SMS, the industry has chosen to reinforce the identity of the sender instead of placing all responsibility on the user. Verified messages introduce a relevant change: they make visible whether a company has been recognized as legitimate before the message reaches the mobile. Supported by the RCS protocolthese messages add a name, logo and verification indicators with the intention of reducing one of the main weapons of fraud, confusion about the real origin of the message. BBVA. This is how it looks on mobile. In Spain, BBVA has been one of the first large banks to show this change visibly for the user. On Android, the bank’s official messages are identified with its name and logo, accompanied by an indicator that indicates them as an official channel. By clicking on that logo, the user can verify that the associated data, such as the telephone number or website, match those of the bank. Furthermore, these communications arrive in a different thread than traditional SMS, precisely to prevent them from being mixed with fraudulent messages. Bankinter has also taken the leap. Bankinter has partnered with Telefónica to distribute verified messages. The entity explains This will improve the security of “critical communications”, such as single-use codes for transfers or online payments. Here we will also find the sender verification confirmation, the official logo and additional information such as the website and a telephone number. How verification works. Behind that visible badge there is a process much less obvious to the user. The standard defined by the GSMA establishes several preliminary stages before a company can send a single verified message. First, the entity must register its identity, with a specific name and logo, and submit it to external certification by a third party that validates that the entity can use that name and logo. This validation is not enough on its own: the authority that issues it must be included in the trusted list of the recipient’s operator. Without that complete string, the check simply doesn’t show. Who verifies who. Here the so-called Verification Authorities come into play as third parties in charge of validating that a company is who it says it is before it can send verified messages. That role may fall to private companies specialized in digital verification, mobile operators or even government entities, depending on the deployment and the country. Afterwards, it is the user’s operator who decides whether they trust that authority, something that is sometimes reflected visibly in the message itself, as occurs in an official Bankinter example, where the system indicates that the verification has been carried out by Movistar. The final verification occurs when the message reaches the phone. According to the GSMA standard, the messaging app automatically downloads the sender’s profile and runs a series of technical checks before displaying any badge. It is checked that the signature is still valid, that the authority that issued it is accepted by the user’s operator and that the data has not been altered. Only if everything fits does the verification indicator appear; If something fails, the message loses that appearance of legitimacy. Does it work on iOS and Android? This scheme is not exclusive to Android. Apple added support for RCS as a carrier service starting with iOS 18, allowing you to send and receive messages with advanced features when not using iMessage. In practice, the behavior is the same: if the operator supports RCS and the standard is implemented, the system can display the name, logo and indicators associated with the sender. Without this support from the operator, the message returns to the familiar terrain of SMS or MMS, without additional verification signals. For the user, the practical learning is simple: a verified message offers more context and more clues than a conventional SMS, but it does not eliminate the need to remain cautious. Knowing that there is a technical process behind that distinction helps us better interpret what reaches our mobile phones and be wary when something does not match. However, in an environment where malicious actors never sleep, caution remains essential. Images | Vitaly Gariev | BBVA | Bankinter | Gemini 3 Pro In Xataka | Cybersecurity experts by day, cybercriminals by night: how two professionals fell after using ransomware

Tokyo was one of the few megalopolises that had kept housing prices in check. That’s over

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For years half the planet (and another half as well) viewed Tokyo with a mixture of admiration, curiosity and envy. While other metropolises were dealing with increasingly expensive housing, which was expelling the most humble families, the Japanese capital made headlines On the contrary: in 2023 there were who presented it in fact as “the last big city with affordable housing.” At least if we were talking about rents. And that was the most populated city of the planet. There is signs that that is changing. Tokyo’ the affordable‘. Binyamin Appelbaum, columnist for The New York Times, I told it very well in 2023: while a couple on the minimum wage was unable to pay the rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the New York area, another Japanese couple with the same conditions (full-time work and the legal minimum wage) could afford equivalent housing in at least half a dozen districts of Tokyo. The Japanese capital was a benchmark, the example of rentals within reach of any pocket. “The last big city with affordable housing”, titled at full blast around those same dates the Australian newspaper Financial Review. Tokyo vs Manhattan. The data confirms that Appelbaum was not wrong. Although living in Tokyo is far from cheap, in 2023 the city had a residential offer large and diverse enough to not suffocate its residents. Even the most humble. In 2024 Michael Amerson, analyst at the US Department of Housing, explained that renting a one-bedroom apartment in central Tokyo cost around 80,000 yen, about $500. Other sources speak of between 630 and 1,580 dollars per month, but even those figures are far from the 4,000 that is asked for a home of the same type in Manhattan. “Unlike other metropolitan areas around the world, Tokyo has avoided a housing crisis. Residents can enjoy a vibrant urban lifestyle without having to shoulder the financial burden that residents of many other large cities bear,” pointed out Amerson. The reason? To a large extent Tokyo real estate culture. Unlike what happens in other metropolises, the Japanese capital has “an accelerated cycle of housing demolition and reconstruction,” which makes it easier to adapt to the needs of the market. But… And why is that? “People treat houses like cars,” Appelbaum joked in 2023. New construction is prioritized to such an extent that its weight in the market far exceeds that of other cities. Between 2013 and 2018, new housing represented 86% of sales in Japan, while in the US that percentage is usually around 15%. Unlike what happens in other cities that prioritize the conservation of their old buildings or pamper their historic districts, something different takes precedence in Tokyo: urban renewal. It is not just a question of the market or urban regulation. That way of thinking connects with his planning style and the history of a region forced to deal with natural disasters who has also seen how fire and the bombs They affected part of his assets. Added to this are regulatory issues that facilitate the progress of the works and their commitment to tall buildings, homes that are often small by European standards and with few green areas. Signs of change. In recent months, however, some media outlets have stopped talking about the virtues of the Tokyo model to become a question: “Is it still affordable to live there?” That is the doubt that I left bouncing in September The Japan Times in a article in which he confirms that (at least if we talk about the buying and selling market) the city is no longer within reach of any pocket. Tokyoites have encountered a price increase that affects both new housing and second-hand properties. And the latter usually wake up little interest among buyers. a study from the Tokyo Kantei company shows that it is no longer strange that the average price of a used apartment of 80 square meters exceeds 100 million yen, around 540,000 euros, with year-on-year increases that are even above 30%. Are there more indicators? Yes. They are just that, indicators, but at a minimum break the rhetoric that has surrounded the Tokyo real estate market until now. There are studies that speak of year-on-year price increases of 9% or even more than 60% if the focus is expanded and the data from 2021 and 2025 are compared. Prices are also growing in the metropolitan area (although to a lesser extent) and seem to be also affecting the rental market residential. In practice, this means that a family that a few years ago could acquire Quietly, a modern three-bedroom, 70 m2 apartment near the center of Tokyo for just over $400,000 is now forced to look at real estate agencies in other areas. And it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change. The latest data from Tokyo Kantei show that the price of a 70 m2 second-hand apartment is around 114 million yen, 34% more than in 2025. And what is the reason? Better to talk about “reasons”, in the plural. The analysts who have been launched To speculate on the reasons for the price increase, they point to the increase in material and labor costs, the influence of the pandemic on buyers’ tastes (they are now looking for houses with more rooms), the effect of historically low interest rates or simply the increase in demand for housing in Tokyo. While the rest of the country loses population, the capital remains more or less stable either even win residents. Exploring the market. There is another factor that helps understand Tokyo’s price rise, one that also has slipped in in it political debate: home purchases by foreigners, including those for speculative purposes. The weakness of the yen, the fact that Japanese real estate was more affordable than that of other countries and the lack of restrictions on foreign purchases has attracted the interest of investors of other nationalities, which has in turn been felt in the price per m2. The data are certainly eloquent. In … Read more

Mexico has decided to register all telephone lines in the country. The teleoperators have decided to challenge him

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The national mobile telephone registry has just started in Mexico and is already facing its first big test. And just a few days after it came into force mandatory registration of linesthe country’s main operators have met with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT) to request a postponement. For operators, deadlines are practically impossible to meet and to this we must add the fact that the technical systems have shown failures from day one. The challenge in figures. Mexico has more than 158 million active telephone lines that must be registered before June 30, 2026. This means that operators such as Telcel, AT&T, Telefónica and Virtual Mobile Operators (OMV) would have to jointly register 923,977 lines each day for 172 days to meet the established deadline. A complicated goal to achieve. Meeting. According to inform the media Expansión, representatives of Telefónica, the OMVs, Televisa and Canieti, which groups companies such as AT&T, attended a meeting with the CRT last Friday to insist on the extension. The main argument was that the industry only had 30 calendar days to develop, test and implement platforms capable of developing a process of such magnitude. According to account According to the media, Canieti had formally requested a postponement since December 30, but did not receive a response from the regulator. The technical problems are already visible. Telcel reported intermittencies on its platforms derived from the high demand of users trying to complete the procedure simultaneously. In addition, complaints arose about a possible security vulnerability on its portal that would have exposed personal data of clients, although the company claimed to have corrected the failure immediately. The CRT limited itself to acknowledging that there were “intermittencies on various platforms” without going into details. The economic cost. Beyond the technical challenges, the registry represents a considerable financial burden. An entrepreneur of an MVNO explained to the Expansión medium that each link has a cost of 3.45 pesos (about 17 euro cents), an amount that only includes the verification of the user with their data, without including taxes. The problem is aggravated because, according to accounts, registration is not always completed on the first attempt and can require up to three or five attempts per line. The CRT estimates point to a total investment of more than 4,053 million pesos (about 194.5 million euros), of which only 22 million pesos would be allocated to the development of the platform and identity verification would correspond to the largest weight of the amount with 4,031 million. Worry. The Mexican Association of Virtual Mobile Operators (AMOMVAC) has also joined the request for a postponement, according to they count from Mobile Time. Although they recognize the security objective of the registry, which is to combat telephone extortion, which according to the Executive Secretariat left 6,880 victims between January and July, they warn about operational, economic and social risks. The association’s main concern is associated with rural communities and populations with low digital literacy, where mobile telephony is an essential service and there is a risk that thousands of lines will be suspended if their owners fail to complete the procedure. And now what. For the moment, the CRT has not officially responded to the extension requests and the calendar remains unchanged: the deadline expires on June 30, 2026. As of July 1, unregistered lines will be suspended, both prepaid and postpaid. Cover image | Chantel and Pepu Rica In Xataka | The “B side” of the United States landing in Venezuela: a subsoil full of hypothetical rare earths

The Inditex rally has been its best fuel

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Amancio Ortega is once again among the ten greatest fortunes on the planet according to Forbes monitor in real time thanks to the rise in the stock market of Inditex and the solidity of its real estate holding Pontegadea, which have catapulted the fortune of the Spanish millionaire up to 143.5 billion dollars. This renewed stock market push has allowed him to re-enter the ‘Top 10’ of greatest fortunes on the planet, and even compete for ninth position with veteran investor Warren Buffett although, as how I collected Digital Economyonly occasionally. From the 2025 bump to the return to the ‘top 10’. In June 2025, the combination of Inditex’s weaker stock market performance and global market volatility ended removing Amancio Ortega from the exclusive group of the ten largest fortunes in the world by Forbes, falling below fourteenth place. The textile giant’s stock went on to chain several months of declines after quarterly results that grew, but not at the pace that the market expected, and that sharply cut the valuation of its assets, closely linked to the evolution of the company that it founded and of which it still retains 59.294%. The Inditex rally. However, as of December the situation took a 180 degree turn after the presentation of Inditex’s third quarter results and investors once again showed their confidence in the textile multinational. To put this boom in context, at the beginning of December, each share of Zara’s parent company was trading at just over 49 euros, and its capitalization was around 152,934 million euros. However, weeks later, the title is already trading at just over 56 euros and Inditex’s stock market value exceeded 172.2 billion euros. ​…And the solidity of Pontegadea. In parallel, Pontegadea, which channel and invest most of his participation in Inditex and the dividends generated by the textile empire he founded, acted as an amplifier of his wealth by closing some of the largest real estate transactions in its history. Pontegadea closed the year with a portfolio that has not stopped adding assets in offices, logistics and luxury residential in large international capitals, which has only increased the strength of your assets. ​The temporary “surprise” of Warren Buffett. The meteoric rise of Ortega, who has risen several positions at once, has reached its peak when the Forbes real-time index placed him in ninth position on the global list of fortunes, just ahead of the investor Warren Buffett retired. That day, the founder of Inditex closed the session with a fortune valued at 146.9 billion dollars, slightly above that of the Omaha investor, whose fortune was weighed down by a fall in the stock market, resulting in a cut of about 654 million euros. However, the stock market is what everyone else plays. While Buffett wins, so the veteran investor recovered his position the next day. Ortega, Ballmer and the new order among the ultra-rich. Ortega remains in tenth place, with a fortune estimated at 143.5 billion dollars. That level places him just ahead of Steve Ballmer, whose wealth linked to Microsoft The Los Angeles Clippers are now worth over $140 billion. The geographical distribution of the ‘top 10’ leave a photograph in which Ortega is once again the only great Spanish fortune in a select club dominated by American technology giants and the European figure of Bernard Arnaultat the head of the luxury conglomerate LVMH. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega: the billionaire who lives like another neighbor. Except for private jets and superyachts Image | GTRES, Flickr (Fortune Live Media)

The minimum wage in Mexico has risen in January. This increase is not reaching everyone and is creating confusion

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Spain is not the only one considering annual increases in your minimum wage. Starting January 1, the Mexican workers who earn the least will see their salaries increased with a new increase in minimum wage. However, some are beginning to notice that that increase is not reflected on your payroll and is generating some confusion. The trick is that the increase in the minimum wage which has been applied in Januarydoes not imply a general salary increase for all workers, but rather a minimum legal ceiling for salaries. What is the minimum wage and what is it for? As its name indicates, the minimum wage is the legal minimum amount that any company must pay its workers. In the case of Mexico, this minimum wage is established by Conasami (National Minimum Wage Commission) a decentralized body of the Mexican government that is responsible for updating it every year with the intention of protecting those who earn the least. However, the salary increase imposed by this body does not represent a percentage that must be applied to all salaries, but rather the minimum daily amount that employees must receive per day. According to the salary table prepared by Conasami, by 2026 the minimum wage will rise to 315.04 pesos per day in most of the country and 440.87 pesos per day in the Northern Border Free Zone. That implies an increase of 13% for the majority of the country, and 5% in the border area with the United States. Why doesn’t the increase reach everyone? The point of confusion among Mexican workers centers on the erroneous interpretation that this 13% and 5% increase is for salaries, when in reality it would only affect the lowest salaries that are within the legal minimums established in the Federal Labor Law. That is, if in January 2026, a worker continues to receive a salary of 278.80 pesos (419.88 pesos for the ZLFN), which was the minimum wage in 2025, his employer would be violating labor legislation. However, if an employee already earned more than 316 pesos, his or her salary does not have to have increased, since it exceeds (even if only slightly) the minimum limit established by the Federal Labor Law for 2026. Who should see their salary increased. There are three clear groups in which there is a legal obligation to increase the salary when the minimum increases. The first and most obvious, those employees who earn less than what is established by the new minimum wage. The second assumption is for those who were already earning exactly the minimum wage in 2025, since with the update they would be out of legality in 2026. Finally, there is a third group of employees to whom, due to the type of profession they practice, a different scale is applied and, therefore, their salaries must increase even when they already exceed the minimum wage. Specifically they are 60 professional categories that Conasami estimates that, due to their characteristics, they must have a minimum wage higher than that generally applied to other workers. When the salary is “higher” but does depend on the minimum. In Mexico, the minimum wage can also be applied as a reference indicator in contracts. That is, instead of indicating a specific salary, the employment contract indicates that the salary will be, for example, three times the current minimum wage or 350% of that minimum limit. In that case, since it is a reference variable, when the minimum wage rises, those wages will also rise in the same proportion according to what is stated in those contracts. Minimum wage vs. contractual salary. An important factor is to differentiate the minimum wage from the contractual wage. That is, the one that employees agree with the companies at the time of hiring. The first guarantees that no one will be able to charge less than the official figure established each year by the Commission. If an employment contract concluded a few years ago recognizes a salary that is currently below the minimum wage imposed in 2026, the minimum wage will prevail, since its objective is for employees to update their purchasing power. The salary that appears in the employment contract loses its validity. In that case, the salary increase is not a benefit that the company grants to the employee, but rather a legal obligation. On the other hand, if the salary indicated in the employment contract still remains above the minimum wage, the employer does not have to increase it, unless individual or collective increases are agreed upon with the workers. In that case, the increases are the result of voluntary negotiation by the company to improve the working conditions of its staff. In Xataka | Airbnb and digital nomads brought dollars to Mexico City: they have also brought the biggest housing crisis in years Image | Unsplash (Jesus Herrera, Arron Choi)

Deepfakes are much more than a bad joke. Now the Government wants them to be a violation of the right to honor

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The year started with X filling up with photos of women in bikinis. Everything was normal, except that it was other users who “undressed” them using Grok, Elon Musk’s AI. In the midst of the revived debate about deepfakes, the Government has announced a new draft law with which they seek to combat them. Against deepfakes. The text It is a modification of the organic law of civil protection of the right to honor, personal and family privacy and one’s own image. According to the Minister of Inclusion, Elma Saiz, “it is a more protectionist text, adapted to new technologies.” The “ultra-impersonations carried out with artificial intelligence” or deepfakes They will be a crime when the affected person does not give their consent and the objective is to undermine their moral integrity, generating sexual or humiliating content. In these cases there may be a prison sentence of up to 2 years. The draft also raises the age of consent for image transfer to 16 years (currently it is 14 years). However, the text continues to consider use to damage the reputation of the affected person to be illegitimate, even if they have given their consent. After death. The main novelty of this reform is that it contemplates the protection of the image or voice even after the death of the person, as long as it has been specified in the will. As they point out in The Countrythis could directly affect some true-crime content in which it is used AI to recreate the image or voice of murder victims. Another case that is considered is when the perpetrator of a crime tells details of the crime in podcasts, interviews or other media. If your story reopens the victim’s wound, it will be considered an unlawful interference with their rights. Let us remember the case of book by José Bretón. The exceptions. Those that already existed in the old law are maintained, such as recordings authorized by a judge or the publication of private conversations, as long as their content is news of general interest. The novelty is that specific AI exceptions are included. The image or voice of a public figure may be used if it is in a creative or humorous context. Of course, they must clearly specify that AI has been used in its creation. Was it necessary? This is the question that some lawyers like Borja Adsuara in his X profile. His argument is that the current law already protects the right to honor in all areas, so it was not necessary to mention new technologies such as social networks, AI or deepfakes. However, it must be taken into account, as they point out in Reutersthat the European Union is requiring member countries to regulate deepfakes, especially those with non-consensual sexual content, by 2027. Previous cases. The Grok case has reignited the debate about deepfakes by the volume of images generatedbut it is not the first time that this type of practice occurs. In 2023 there was the first massive case in Spain when some teenagers generated fake nude images of several minors. Recently we also learned about the first fine from the Spanish Data Protection Agency for a minor who used an app to “undress” a classmate. Image | Unsplash (edited) In Xataka | The United Kingdom is tired of people bypassing porn blocking: their new idea is to block it on iOS and Android

four years later it is experiencing the biggest audience crisis in its history

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Telecinco has lost its way. Since the disappearance of Sálvame from his grill and the definitive closure of the Vasile era, the chain seems to have been left in no man’s land. The initial idea in summer 2023 was clear: Ana Rosa would take over the afternoons of that audience that was orphaned without Jorge Javier’s farmhouse. On the other hand, that was the first setback and what led to the fact that, faced with more than discreet audiencesthe presenter returned to her comfort zone, recovering the morning space. From then on, the situation did not rather than getting worse. With Joaquín Prat becoming the currency of the chain, the commitment to new contests and a weekend that, despite a rebranding constant (‘Viva la Vida’, ‘Ya es Verano’, ‘Fiesta’…) belongs for life to Emma García, the data remains unrecorded; In fact, the new stage of its news programs led by someone very established in that space within TVE has not even worked, as is Carlos Franganillo. The numbers show how little benefit the change of direction and this replacement of the Mediaset leadership is. And it is not only the new CEOs who have been unable to turn it around to the situation, but, paradoxically, the only thing that holds the chain is the Vasile inheritance. The audiences are clear: Telecinco finds it difficult to exceed 10% of the daily share and has been in decline for four years, with a historical monthly low 8% in August 2025. What is happening? Vasile continues to keep Mediaset afloat If we review what Mediaset has defined through its flagships, we can get an idea of ​​the type of programming that the audience wants and expects from the network, in addition to its editorial approach. During Valerio Lazarov’s era the ‘Mama Chicho’ led; Maurizio Carlotti will be remembered for promoting series such as ‘Family Doctor’ or iconic formats such as ‘Martian Chronicles’; and in the Vasile stage we remember that essence ‘Save me’. However, what stood out in its content management was the firm commitment to reality television and circular content, a move that was undoubtedly key to the chain’s success. The contestants of the latest edition of GH. ‘Big Brother’, ‘Hotel Glam’, ‘The Farm’, ‘Survivors’… The choice of this type of format may have seemed at the time a risky maneuver to boost the audience, but the truth is that the active participation of the public, its involvement in the personal plots of the contestants and the enormous amount of associated content that did nothing more than regurgitate the realities (debates, gatherings, 24-hour connections…) managed to keep an audience tremendously dedicated to reality television hooked and in suspense. Maybe the concept reality It was moving away from the classic contest format, but its essence remained intact and it was consolidated for years as the driving force of the network. ‘Women and Men and Vice Versa’ or ‘Sálvame’ were still, deep down, a 2.0 version of reality television. To understand and stay up to date with the cameos, the cross accusations and the melodramatic plots, it was essential to follow the different spaces spread throughout the grid, where the contestants, journalists and collaborators were part of the same network, which ended up building an extraordinarily loyal audience. Now we are in the middle of 2025 and after the debacle in hearings and the futile attempts to overcome the sharewhile the new management intends to more than shelve the Vasile stage, the only thing that it seems to still work as a claim to the public it is ‘Temptation Island’. A format that is still the natural evolution of Telecinco’s original reality television, more current and oriented towards young audiences, although keeping intact the philosophy of entertainment and controversy that defined the Vasile era. And this is not an isolated case: the other space that maintains acceptable figures in the chain is ‘Friday’a show that wants to appear whiter and more moderate in tone but is still another variant of the heartfelt programs that historically always triumphed on Telecinco during the reign of Paolo Vasile, such as Salsa Rosa or Sálvame Deluxe. Was this the revolution? Therefore, everything seems to indicate that the more they want to clean the slate, the more they need to resort to the ghosts of the past. As a way forward they wanted to rely on a format like ‘Big Brother‘ but this only highlighted the key deficiency: we have a Mediaset without a soul. There is no longer a synergy of programs with the same zeitgeist which in its day provided, for example, ‘Sálvame’. Without that transversal ecosystem that was nourished by that reality television, it is very difficult for a format like Big Brother to once again have the success of yesteryear. The contents appear too dispersed, without a clear common thread and, thus, the grid lacks cohesion. It seems that the solution and innovation proposed by the new management is based on decisions that go from bad to worse. When the debate on ‘Temptation Island’ (remember: its star program with three (!) weekly broadcasts), is relegated to the ‘Mediaset Infinity’ platform and on the contrary, they insist on broadcasting the debate of a program that gave his last blows like ‘Big Brother’ mean that the viewer was not surprised by that “sudden” cancellation of the format with an express final. The combination of a worn-out program, increasingly stronger competition, changes in consumer habits, the questionable selection of anonymous contestants and a fragmented programming has sentenced an edition of Big Brother with data that do not reach 10% of shareand confirming that the reality emblematic no longer connects with the audience like before; also entering into direct contrast with the wonderful data of ‘Temptation Island’; a fresher, viral and intense format that challenges the viewer. Only ‘Temptation Island’ saves the furniture. Mediaset only has to analyze how it is possible that a format like ‘The House of Twins’ has eaten the toast of his GH edition; … Read more

Spotify has had to remove 75 million songs made with AI. Bandcamp has decided not to have that problem

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The Bandcamp music streaming and sales platform has announced that will completely ban music generated “in whole or in substantial part” by artificial intelligence, becoming the first major music distribution service to establish such a restrictive barrier against synthetic content. Bandcamp thus draws a very clear red line in the debate about where the use of creative tools ends and where total automation that dispenses with human authorship begins. What does the statement say? Bandcamp’s statement presents two fundamental prohibitions. On the one hand, any musical content generated entirely or substantially through artificial intelligence, a formulation that avoids defining exact percentages but establishes that there is a threshold regarding the weight of AI in the creative process. On the other hand, it extends the prohibition to the use of algorithmic tools to replicate styles or voices of real artists, connecting this restriction with the platform’s pre-existing policies against identity theft and intellectual property infringement. Citizen collaboration. The advertisement includes a complaint mechanism For users: users can report suspicious material using the platform’s reporting tools, which will be reviewed by a moderation team. The company explicitly reserves the right to remove music suspected of having synthetic origin, without the need for conclusive evidence, a clause that gives wide freedom to moderators but could also generate false positives. The company acknowledged that the policy may require updates as the generative AI landscape evolves, referring to how quickly these technologies are being developed. The conceptual debate. This decision is part of the debate about AI and creativity that is going through the world of culture: using algorithms as instruments as opposed to delegating the creative act to them. The United States Copyright Office established in January 2025 that work generated by AI can be registered when it “incorporates significant human authorship,” but that content produced solely through promptswithout additional creative intervention, falls into the public domain for lack of a recognizable author. Nuances and tools. And it is difficult to determine the limits. The spectrum ranges from musicians who use AI to clean up audio or get inspired by melodies to those who simply write text instructions and let the model generate entire tracks. There are conceptual artists who go to the opposite extreme of artificial intervention: composer Holly Herndon turned her voice into the project Holly+ into a “digital instrument” that is publicly accessible and that other musicians can play. The debate is endless: MIT Technology Review raised in April that tools like Suno and Udio produce “creators” who are not conventional musicians but “prompters“. The result is works that cannot be attributed to a composer or singer, dissolving the usual definitions of authorship. The flood. The figures reveal an exponential escalation in the appearance of music created with AI on platforms. Deezer spoke in November 2025 of more than 50,000 tracks completely generated by AI each day, 34% of its daily volume, and an increase of 400% compared to January, when the figure was 10,000 songs per day. A study by Deezer itself said that 97% of listeners do not know how to distinguish between human and synthetic music after a blind test for the participants in the study in which they were shown two tracks, one with AI and one real. The Spotify drama. While, Spotify revealed in September 2025 which had removed 75 million “spam tracks” in the previous twelve months, an amount that rivals the platform’s entire catalog of 100 million songs. The emblematic case of the fictional indie band The Velvet Sundown illustrates the dimension of the phenomenon: this group completely generated by AI It reached 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify during the summer of 2025 before its creators admitted its synthetic nature, under pressure from listeners. Follow the money. The case of Xania Monet is another side of the problem. This fully synthetic R&B artist generated over $42,800 in less than two months with over 17 million streams totals, which led to the signing of a multimillion-dollar record contract after a bidding war where a record company allegedly offered $3 million. At the same time, country was the first genre to be marked as a big loser in this war between real and synthetic artists: in December 2025, the number of country songs generated by AI outsold completely human jobs. There is a clear motive for these maneuvers: money. Tools like Suno and Udio produce for free and a user can generate hundreds of short tracks that can generate profits. Let’s multiply it exponentially: massive uploads to platforms, bot farms that generate songs and upload songs without rest, automation of payments… We are not looking for isolated successes, but to add millions of reproductions, against which a real artist cannot compete. Percentages. And that’s why Bandcamp and Spotify are so different. Bandcamp is a marketplace straight where artists charge an average of 82% of each sale, with the platform keeping 15% on digital items and 10% on physical items, with additional payment processing commissions of 4-7%. bandcamp has paid more than 1,640,000 million dollars directly to artists and labels since its founding in 2008, with 19 million transferred in 2025 alone thanks to “Bandcamp Fridays”, days in which the company completely waives its commission. This structure makes AI-generated music counterproductive for the platform: no one buys synthetic albums produced by AI. prompts. Spotify, meanwhile, operates on a subscription basis, distributing roughly two-thirds of its total revenue in royalties. The platform paid 10 billion dollars to the music industry in 2024but the average payment for stream ranges between 0.003 and 0.005 dollars. Besides,Spotify implemented a threshold of 1,000 annual streams in 2024 for a track to generate royalties. This structure creates perverse incentives to “cheat”: virtually free AI production, mass uploading of tracks, use of bot farms to inflate the number of views… The pay-per-play system stream It allows tiny fractions of a cent to turn into million-dollar amounts if there is enough volume. The reaction. The Bandcamp movement has some protection of its image, … Read more

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