Month: February 2026

Science suggests that it is a great shield against cognitive deterioration

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In our society, the fact that grandparents end up taking care of their grandchildren throughout the day or having to pick them up from school It is something quite normalboosted mainly by the problems of conciliation familiar. This is something that has been the subject of much controversy because, when you reach a certain age, carrying the burden of having a child under your responsibility can take its toll. But now science indicates that it has important benefits. New tests. A study published this year in the magazine Psychology and Aging points out that being involved in caring for grandchildren provides a benefit to cognitive health, although it has different important nuances related to sex and time dedicated. The science behind. This study focused on data from English Longitudinal Study of Aging where More than 1,700 grandparents over 50 years of age have been analyzed. In this case, to ensure maximum precision in the results, the researchers used a matching method, comparing grandparent caregivers with those who did not care for their grandchildren, but who did share demographic and health characteristics. What did they see? With this sample on the table, what was seen is that both grandmothers and grandfathers who are caregivers showed higher levels of verbal fluency compared to the control group. Furthermore, both genders had better episodic memory compared to matched controls. In this way, it can be concluded that grandparents who take care of their grandchildren tend to show better cognitive functioning than those who do not. Quality versus quantity. One of the most revealing conclusions of the study debunks a common myth: the amount of time spent is not the determining factor. In this way, spending more or fewer hours caring for one’s grandson or granddaughter does not predict the effect it may have on brain cognition. But what really affects brain health in this case is the diversity of tasks. What was seen is that grandparents who participated in a greater variety of activities experienced better cognitive outcomes. These activities include, for example, preparing food for your grandchildren, spending time playing with them, helping them with their homework, or picking them up from daycare or school. Gender difference. Although both grandfather and grandmother showed higher initial cognitive levels when caring for their grandchildren, with the passage of time it changed. In the case of both sexes, it was observed that both verbal fluency and episodic memory improved substantially over time. But the difference is precisely in the temporal decline, causing grandmothers who have cared for their grandchildren to have a slower cognitive loss over time than caring grandparents, who maintain the same speed of loss. Because? The researchers here suggest that these differences may be due to how they relate to different genders and how they collaborate on care tasks. In this case, grandmothers tend to become much more deeply involved in the physical and emotional care of children. If we turn to the grandparents, we find that they are involved in leisure activities and often carry out care tasks in the company of the grandmothers. This way, you are not as focused on care. The limit. Logically, Maintaining multiple productive roles, such as family caregiving, can promote a more active lifestyle that positively impacts people’s cognitive functions. However, research warns that adding care responsibilities to the usual activities of these grandparents can be stressful and leave our grandparents feeling overwhelmed and with little autonomy. Images | Vitaly Gariev In Xataka | Your grandmother is an evolutionary advantage: science already knows why they generate an indestructible bond with their grandchildren

How to receive a daily email with the summary of your favorite podcast made by artificial intelligence

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Let’s explain to you how to receive summaries of your favorite podcasts by email. These summaries will be made by artificial intelligenceafter you have received the audio file and processed it. This is not something you can do in a specific application, so we will have to configure a workflow of several steps. Specifically, we are going to use the service Makebecause its free version is enough to do it. In addition, we are going to use artificial intelligence Geminisince it is very easy to obtain a free API with which to use AI on this website. At Make.com we will have to log in with the Gemini modules and especially Gmail. It is important to highlight this because in the end you will be giving a third party access to your email, which could compromise your privacy, although this tool is reputable enough to think that it complies and that you should be safe. First you need the RSS of the podcast In order to carry out this automation, the first thing is get the RSS address of the podcast that you want to analyze. It is the page with the code where the title, description and the address of the mp3 file of each chapter appear, which in the end is the most important thing. If you don’t know where to get this address, you can use the Get RSS Feed websitewhich you can get at getrssfeed.com. On this website, you just have to enter the URL to Apple Podcast, iVoox, Spotify or the podcast website, and then it will search there for the RSS address. When it does, click on the button RSS Copy and that’s it, you will have the address copied. It will also be important that Find out what time each chapter is published. At the end of this project, the workflow will have to be scheduled to activate at a certain time each day, and it should be at a time when the chapter has already been published. Configure the Gemini API Key The AI ​​we are going to use for this project is Gemini. And to link and use this AI, you need get a google api. For that, go to the website aistudio.google.com and sign in with your Google account. When you do, in the bar on the left at the bottom click on Get API Key. Now you have to click on the option Create API key that appears at the top of the screen you have created. This will open a window where you have to create the project for which you are going to use it in order to identify it, for example Gmail Gemini. When you create the project, you can now create the API. When you have created the API, you will see that it appears in the list of API keys. You just have to click on the left, below where it says Clueand a window with the API will open, starting with “AIza–“. When you later create the first Gemini modulethen on the login screen you will have to write the Gemini API Key that you generated at the beginning of this tutorial. We are not going to repeat this later because it is something that we will assume has already been done after previous projects such as create a Telegram bot that summarizes your emails. Now we create the workflow Now let’s go to Make.com and create a new scenario or workflow. We start by clicking on the initial + for the first step, for which you have to choose the option Watch RSS feed items. It is used to display the elements of an RSS address. In this first module, what you have to do is write the RSS URL that we have searched for in the previous step, and put it in the URL field. Then, in Maximum number of returned items set 1, so that every time this scenario is run it only pulls the latest post. Once you have this first step configured, I recommend you click on Run eleven to run the project with just this step. Thus, the content will be loaded, and it will appear in the autocompleted suggestions in the following steps. Now let’s go add module HTTP with the action Download a filewhich will be used to extract and download the audio file of the podcast chapter. When you click on URL, a window will appear with autocompletion suggestions, and here you will have to write the address of the mp3 file of the audio. If necessary, you can search for it in the RSS code. In our case, it is in Enclosures > URL. This is a somewhat complex step. A little tip I can give you if you’re not clear is to ask an AI where the audio file is to download, and attach the RSS web address. After the HTTP module, we are going to add a Gemini module. Specifically, we must add module Gemini Upload to filewhich is used to upload a file to artificial intelligence. Here in the field File you have to choose the option HTTP – Download a file. This means that the file that we are going to upload will be the one that we have downloaded with the previous module. Now, After the Gemini module we are going to put another Gemini module. We are going to use the module Generate a response to generate a response. Whom Role put User, and in the Partsin it Item 1 set the message type as text, and choose the option Source to add the source text. and in Item 2 put Filefollowed by audio/mpeg in Mime Typeand in File URI look for the URI. All these elements will have to come from the Upload to file module. Further down, in the field of System Instructionsyou have to open the section Prompts and write a prompt in the field of Prompt 1. This is the prompt with … Read more

that it connects cities is the least of it

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If we stick to surprising infrastructures, China has a good handful that end up leaving you breathless. Bridges that cross entire bays, trains that connect cities at 350 km/h, airports built in record time…And Tianfu Avenue, in Chengdu, also has a special place in this list of mega-constructions. At 150 kilometers long, it is the longest central urban axis in the world. And its history says a lot about how China understands 21st century urbanism. Where does the name come from? Tianfu refers to the historical nickname of Sichuan province: “Land of Plenty.” A region known since ancient times for its fertility and cultural wealth, and whose capital, Chengdu, has been one of the great economic engines of the west of the country for decades. Click on the image to go to the post ORa normal street that was growing. In 1960, the then vice mayor of Chengdu supervised the construction of the Renmin Road, a road 64 meters wide. In 1997, the arrival of the Tianfu interchange, a large elevated infrastructure that passed over the railway tracks in an arc, extended that artery to the south and marked the beginning of what we know today as Tianfu Avenue. In 2004, the municipal government formalized its name and divided it into northern, central and southern sections, although the true transformation would come later. de avenue to metropolitan corridor. In 2012, Chengdu proposed something much more ambitious: turning Tianfu into a “hundred-mile central hub.” The idea was to connect not just neighborhoods or districts, but entire cities. In 2016, the project was expanded further: the route would reach Deyang in the north and Renshou, in Meishan, in the south. The final result is a 150 kilometer road that crosses four different administrative territories. A colossus of cement and metal. In some sections reaches 14 or 16 lanesincluding expressways, local lanes and dividing strips. It has wide sidewalks, bike lanes, garden areas and overpasses at the busiest intersections. In the high-tech zone section, for example, it was renovated in 2022 to become an urban linear park with eight smaller parks, six kilometers of promenade and two large entrance nodes. And all this without interrupting traffic on one of the busiest arteries in the city. What there is along the route. Along its route there are also emblematic points of interest. For example, the New Century Global Center, considered one of the individual buildings largest in the world by constructed area; Xinglong Lake, with a surface area of ​​more than 66 hectares, known as the “green heart of the city”; or the Tianfu interchange mentioned above, a two-kilometer-long structure whose “A”-shaped pylon reaches 78 meters high. At its top is the emblem of the Sun Bird, a symbol of the ancient Jinsha culture. Its economic role. Tianfu Avenue is not a typical infrastructure project. It is, above all, an instrument of economic development. It connects the Chengdu Plain Economic Zone with the Southern Sichuan Economic Zone, two of the most dynamic poles in the region. Along its route there are technology parks, multinational headquarters, financial centers and the Tianfu New Area, a state development zone created with the intention of attracting innovation and sustainable urbanism. According to a report of Southwest Jiaotong University, the avenue is called to be “the north-south economic axis of Sichuan”, beyond its function as a highway connecting cities. The project is not finished. In January 2025, the Renshou section was opened to traffic, completing a key section of the route. In January 2023, Meishan and Zigong they signed an agreement to extend the avenue even further south, passing through Luzhou and reaching Jiangjin, in Chongqing. If this project prospers, the total length of the corridor could exceed 400 kilometers, becoming a fast axis that connects the two great poles of southwest China: Chengdu and Chongqing. In Xataka | Valencia is building an emergency-proof “water highway” so that DANA outages do not happen again

MicroLED promises to be the Holy Grail of televisions. That is your big problem today.

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There are technologies that are born with enormous promise. He MicroLED is one of them. Since Samsung introduced “The Wall” at CES 2018the sector has been telling us for years that this technology is going to revolutionize the way we watch television. And he is right. The problem is that this revolution has not reached anyone’s living room. who is not a billionaire. The technology has become the Holy Grail of the television industry, but the enormous cost of its manufacture means that only the most exclusive models and, let’s say it without frills, extremely expensive, can integrate this technology. Unlike what has happened with OLED or MiniLED, manufacturers have not managed to reduce production costs of these panels to make them competitive in mass manufacturing. What is MicroLED and why is it so special? To understand MicroLED you have to know how current screens work. Traditional LED TVs have a layer of pixels that filters light coming from an array of LED lights installed on the back. It is, therefore, a backlighting technology that offers very good brightness power. The problem is that when those screens need to display pure black, the screen can’t turn off pixel by pixel, so it turns off areas of those rear LEDs. The more dimming zones you have, the better the light control and the more control over the blacks you have. Even so, it is inevitable that some light will sneak in. It’s not really black. The result is very dark grays at best. The technology OLED solved that problem years ago, making each pixel on the screen emit its own light that can be turned off individually. Here, the result is a perfect contrast, but it has its own limits. The LED diodes that make up each pixel are organic, so they degrade over time and are susceptible to burn-in, leaving a permanent mark on the screen after many hours with a static image on the screen. In this sense, the promise of MicroLED technology is to provide the perfect balance between OLED and LED, but without any of their drawbacks. Like OLED, it uses microscopic LEDs as a pixel, but made with inorganic materials that are much more stable and resistant to burning. In this way, the screens MicroLEDs are capable of reaching OLED contrast levelsbut with a much higher shine and with a useful life that is measured in decades. It is literally the best of all worlds. And there is also its trap. The problem: manufacturing the MicroLED is a nightmare A 4K display has about 8.3 million pixels. In the latest MicroLED panels, each of those pixels needs three individual LEDs, leaving us with almost 25 million microscopic chips that must be manufactured, placed and connected with nanometric precision on a panel the size of a television screen. This level of miniaturization required by MicroLED has limited its production to large-inch formats before the challenge it poses fit so many millions of diodes into a 55″ or 65″ panel. The process of mass transfer of these chips, what the industry calls mass transferis extraordinarily complex, and today, also extraordinarily expensive. How much expensive? To put it in context, one of the few MicroLED models that can be purchased in stores is a 89 inch Samsung and has a sale price of 109,000 euros. He LG Magnitaimed at the extreme luxury market, was around 230,000 euros in sizes of 118 and 136 inches. That price range makes them unviable as home televisions (at least for most mortals’ homes). Hence its market figures are very small at present. In all of 2024, they were manufactured less than 1,000 units of MicroLED televisions in the entire world. Samsung sells that many conventional televisions in a matter of minutes. However, although these panels do not reach the living rooms, it does not mean that the MicroLED is stagnant. In fact, it is in development. This technology is growing strongly in those niches where price matters less than performance. In large format signage it has been the standard for years. film and television studio fundslobbies of luxury buildings or private movie theaters. In automotive, the dashboards of the future want bright, durable and efficient screens. And in the wearables segment and augmented reality, both Apple and Samsung have been investing for some time in bringing MicroLED to smart watches and AR glasses, where extreme pixel density is critical and having smaller production volumes makes the cost more manageable. As indicated in an analysis According to Yole Group, the global MicroLED market could grow to nearly $5 billion in revenue by 2032, although most of that will come from those niche segments, not the living room TV. There are MicroLED and “MicroLED” The high production cost made manufacturers explore other ways to make this technology profitable and evolve. One of the solutions was to use as backlight system behind an LCD panel, rather than as self-emissive pixels. Strictly speaking, although the latter have MicroLED technology, they should not be considered as such. However, some brands use it interchangeably in their trade names for advertising purposes. By having a smaller scale, MicroLEDs allow much better control of light and enhancing the colors, but they still require an LCD panel that separates the colors of each subpixel. That is, it would act more like a MiniLED or a conventional LED than an OLED. The good news is that, as brands showed like Hisense and Samsung have already evolved MicroLED technology with white diodes, towards the RGB MicroLEDwhich already has a self-emissive RGB diode for each pixel that, now, would be closer to the operation of an OLED. This evolution, as before MicroLEDs they made other technologiesrepresents the first sign that these panels are beginning a path of optimization to reduce production costs. In fact, the models launched by Samsung during the last CES 2026 It would be around $30,000.. It seems like an exorbitant figure for a television, but it must be taken into … Read more

With the fashion of American kitchens, a refrigerator that makes noise can be torture when watching TV. How to choose well to avoid it

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How cool American kitchens are. You have, without walls, doors or partitions in between, the kitchen next to the living room and dining room. I love the concept itself, but there are two things that have always raised doubts in my mind. One is the smell, because imagine starting to do something that doesn’t smell good (like cooking cauliflower or making some fried fish, for example) and going to the couch to watch TV while you do it. And then there is the issue of noise. Of course, here you may think that it is the price to pay for having everything in the same space and you are right. If everything is together, you have to assume that, while you cook, you will have noise next to the TV. But the stove, the extractor or the oven are not the only things that make noise in a kitchen. What’s wrong with the refrigerator? This appliance makes noise and is not like the rest of the things in the kitchen: it is always working. For this reason, if you have an American kitchen, It is essential that you choose carefully which refrigerator you are going to place in it. Yes, it’s about looking at what decibels it emits, but there is something to it. I explain everything you need to know about the subject. Two or three dB more than necessary are enough to ruin your movie night A refrigerator is not as noisy as a washing machine when it starts spinning like crazy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sound. In houses or apartments with traditional kitchens, this is not a problem. I have been living in my apartment for more than 20 years and, since the kitchen is at one end, I barely know the noise my refrigerator makes. Things change if the kitchen is American. I put you in situation. Imagine that you are on the couch watching a movie with a blanket and popcorn. During shootings and explosions you will not hear anything other than the TV, but things change when there is dialogue or even nothing at all. There, if your refrigerator sounds more than necessary, you are going to hear a hum that is anything but pleasant. Okay, but how do I know how loud a refrigerator sounds? If you take a look at the technical data sheet of any refrigerator, you will find the sound it emits measured in decibels (or dB). It is obvious that the higher the dB number, the greater the noise it emits. What is not so obvious is that A difference of just 3 dB will make us perceive twice as much noise.. To put it bluntly: a refrigerator that emits 40 dB or more in a kitchenette can be really annoying when watching TV. The ideal is to search for this type of spaces a refrigerator that emits 39 dB or less. But of course, since two or three dB less is noticeable, the less the refrigerator emits, the better. The noise comes from the compressor, but not all are the same We have talked about the noise, but not its origin. The sound that refrigerators emit comes from their compressor, which is responsible for keeping your food and drinks very cool. And what does that matter to me for my American kitchen? The answer is very simple: depending on the type of compressor or motor, the type of noise is not the same. Refrigerators that are a few years old have a traditional motor or compressor. This, in summary, only has two modes: either it’s off or it’s on. If the refrigerator detects that the temperature inside is too high, it starts the compressor at full speed to cool down. This means that, when this happens (which often happens if you open the door too much, for example), we will hear a loud noise when starting, followed by a humming noise that will last until the compressor stops. That changes with Inverter motors. These are basically always on and they regulate their speed depending on the temperature. If you open the door and it gets a little cold, speed up a little. However, if your refrigerator has been closed for a long time, it will run very slowly, so the noise will be less. This way, the noise made by the refrigerator will be quieter most of the time. And of course, you get rid of the “noise” of the traditional compressor when starting up. If you are looking to save as much as possible, refrigerators with traditional compressors are cheaper. In price, because traditional compressors consume significantly more energy than inverter motors. However, I would only place one of these in a conventional kitchen and away from the living room or bedrooms. For an American kitchen, in 100% of cases, I would always recommend a refrigerator with an inverter motor. Not only because they tend to emit, on average, less noise. It is due to the fact that we are not going to hear them start suddenly, something that does happen (and very often) with those that have a conventional engine and that can be annoying if we have the refrigerator next to the TV. Therefore, with that clear, it is time to take a good look at the dB. The good and the bad of both options, face to face 36 dB or less between 37 and 39 dB THE GOOD 🟢 You won’t hear it even when the protagonists of your movie look at each other without speaking. They are cheaper and, at the same price, you get a refrigerator to store more food or drinks THE BAD 🔴 It is a more expensive option that may cause you to have to cut back on capacity or features You will hear a slight hum while watching TV that can take you out of the movie Ideal for: Do not hear any type of hum or vibration when watching TV Families who … Read more

While Anthropic goes on the US blacklist, the Pentagon already has someone to succeed him: OpenAI

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The pentagon gave an ultimatum to Anthropic to accept the unlimited use of its AI models for applications of all kinds, including espionage and military use. The deadline arrived, at 5:01 p.m. this Friday, February 27, and Anthropic said no: he would be faithful to his principles. The sword of Damocles has fallen on the company led by Dario Amodei and the United States has completed its threats. How did he communicate? A few hours ago, United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, for the Pentagon, Anthropic is already a “risk to the supply chain.” The context. This chronicle of a death foretold has been meeting its deadlines and everyone has remained in their initial position: Anthropic rejected the Pentagon’s lawsuit over concerns about the use of AI for mass civilian surveillance and the development of weapons capable of firing without human intervention. The company behind Claude has already announced that he will contest. We will have to see the cost of maintaining his position. The United States will apply a sanction that until now we had only seen applied to companies from rival countries, Huawei is one of the clearest examples. What’s going to happen now. Leaving aside the fact that the president of the United States refers to Anthropic as “a radical left-wing and woke company” on your social network Truth Socialthe US Ministry of Defense has carried out its threat, which has come into effect immediately: It will terminate its contract with Anthropic, valued at up to $200 million, and as announced Peter Hegseth, no contractor, supplier or partner doing business with the United States Armed Forces may do business with Anthropic. There will be a six-month period for the Pentagon and other government agencies to transition Claude to alternatives. OpenAI said yes. The United States already has a company to provide its services to the Pentagon and other agencies: OpenAI. Sam Altman announced the agreement to deploy its models on its classified network explaining that the Department of Defense had shown a “deep respect for security” and that both AI security and broad benefit sharing are the foundation of its mission. Among the security principles specifically mentioned by Altman are the prohibition of domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including autonomous weapons systems. According to the CEO of OpenAI, the War Department is aligned with these principles. Likewise, he explained that they will apply technical safeguards to guarantee the correct behavior of their models. Claude’s shadow is long. Saying goodbye overnight to your reference AI company (even with that transition period) and putting a veto on other companies working with it is a tricky measure to put into practice as it is behind recent strategic operations, such as Maduro’s arrest and others imminent. Likewise, it leaves projects such as that of Palantirwhich Claude uses. behind the scenes. According to AxiosDeputy Secretary of Defense Emil Michael was in talks with Anthropic to offer a deal just as Pete Hegseth dropped the bomb on X/Twitter. This theoretical agreement would have allowed the collection or analysis of data on US citizens, such as location, web browsing or financial information. At the moment it is unknown if this interest of the Pentagon in collecting personal data legally applies to OpenAI. In Xataka | IBM has been living for decades that no one could kill COBOL. Anthropic has other plans In Xataka | Anthropic and OpenAI have developed AI. The US Pentagon is showing you who really owns it Cover | Tomasz Zielonka

The Pope is asking priests not to use ChatGPT to write their sermons

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Artificial intelligence may hallucinate from time to time and make things up, but there is one thing it does quite well: prepare texts from a base. Although the results depend greatly on what you ask for in your prompt, it is great for writing to the OTA about a fine they have given you or making a summary of photosynthesis. And why not: also to explain a parable from the Bible to you grounding it to everyday reality. A sermon from the old priest, come on. Well no. I’m not saying it, he says it the current Pope of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church Leo XIV. A few days ago, the Augustinian religious was at a meeting with the clergy of the diocese of Rome and there he remembered the technology, issuing a warning to anyone who is tempted to entrust homilies to AI because “to make a true homily, which is sharing the faith, the AI ​​will never be able to share the faith.” That is to say, although language models undoubtedly have the capacity to smooth out the readings of the Bible to bring them down to Earth, bringing them closer to everyday life, one thing is explain the earthly and quite another is providence. In short, spirituality is an exclusive quality of humans and not machines. Perhaps it could help the church staff precisely to select readings from the long list offered by the book par excellence of Christianity and to synthesize what is important so that later they are the ones who, in their own handwriting (it is a way of speaking), write the sermon in the old-fashioned way. What the Pope says goes to mass In any case, Robert Francis Prevost continued with statements that align with science: “like all the muscles in the body, if we don’t use them, if we don’t move them, they die, the brain needs to be usedso our intelligence, your intelligence, must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity” because the exercise of searching the Bible, reading thoroughly and staying with what is important is undoubtedly a mental exercise that, if not done, reduces mental exercise. Another part of his speech was directed at the use of mobile phones and that current paradox of being more connected and more alone than ever, ensuring that there is no human contact and that another type of friendship experience must be sought to establish bonds. In Xataka | Pope Francis made his opinion clear on end-of-life medical ethics. The one we don’t know is that of the Vatican In Xataka | The Vatican, a holy and renewable city: the Pope’s plans to make the small Catholic state more sustainable Cover | Flickr

Tokyo is one of the few cities in the world that has managed to maintain housing prices. His secret: build

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“If you can’t solve a problem, make it bigger.” This oft-repeated maxim (and mistakenly coined for Dwight D. Eisenhower) can be good advice when it comes to housing: Expanding the scope of a problem can make new solutions possible. Japan is the world’s best example of an advanced industrial democracy with abundance of affordable housing with low carbon emissions. To build. The key to Japan’s success is its unusual degree of national control over zoning and building rules. Centralized authority trumps local housing obstructionism. Tokyo builds more housing in a year than all of California or all of England, which have 3 or 4 times its population. In the largest megalopolis in the world, the way Rents stay low in the long term is to build. National decisions. The political scientist Grant McConnell wrote on the classic articulation of the view that the national government is more likely to solve difficult problems than state or local governments. Small can be beautiful, the reasoning goes, but it can also be provincial, backward and oligarchic. This logic fits well with the housing issue: Putting much more at stake, all at once, in one big fight, rather than piece by piece in hundreds of separate local fights, could disrupt the housing war. More homes around the world. The world has provided some examples of this. Japan has had extraordinary success in housing construction. He has long been a leader and expanded his leadership even further in recent years. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have always had good records, behind Japan but still performing well. France has stepped up, at least in Paris. These countries generally employ rule-based (or “by right”) building permit systems: if your plans check the stipulated boxes, building authorities have no choice but to sign. The Anglo-Saxons. On the other hand, English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand, are lagging behind. Their permit systems are often more discretionarygiving local officials the power to approve or reject buildings at will. In many parts of these countries, especially their large cities, housing is expensive because it is scarce. For now, the Anglosphere suffers the worst housing shortages and prices. The Japanese case. The Asian country is the best example of the maxim of “magnifying” problems. Japan’s national government controls the use of land and buildings to a greater extent than national authorities in other countries. This control has grown in recent decades, even as other nations have gone into lockdown. The number of homes built per year in industrial democracies has fallen by more than 60% since 1970, according to The Economist. Meanwhile, housing construction in Japan has remained solid at all timesbroad public interest in abundant housing has triumphed over obstructionism. What did they do? To boost construction and lower prices, Japan redoubled efforts to allow more housing construction. He resorted, in particular, to administrative changes in building codes. “To help the economy recover from the bubble, the country eased the regulation of urban development,” explained Hiro Ichikawa, a construction development advisor. in the Financial Times. “If it hadn’t been for the bubble, Tokyo would be in the same situation as London or San Francisco.” Build, build and build. The results, in abundant housing, low prices and low carbon urban formswalkable and transit-focused, are notable. The city of Tokyo had 13.5 million residents in 2018. But the city built 145,000 new residences that year. Tokyo’s achievement was particularly surprising considering that the prefecture has very little vacant land, so almost all of those 145,000 homes were located in an existing neighborhood. The astonishing pace of housing construction in the capital has continued for years. Tokyo routinely builds more new homes than all of California (which has three times its population) or, in some years, all of England (which has four times its population). It has increased housing construction by 30% since the turn of the century, even as its population peaked and began to decline in 2007. disposable houses. It is true that Japan demolishes houses much earlier than other industrialized countriesso a large portion of their housing starts are replacement housing. But the much criticized Japanese culture of “disposable houses” It is actually one of the secrets of its success. Japan’s rigorous and up-to-date earthquake safety laws, plus a cultural attachment to new homes, mean that tiny houses in Japan often depreciate completely in just 30 years and are replaced soon after. Because housing is renovated quickly, the country has a much better chance of installing larger buildings. In parts of the US, where buildings typically have an economic life of 100 years, you only have one chance per century to replace a house with an apartment building. In Japan, you get three. More housing. The prefecture has tripled its stocks of housing in the last 50 years and has expanded the number of residences in the city by about 2% annually since 2000. In fact, its overall housing unit growth rate was three times faster than London or New York in the 2010s. Among the 14 megacities around the world, only Singapore and Seoul surpassed Tokyo in the pace of overall housing growth. Thanks to the Japanese program to govern housing, Tokyo Prefecture and the world’s largest metropolis have completely avoided residential closures. Japan seems to have learned the maxim attributed to Eisenhower: if you can’t solve a problem, make it bigger. In Xataka | In its crazy rise in housing prices, Madrid has just broken a barrier: that of the most expensive apartment in its history In Xataka | Tenants and owners are not the same type of Spaniards: some pay €400 more than others for the same home Image | Yu Kato

which cars can circulate and which rest on February 28

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This Saturday the Hoy No Circula Saturday scheme is back in operation, the mechanism with which the Environment Secretariat of Mexico City (SEDEMA) restricts the circulation of certain vehicles to try to contain pollution in the Valley of Mexico. Once again, anyone planning to use the car should carefully check its license plate finish and verification hologram before driving off. The restrictions are not limited to the 16 municipalities of CDMX, but also extend to a series of suburban municipalities in the State of Mexico included in the program. Today No Saturday Circulation also applies to: Atizapan of Zaragoza Coacalco de Berriozábal Cuautitlan Cuautitlán Izcalli Chalco Chicoloapan Chimalhuacan Ecatepec de Morelos Huixquilucan Ixtapaluca Peace Naucalpan de Juárez Nezahualcoyotl Nicolas Romero Tecámac Tlalnepantla de Baz Tultitlan Chalco Valley Also, keep in mind that if your route crosses any of these demarcations, the Saturday No Circulation Day will be equally applicable to your vehicle throughout the journey. What cars and license plates does Hoy No Circula Saturday affect? The logic of the program is to reduce the number of cars in circulation in order to reduce emissions, but Saturdays are governed by their own rules that are added to the scheme from Monday to Friday. Not all drivers rest on the same weekend: it is the combination of hologram, license plate finish and whether Saturday corresponds to an even or odd week that determines which cars must remain stopped and which can leave. It is also worth remembering that Hoy No Circula on Saturdays does not operate 24 hours a day. The application schedule goes from 05:00 to 22:00; Outside of that period—that is, at night and early morning—the program does not limit vehicle traffic, unless an environmental contingency or another extraordinary measure is decreed that adds additional restrictions. For February 21, 2026, the calendar indicates that it is the third Saturday of the month, which is why it is classified as an “odd week.” Under this scenario, vehicles with hologram 1 and plates whose ending is an odd number are the ones that must remain out of circulation during the entire official program schedule. If your car falls into that category, you will have to keep it parked until after 10:00 p.m. On the other hand, vehicles with hologram 0 and 00 retain permission to circulate without restrictions within the framework of Today No Circula Saturday. Cars with hologram 2, for their part, cannot circulate on Saturdays under any circumstances. Along with the previous cases, there is a group of vehicles exempt that can circulate without being affected by these rules. Among them are: Electric, natural gas or hybrid technology vehicles Units registered with plates for people with disabilities All those intended for urban public transport services (including funeral services) Those dedicated to school or passenger transportation Those assigned to public security and/or civil protection Whoever decides to ignore the provisions of Hoy No Circula risks a considerable financial penalty. The fine for failing to comply with the program ranges from 20 to 30 times the Measurement and Update Unit (UMA), which translates into approximately 1,924.40 pesos at the minimum and up to 2,886.60 pesos at the maximum. Added to this blow to the pocketbook is the immobilization of the vehicle and the time lost in resolving the problem before the corresponding authorities. In short, if you are going to use the car this Saturday in CDMX or in one of the suburban municipalities of the State of Mexico included in the program, it is advisable to verify before leaving which hologram your vehicle carries, what the ending of your license plate is and if the calendar shows an even or odd week. Today No Circula on Saturday seeks to take the most polluting cars off the road, but at the same time forces people to better plan trips and consider mobility alternatives when the vehicle has to stay at home. Photo | Osmany M Leyva Aldana In Xataka | The countries that pollute the most in the world, gathered in a detailed graph

US agents denounce that it is failing in a key point

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Social networks have been using automated systems for years to try to detect some of the most serious crimes that circulate on the internet. Among them is child sexual exploitation, a phenomenon that forces platforms, regulators and security forces to monitor enormous volumes of content every day. The promise of these tools is clear: identify potential cases sooner and make the work of agents easier. However, some specialized teams in the United States maintain that the volume of notices they receive from Meta platforms has skyrocketed and that a significant portion of them do not provide useful information for action. Clash between scale and utility. In a lawsuit underway in New Mexico, prosecutors maintain that Meta did not adequately disclose what it knew about the risks minors face on its platforms and that it violated state consumer protection laws. According to the Associated Pressthe indictment also argues that the company presented the safety of its services in a way that did not correspond to the risks faced by children and adolescents. The case is part of a broader wave of lawsuits filed in the United States against large technology companies for the effects their services may have on minors. Meta rejects that interpretation. In his speech before the jury, the company’s lawyer Kevin Huff defended that the company has reported the risks associated with the use of its services and that it has introduced different tools to detect and eliminate harmful content. According to the Associated Press, Huff insisted that the central point of the case is not to prove that problematic content exists on social networks, but rather to determine whether the company hid relevant information from users. Researchers on the front line. Those who have provided figures and concrete examples of this problem are agents who work directly in investigations of child exploitation on the Internet. In the United States, those tasks fall largely to the network of units known as Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC), a program that brings together police forces at different levels and is coordinated with the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute crimes committed against minors in digital environments. Its agents receive notices about possible cases from different sources, including the technology platforms themselves. During the trial, some of these agents have described how they are experiencing the increase in ads from Meta platforms. Benjamin Zwiebel, ICAC special agent in New Mexico, explained in court that many of the notices they receive are of little use in advancing an investigation. “We get a lot of advice from Meta that is just garbage,” he declared, according to The Guardian. His words reflect a broader concern within these units: the volume of alerts has skyrocketed, but not all of them contain the information necessary to identify a suspect or initiate police action. Poor quality. In some cases, reports sent from the platforms include data that does not describe criminal conduct. In others, they do point to a possible crime, but they arrive without essential elements to continue the investigation, such as images, videos or fragments of conversations that allow those responsible to be identified. Without this material, agents have few tools to advance the case or request new proceedings. Some agents have also noted that a portion of these notices arrive with incomplete or partially removed information. The mass reporting machinery. Behind this increase in notices there are several factors that help to understand why the volume of reports sent to the authorities has skyrocketed. In the United States, technology companies are required by law to report any child sexual abuse material they detect on their services to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), an organization that acts as a national center for receiving these notices and subsequently distributes them to the corresponding police forces. Agents cited by The Guardian also point to recent legal changes, such as the Report Act, which came into force in November 2024, as a possible factor that would have increased the number of notices sent to avoid non-compliance. Meta says he’s doing the opposite.. The company rejects the idea that its systems are making the work of the authorities more difficult and maintains that, on the contrary, it has been collaborating for years with security forces to detect and prosecute this type of crime. A Meta spokesperson stated that the United States Department of Justice has recognized on several occasions the speed with which the company responds to requests from authorities and that NCMEC has positively evaluated its notice notification system. According to the company, in 2024 it received more than 9,000 emergency requests from US authorities and resolved them in an average time of 67 minutes, a process that, it claims, is accelerated even more when it comes to cases related to child safety or the risk of suicide. Meta also notes that it reports to NCMEC any material that may be linked to child sexual exploitation and that it works with that organization to help prioritize the notices, including by labeling those it considers most urgent. a real problem. Regardless of what the jury in New Mexico determines, the case reflects a tension that goes beyond a single company or a single state. Digital platforms operate on a global scale and use automated systems to detect illicit content in volumes that would be impossible to review manually. However, the experience described by some agents shows that increasing the number of tips does not always translate into more effective investigations. Images | Dima Solomin | ROBIN WORRALL In Xataka | Dario Amodei founded Anthropic because OpenAI didn’t take the risks of AI seriously. Now you are going to give in to those risks

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