July 2026 - Page 84 of 86

A year later, it has been such a success that her neighbors are already asking about her

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Solar electricity can be generated right under the wheels of a train without posing any risk. Switzerland has just confirmed this in a project that, after a year of having startedhas shown that the idea works, and is now beginning to arouse interest in France, Italy and Asia as well. What has happened? In April 2025, the startup Sun-Ways installed photovoltaic panels between the rails of a 100-meter section in the town of Buttes, in the canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, resting on the sleepers. They claim that it is the first installation of this type in the world, and its particularity is that the modules can be easily removed when maintenance work needs to be done on the track. Twelve months later, more than 11,000 trains have passed over the panels without any incidents being recorded. “We have achieved our objectives, both in terms of railway safety and electricity production,” explained Joseph Scuderi, founder of Sun-Ways, told Swissinfo. Why is it relevant? The main obstacle to renewables is no longer just technological, but also space. And it is necessary to find land to install panels without invading crop fieldsforests or protected landscapes begins to be a complicated task. Spain knows this debate well, with projects such as the Maestrazgo renewable macroparkwhich has generated friction due to its visual impact. This proposal presents an alternative taking advantage of an infrastructure that already exists and is hardly used for anything else. In detail. The energy generated is poured into the local electrical grid and, according to data provided by Sun-Ways, the installation has produced more than 16,000 kWh since May 2025, despite a one-month break due to snow and technical work. That figure is equivalent to the annual consumption of three or four households. Extrapolated to the nearly 5,320 kilometers of tracks that the country has, discounting tunnels and sections with little sun, Sun-Ways calculates that the entire Swiss railway network could generate up to 1,000 million kWh per year, around 2% of national electricity consumption. Between the lines. Two of the biggest fears surrounding this system have been dispelled during testing. The first, the accumulation of dirt on the panels. Scuderi had initially thought of cleaning them with a brush installed at the back of a train, but discovered that the very passage of the convoys, which travel up to 90 km/h on that section, generates a current of air that carries dust. The second, the possible dazzling of the train drivers, which has not materialized either. And TransN, the public operator that manages that line, has assured that it has not received any report from its staff in this regard. The company itself also confirms that there have been no conflicts with infrastructure, maintenance or train circulation. The other plus point: installation is quick. The panels, patented by Sun-Ways, are placed using a machine developed together with the railway company Scheuchzer, capable of laying up to 300 meters of panels per hour, according to collect Electrek. And when it is necessary to remove them to repair a track or change a sleeper, disassembling a module with three panels and six meters in length takes about ten minutes, according to reports. detailed Scuderi. The pending challenge. Julien Pouget, professor at the Valais University School of Applied Sciences (HES-SO), warns that transporting the electricity generated over long distances continues to be complicated, since current technology does not allow it to be done efficiently in sections greater than 500 meters, which is why a specific electrical architecture is needed to raise the voltage, as explained to the Swiss newspaper 24Heures. Together with other HES-SO researchers and Scuderi himself, Pouget intends to present a possible solution to this problem at a conference in Paris next August. And now what. The project has caused interest internationally. And the French railway company SNCF, which manages some 28,000 km of tracks and has set the goal of covering 20% of its energy consumption with solar energy by 2030, signed in February a technical cooperation agreement with Sun-Ways. In Italy, the startup is in contact with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana to organize a pilot before the end of the year, while in South Korea already there is an approved government project near the Osong station, and in Indonesia a solar engineering company is closely following the results obtained in Switzerland. Scuderi, for his part, hopes to shorten the three-year trial period set by the Swiss Federal Transport Office and obtain final approval as soon as possible, allowing, he says, his partners abroad to also advance. Images | Jean-Christophe Bott and Sun-Ways In Xataka | Spain produces so much solar energy that it is the envy of Europe. And even so, 70% of what you consume matters

“When things move fast, people make mistakes and it costs them money”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Next to the Fiorano track, the small circuit inside the Maranello factory on which Ferrari tests its F1 cars every winter, the noise is deafening. “When things move too fast, people make mistakes,” he explains. Bogdan Botezaturesearch director of bitdefenderone of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world. Botezatu could refer to the sports cars that, right at that moment, are spinning around the circuit without stopping. But he’s actually talking about something else. Last month, Bitdefender released its first Cybersecurity Grand Prix Fan Threat Indexan elaborate study of the risks and threats that spectators of sports around the world, including F1, face every weekend. The purpose of the investigation is simple: to show the multiple tools that hackers have around them to violate the privacy of viewers and, in the most extreme cases, raid their bank account. “Frauds are evolving. Last year, cybercrime had a turnover of around 9 billion (trillion in English) of dollars globally. Of those 9 billion, only 1 billion came from the scamming“explains Botezatu. His index aims to monitor how scams evolve. In the middle of the Soccer World Cupwith millions of viewers glued to their mobile phone screens every day, the phenomenon is more current than ever. Bitdefender, however, focuses on another area: motorsports. For years, the company has collaborated closely with Ferrari, whom it sponsors and offers cybersecurity solutions for its F1 team. This is no small matter: Ferrari, like all other F1 teams, jealously protects its technical findings. Industrial espionage has always been the order of the day in a competitive environment. With Bitdefender, Ferrari aims to limit damage in today’s highly digitalized environment. “If you look at what happens to large companies, they are constantly being attacked by ransomwareintellectual property theft, infiltrations… But they are protected, they have their own cybersecurity teams, they can protect their perimeters, they can service their infrastructure, they have agreements with companies like Bitdefender. They are protected,” Botezatu points out. We are not, he implicitly suggests. “Things at home are fundamentally different,” he continues, “spectators watching F1 or other motor sports don’t have these safety nets, they aren’t even aware of the risks of cybercrime.” When we sit in front of the television to watch an F1 race or a soccer match, we focus on sport. The only problem is that on the other side of the screen there is a army of scammers and hackers trying to take advantage of the show. To take it out at our expense. The range of tools available to scam us is wide. From merchandise from smuggling (fake t-shirts, accessories, jackets, caps; in the case of football teams, t-shirts) to fraud in the purchase of tickets (often with juicy and pompous “last minute” offers), passing through the ecosystems of streaming. Much of Bitdefender’s talk emphasizes this last aspect. How it works The order of the factors is almost always the same: before a big event, such as an F1 GP or a football tournament, there is an uptick in fraud due to illegal tickets, in addition to a growth in fake advertisements. merchandising. During the celebration of the event, the numbers increase exponentially. streaming malicious, in most cases disappearing at the end of the show. After the race or the game, the scam in the form of highlights or surveys that give rise to abuse. “In the case of motorsports, its ecosystems are dominated by speed. You have to sell or buy tickets quickly, you have to find a service streamingyou have to find legitimate stores merchandising. If there are mistakes, they cost money,” Botezatu reasons. “And there is also an emotional investment during the weekends,” he adds, pointing to the impetuous, nervous and effusive aspect of the sports fan. It’s not just about watching an F1 race or a soccer match: you want be part of itso decision making is sometimes conditioned. Bogdan Botezatu. One of the advantages of protecting users during sporting events is that the behavior of cybercriminals is predictable. The scammers They know that the activity is concentrated during the weekends on Telegram or Discord channels and on streaming unofficial. There are suspicious VPNs, aggressive ads, fake subscriptions and a long list of mechanisms to capture our attention and surprise us. Its operation, in the case of streamingis always the same: First there is amplification on social media: Telegram channels, Facebook groups, Discord servers and Reddit discussions. Then direct monetization is sought: unlock payments, force interactions with ads, redirect users, push notifications push. He streaming of the race is secondary. And finally, the infrastructure is disposable: domains that appear and disappear just before and after the race often use the “cc” domain. Another problem identified by Bitdefender is the services of streaming of Android. We talk about applications like Playfy TV and Cricfy TV. According to them, they require installing APKs and are risky. At the same time, all this It is related to the “streaming boxes” offered by Chinese companies, specifically BADBOX 2.0. They put malware on Android, phones, tablets and much more. Its impact is very high, they seek compromise devices before even reaching the consumer. Using this technology we open our devices to the enemy, according to Botezatu, who specifically focuses on this mechanism. He streaming sports is fundamentally based on Discord servers, Telegram channels and communication systems. backup They work by invitation. The references of streaming They are deleted after the races, the servers are migrated and there is a very high link rotation that makes it impossible to chase them or protect against them effectively. For all this, the Bitdefender expert insists, it is very important to be aware of the risks involved. His summary is very simple: if you have to install something, a bad sign. Given the location of the talk, in the heart of a racing circuit, and the orientation of Bitdefender, sponsor of an F1 team, it is natural to suspect that his efforts are aimed at motor sports fans. and your Fan Thread Indexin … Read more

Telecinco wanted to revolutionize its schedule for the summer in search of solutions for the audience. At the moment it’s a disaster

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Telecinco has changed half of its afternoon schedule to escape the worst season in its history. At the moment, however, the changes are not being noticed as much as Mediaset would have liked, and so far no program has reached 8% of share. There is still a lot of summer ahead, and in some cases, the headlines have barely had a couple of broadcasts, but we are certainly far from brilliant starts for these new programs whose structure, aesthetics and presenters smell of the company’s old glories. The figures. He date show by Carlos Lozano ‘Love… or whatever arises’ debuted on June 22 with 6.8% share and 632,000 spectators; the return of Paz Padilla to Telecinco after his rudeness with the now deceased ‘Sálvame’, ‘El show de Paz’, with 7.8% and 638,000; and the magazine of suns and gossip presented by Ion Aramendi and Kike Quintana ‘El Verano Se Move’, with 7%. The latter, the most recent premiere (this Monday), is the network’s third evening premiere in eight days, and the penultimate of a plan that Mediaset designed to get the network out of its worst historical moment. Some context: ‘El show de Paz’ occupies part of the time on weekends of ‘Fiesta’, Emma García’s magazine that had just had its two worst months in history (8.1% in April and 8.2% in May). If Padilla manages to settle at around 9% compared to his rivals (cinema on the rest of the channels) and, in the process, spreads a rise to ‘Fiesta’, he will have fulfilled his promise. And it remains to be seen what happens with the fourth piece of the plan, ‘From Monday to Fridaythe daily version of ‘De Viernes’ with Beatriz Archidona and Santi Acosta, which premieres on Monday, July 6 at 6:15 p.m., in the gap left by ‘El Diario de Jorge’ during the summer. Their litmus test is twofold: not to sink against ‘The Promise’, which averaged 12.6% in May, and to stand up to the World Cup matches that still lie ahead. Summer ahead. They have all just started and you have to give them some space. The only headline that has already been filming for a week is that of Carlos Lozano, which had been on the air for a week on the day of the premiere of ‘El Verano Se Move’. For that day, ‘Amor… or whatever arises’ had a minimum audience (5.4%), and right after, La 1 broadcast the Brazil-Japan of the Worldwhich swept with a 33.7% share and 3,075,000 viewers, and sank both ‘El Diario de Jorge’ and ‘Allá tú!’. Result: 7.2% on average, one of the worst Mondays in the history of Telecinco. The plan. Mediaset announced in mid-June a offensive of four new programs for the section from 3:45 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: ‘Love… or whatever arises!’, ‘Summer moves’, ‘From Monday to Friday’ and ‘The Peace Show’. They all replace formats that had been moving between 8% and 10% for months, such as ‘El tiempo just’, whose presenter, Joaquín Prat, is on paternity leave. The program had been averaging 8.5% for two months in a row. share and it had barely exceeded double digits five times since its premiere, a far cry from ‘Sueños de Libertad’ on Antena 3, the undisputed leader of the after-dinner program with an average of 14.2% in May. The precedents. Telecinco arrives this summer with the worst possible figures: the 2025-2026 seasonwas the worst in the history of the channel: an 8.9% average share, eight tenths less than the previous year and the fifth consecutive time that Telecinco has set a new historical season low. For the first time, the channel fell below 10% share in the twelve months of the course, with a ceiling of 9.4% and a floor of 8.4% in December, its worst month in the regular season. The afternoon slot, which is now trying to be reformed, also closed the course at a historic low: 9%. And it is a deterioration that is not limited to entertainment: the network’s news They also posted their worst figure, 8.3% share, without any of their three editions reaching double digits on average. It can be compared, for example, with the increasingly firm La 1, which in the last five years has gone from 8.8% to 12.1%. Telecinco’s path has been practically the opposite, from 13.1% to 8.9%. The importance of football. We were talking about the World Cup as relevant when it came to giving the finishing touch to the Telecinco audiences, but the phenomenon goes further. La 1 closed June as the leading channel, with a 14.3% share, its best June in 15 years, with the World Cup contributing almost a quarter of its monthly result. The entire Mediaset group, on the other hand, lost 3.4 points year-on-year compared to an RTVE group that gained 4.4. Football is obviously determining which channel goes better and worse this summer. In Xataka | Telecinco has ‘El Rosco’ but does not have ‘Pasapalabra’. Antena 3 has ‘Pasapalabra’ but does not have ‘El Rosco’

“The 0.0 invites you to take two or even three”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Rarely can a company’s entire strategy be summarized in a single sentence: “the trend is to drink 0.0 beer, it invites you to have two or even three.” It was said the other day by Javier Soriano, brewmaster at Cruzcampo in an ABC interview and there it is all. In a world where alcohol consumption is collapsing, the only segment that seems to be holding on is non-alcoholic beer. So yes, Soriano’s comment has a basis of truth, but also a hope: the only one the sector has left to survive. What’s new in all this? For years, alcoholic beverage companies used ‘non-alcoholic’ versions to circumvent advertising regulations which prohibited more and more spaces from the usual formats. Can our 37-year-old whiskey no longer be advertised at sporting events? No problem, we have released a 0.0 whiskey that, coincidentally, has the same brand image. What is new, however, is that little by little the 0.0 are growing above expectations. It is no longer a marketing strategy, nor a minor niche: according to global data from IWSRthe global volume of alcoholic beverages fell by 2% in 2025 and the only thing that grew is non-alcoholic beer (8% in volume and 12% in value). It’s not just that it’s going well, it’s that it’s the only thing that’s not going wrong. And the sector needs it. In fact, the same plans of the big brewers leave them black on white: AB InBev wants the non- and low-alcohol to be 20% of its global volume; Carlsberg, 35% of your portfolio in 2032; Heineken is on the same line. And what does it have to do with us? Spain is not only the second largest beer producer in the EU, but it is the queen of the ‘low alcohol’ sector: one in every seven beers drunk here is already withoutand the employers boast of hoarding 25% of all European consumption of without. That is to say, Spain has become the great world laboratory of the transition from alcoholic to non-alcoholic beverages. And that (or precisely because of that) weekly drinkers have gone from 48.4% in 2006 to 31.1% in 2023. In young people, in fact, the drop is brutal: habitual consumption has been reduced around 60% in two decades. Being aware of the strategies of the breweries is interesting because they are all looking at our country. “Strategies”? It is the best way to call them. Unfortunately, in recent years we have seen all kinds of strategies to consolidate unhealthy practices that support huge industries. The clearest are tobacco companies focused on “harm reduction” as a (“socially responsible”) way to maintain tobacco consumption. It is reasonable to doubt the good intentions of the breweries and there is already data that suggests that we do well not to trust. The elephant in the room. But, above all, it is a strategy because the sector is not only preparing for a clear trend; is preparing for the impact that drugs like Ozempic can have on alcohol consumption. We already know that it reduces itWhat we don’t know is how far it can go. And breweries know that it is in their best interest to be prepared for what may happen. Image | engin akyurt In Xataka | We thought that quenching hunger with Ozempic was the definitive remedy against obesity. Until we look at the muscle

South Korea has a plan to dominate in memory chips and robotics. One of a billion dollars

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

South Korea has put on the table a megaproject for the AI era. This is an initiative made up of three public-private projects spread across semiconductors, data centers and the promising industry of “physical AI”, that is, robots and autonomous systems. The advertisement seeks something very specific: that the country does not depend only on selling memory, but on manufacturing other physical products that it anticipates will be consumed massively. Memory chips rule. The largest item of this ambitious plan is, as we all expected, the one destined for the country’s semiconductor industry. Samsung and SK Hynix have committed to investing $585 billion in new manufacturing plants in the southeast of the country, in addition to strengthening factory construction in the Seoul region. They want to double the production of DRAM memories in five years. The future belongs to data centers. The second large part of this plan corresponds to the data centers that are precisely going to take advantage of a large part of those memory chips. SK Group, CS Group and Naver will invest $357 billion to build large-scale AI data centers in areas until now far from the country’s technology centers. According to the Ministry of Science, the final ambition is to achieve a combined capacity of 18.4 GW by 2035, which would make South Korea one of the world’s great AI “nodes.” Robotics, of course. More surprising is the third leg of the plan: the South Korean government has declared that “physical AI” is a “national strategic industry.” These systems, which allow robots or autonomous vehicles to interact with the real world, also want to be part of the future of the country’s technology industry. In three years they want to create a foundational AI model with the philosophy of “models of the world“—the same in which Yan LeCun or Fei-Fei Li work—. Hyundai has its own plan. The South Korean auto industry giant has set aside $5.8 billion to create a robot manufacturing plant and data center. It’s no coincidence: Hyundai is in fact the parent company of Boston Dynamics since 20221, and is already using its local supply chain to help the American company increase production of its Atlas humanoid robot. The goal: build 30,000 units per year in 2028. Humanoid robots in factories. South Korea wants to commercialize humanoid robots in several key industries before 2028, and to achieve this it wants to train the people who will work with them. The joint plan includes a section that talks about training 10,000 new “AI robotics specialists” in the next five years. But. The announcement coincides with an important internal debate: there are political proposals that seek distribute part of the extraordinary profits of the chip manufacturers, and the unions already see the imminent threat of robotics that will replace positions in all types of assembly chains. The opposition to the South Korean government has also criticized the location of these new production centers, which according to them respond more to a political calculation than to a good industrial strategy. In Xataka | Samsung had been the absolute king of technology in South Korea for decades: SK Hynix has just surpassed it

Sony has just set a date for the end of video games in physical format. At the same time it announces the closure of digital stores

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

The main players in the video game industry have been looking for years to find out how to migrate from physical Blu-Ray to digital format and they already have the answer: Sony has just set the date for the death of the physical format in video games. In a brief releasethe Japanese company has announced that January 2028 will be the turning point and that all the games that come out later for its consoles will arrive only in digital format. Curiously, at the same time that they dropped that bomb, the Japanese they threw another: the closure of the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita. Definitely not the best news to start July if you are a video game lover (and you like to own what you pay for). We go in parts because it has chicha. The end of physical games on PlayStation consoles “As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift from physical to digital discs, production of physical game discs for all new games released on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued beginning in January 2028. After this date, new games will be available on the PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.” Thus begins the statement from a company that continues to claim that this is a “natural direction” to adapt to consumer trends. They argue that “the overall preference for digital media significantly outweighs physical discs” and comment that they are doing gamers a favor because this decision will “allow us to align more closely with how the majority of our community prefers to access and play games today.” This news comes just a few days after we learned that a generational game like ‘GTA VI’ will not have a physical edition (at least at launch) and follows the trend of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo that, in recent years, have invested heavily in the move to digital. There are consoles without a reader, a PS5 Pro whose reader was sold separately or a Nintendo that has launched Game Key Cards. It is undeniable that the convenience of the digital format was winning the battle. Recent estimates have put this on the table in major markets such as the United States, but the physical format has something that the digital format cannot offer: belonging. Because digital games (except those from stores like GOG) do not belong to whoever pays for them. They are user licenses, which means that today we can pay 80 euros for one, but if tomorrow whoever decides that that license is no longer valid, they can delete it. Even if you had it installed on the machine (tell that to ‘The Crew’ users). Some physical games were also paperweights that required an additional download, but the only way to own a video game was to buy a physical version that came complete on disk. With this movement, Sony gives an important blow to the possession of the product for which you have paid, but it completely destroys the second hand that is so important to access that cultural product called a video game. Sony won the PS4 generation with, among other things, that argument: the loan of video games and the free circulation of discs. And not that long ago. Because Sony announcing that it will stop “printing” discs is just that, a brutal blow to video games in physical format. Sony, along with Panasonic, was the main manufacturer of Blu-Ray discs, the one with the production chain and to which the rest of the companies have to send their games to capture them on the disc. And in the statement the company does not say: “we are going to stop manufacturing discs of our games”, but rather the “production of physical discs that will end in January 2028 for new games released on PlayStation consoles”, in general. In development…

Air conditioners have been wanting to reach the north of Spain for decades without much success. Until the thermometer passed 40ºC

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Here a server is writing these lines from Vigo, with the thermometer reading 28ºC (a temperature that in a few days will fire at 35ºC) and without air conditioning or ceiling fans. My only weapons against the haze are a small table fan that is almost (almost) the same decades old as me and the assurance that, no matter how hot the heat was, the temperatures in Galicia would always be tolerable. The first (the antediluvian fan) may not have done much, but the second did. Or so it was until now. In view of the heat waves that are coming at home, we are already thinking about installing a system that allows us to cool off with dignity. And we are not the only ones. On the contrary. We are one of the many homes from the northern peninsula that already look at brochures of air conditioners and fans. Ready for the heat? In the south of Spain it’s hotter than in the north. That was true before, it remains true now, and probably not much will change in the future. As I write this I enjoy a peaceful 28ºC in Vigo, eight degrees less than what the mercury shows in Córdoba. The problem is that there they are probably much better prepared to weather the heatwave than in this northern part of the country. I’m not saying it. The INE says it. From 64% to 0.4%. Although she is almost 20 years old, the Household and Environment Survey from the INE clearly shows that acclimatization facilities are much more frequent in the Mediterranean or Levant than in northern Spain. While in 2008 54% of homes in the Valencian Community had air conditioning, a percentage that rose to 57% in Andalusia, and 64% in Murcia, in Galicia, the Basque Country, Asturias and Cantabria the indicator did not reach 2% in any case. In the Principality it actually marked 0.4%. The INE data is old, but the SER chain recently disclosed a more recent survey confirms that the air conditioning map is still clearly divided between north and south. According to that study, only 17% of northern homes are acclimatized to the heat, far from 86% of the Mediterranean coast. Another Idealista report shows a gap even bigger. Changing the mentality. If they repeated that survey in a few years, it is likely that the ‘photo’ would be somewhat different. The heat wave that has shaken Galicia, Cantabria, the Basque Country either Asturiasleaving in some cases record temperatures that exceeded 40ºC, with hospitalizations due to fainting and deceasedhas led many families to look for new ways to cool their homes. Take a quick look at the regional press to check it out. Skyrocketing sales. In May The Montañés Diary counted how the demand for fans had skyrocketed by more than 80% in some businesses in Cantabria. Installers and stores of air conditioners and portable appliances also noticed the boom. I had something similar recently The Voice of Asturiaswho has spoken with companies in the sector that have noticed a 25% increase in requests for information. The Basque Journal confirm also an increase in the sale of ceiling fans, just like The Region in Ourense. From shops to homes. The most interesting thing is that the demand for devices does not come only from businesses. Andonio Suárez, from a company in the industry, recently recognized to ‘Hoy por Hoy Cantabria’ who in their business “do not stop” touring the community to install air conditioners. Not only that. Their technicians have gone from working basically in commercial premises installations to doing so in private homes, homes of people tired of being in the heat. “It is practically 50% between homes and businesses,” resume. “Before we managed”. Patricia lives in the province of Pontevedra and is one of the people (more and more) who has begun to think about ways to cool her home, beyond the use of floor, ceiling or table fans. “We had always managed, but now we are studying switching to a portable air conditioner or air conditioner because the fans fall short,” he confesses. In mind, you have devices that do not require the installation of exterior elements, such as evaporative air conditioners or tubeless air conditioners. “We save trouble and can take them from one home to another.” Poorly prepared floors. “The summers are longer and hotter, and the heat waves are more frequent. This year we already had a month of May with a week of tropical nights in which it was difficult to sleep, another in June, and summer had not yet started. A month of July is approaching in which it does not seem that we are going to go below 30ºC on most days,” explains Patricia before remembering that many of the apartments built between the 70s and 90s in Galicia “are not prepared nor do they have good insulation.” for the heat. “It has turned against us”. His experience is similar to that of Manuel, another Galician who recognizes that his house is designed to conserve heat, something ideal in winter, but not so much for the months from June to September. “The increasingly hot summers have turned against us.” Hence, she has opted for two portable air conditioners that she places in the living room and in her daughter’s bedroom, the room that accumulates the most heat. “I had been thinking about it for a while. Years ago it was not something that compensated, since it was not really necessary; but in the last five or six years the heat has been much more intense, even reaching days of 30-35ºC continuously.” More than just heat. Both Patricia and Manuel have opted for portable devices, which, among other things, they admit, has made installation easier for them. For systems that require an outdoor unit, it is necessary something more than you want to cool off: it is important to take into account both the municipal ordinances that regulate noise, urban aesthetics and … Read more

there are people learning it the hard way

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Password sharing is a very common practice in payment services, one that those services don’t like it at all. There are people who have thought that if they shared the Netflix password, why not do the same with ChatGPT or Claude. There are reasons why this is a very bad idea. Goodbye privacy. Most people (myself included) have shared Netflix or Spotify passwords, where the worst that can happen is that you see your friend or family member’s viewing history. However, with an AI chatbot we share a lot more information, sometimes very sensitive. In it Wall Street Journal They tell of cases of several people who have had the most uncomfortable situations because they wanted to save money, such as a student who used ChatGPT to keep track of the symptoms of her Chron’s disease. His partner could see how many times he went to the bathroom and even know details of what each bowel movement was like. Customization issues. They also talk about the problem of Olivia Martin, a nursing student who shares a ChatGPT Plus account with at least six other people. There have been no cases of sensitive information here, but rather the chatbot works fatally. The reason is that they receive very disparate data since each one studies one thing, which means that they sometimes answer things that go beyond the topic of their study. Another student tried to write a letter of recommendation and ended up mixing up everyone’s work experience. He describes it like this: “It’s gotten a little confusing, like I think I’m a mix of all my friends.” Companies prohibit it. Both the ChatGPT terms of use as Claude’s They expressly prohibit the sharing of credentials with other people and warn that we are responsible for all activities carried out with our account. OpenAI does consider the possibility of us creating an account on behalf of another person, as long as they have authorized us to do so. They know too much about us. Years ago we were surprised that companies like Google know everything about usbut with AI chatbots the level of information has multiplied. Google needs to deduce our likes and concerns from things like our history, our location, and our searches. There are people who talk to ChatGPT to ask for love adviceThey tell him their problems as if he were a psychologist and also as if it were a virtual doctor. They are not searches without context, they are private conversations with many details. Incognito conversations. Sharing a ChatGPT or Claude account can make sense between people who are working on the same project, as long as we only use it for that. For more personal queries, both ChatGPT and Claude allow the creation of incognito chats that are not saved in memory, which prevents other users from seeing their content. Of course, he won’t be able to remember anything if you bring up the same topic again and you will have to explain everything to him again. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | Your Passwords Won’t Resist the “Quantum Apocalypse”: How to Protect Your Files with Post-Quantum Encryption Today

“In Spain we are not immune to the effects of climate change, we need to intensify conservation”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Europe has lived an inconceivable heat wave until very recently beyond the Pyrenees and the consequences have been dire. France attributes heat as the main cause of more than 1,000 deaths and in the windows they have come to see thermal blankets to reflect the sun’s rays and reduce the temperature in homes that lack air conditioning. The consequences today have been devastating in much of Europe. Melting roads and trams that drag the materials that stick their tracks to the ground. Firefighters who water the bridges so that the steel does not fracture. Trains canceled because the temperature was too high inside. The situation has been so dramatic that more than half of Europe is already looking south. Portugal, Spain and Italy are now the benchmarks when it comes to building new infrastructures, aware north of our borders that these episodes of extreme heat will be more and more recurrent. But Spain doesn’t have it that easy either. Although we have obvious experience in dealing with extreme heat when building our infrastructure, our country also has to remain alert to other episodes of climate change. Although in recent days the discourse has become popular on social networks that Spain has many lessons to teach northern Europe, the truth is that we have our own problems. “We share the same resilience challenges as the rest of Europe,” he warns us. Cesar Francopresident of General Council of Industrial Engineers and director of master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the UAX. Our own challenges While the videos accumulated, the morality lessons piled up on social networks in southern Europe. If you have entered spaces like Or that their infrastructures do not have expansion joints. “It is an inaccurate statement. Joints exist and are essential in bridges, viaducts and concrete structures throughout Europe”, assures César Franco who points out that, in addition, “the use of Via Seamless (continuous welded rail) is an international standard” and is also used in Spain. “The difference is in the calculations. In central and northern Europe, resistance to extreme cold, frost, freeze-thaw cycles and the use of melting salts have historically been prioritized. Now facing prolonged heat waves with records typical of Mediterranean latitudes, the materials and neutralization temperatures of their pathways are subjected to compression stresses outside their historical design ranges,” explains the president of the Council of Industrial Engineers. The question, therefore, is not not knowing how to build an infrastructure, the question is what climatological effects they face. “Today, climate design is no longer limited to the asphalt-steel binomial. The real challenge is the concurrent risk. In addition to the heat, Spain must face episodes of torrential rain, DANA, storms, floods and associated geotechnical phenomena. This forces engineering to focus on general geotechnical stability: the behavior of the slopes, the capacity of drainage works to avoid scours on bridges, and the monitoring of clearings to prevent landslides that interrupt circulation,” explains Franco about our country. That is, while Europe now has problems with extreme summer heat, Spain must be careful with cycles of strong and recurring rainssomething for which, as we found just a few months ago, we are not prepared. “We have very robust regulatory and technical know-how in high temperature scenarios, but we share the same resilience challenges as the rest of Europe,” the General Council of Industrial Engineers emphasize. And the temperature can dilate the tracks of a train until causing the so-called “lateral buckling”. It is not, they explain to us, a structural failure, it is really “a collapse due to elastic instability of the entire system (track-fastening-sleeper-ballast).” The asphalt binder can also lose this stability, which “if it exceeds its softening temperature, it loses viscosity. The mixture loses rigidity and resistance to deformation, and under heavy traffic ruts, undulations or exudations (sticky surfaces) may appear,” explains César Franco. We do not have these problems in Spain because we are adapted to them, but the General Council of Industrial Engineers warns: “We have very robust regulatory and technical know-how in high temperature scenarios, but we share the same resilience challenges as the rest of Europe. Our network faces challenges linked to the aging of assets and the need to intensify preventive conservation. Spain’s advantage is the experience in the behavior of materials under heat; the common European challenge is the financing and speed of adaptation of existing networks to the new climatic normality”. And Spain and Europe face the same problem. Both have to find ways to make their infrastructure suitable during extreme weather events for which they were not designed. The European Union, César Franco reminds us, “requires that the main networks be fully operational and resilient against natural risks with horizons to 2030, 2040 and 2050” but the problem is that, everything indicates, we are not moving fast enough. Photo | Julian Hochgesang and General Council of Industrial Engineers In Xataka | AEMET asks that we prepare because “starting on Friday” a rise is expected that will put Spain “eight degrees above normal”

“Much sun damage occurs in daily activities that go unnoticed”

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

When we prepare the bag to go to the beach or the pool, sunscreen is one of the first items we have on our list of essentials. This is because we automatically associate these two places with the possible burns we expose ourselves to by being in the sun; However, we forget that in many other daily tasks we also receive sun exposure and we do not apply cream there. The dermatologists They are clear that this is a serious problem in the perception of the risk of exposing ourselves to the sun, since we believe that it only burns on the beach, but not while we walk down the street or drive in the car. This is precisely what dermatologist Miguel Sánchez Viera points out in statements collected by elDiario: “Much of the sun damage occurs in daily activities that go unnoticed” And he goes one step further by stating that “many times the cancer we diagnose today is a consequence of sun exposure that began decades ago.” The invisible danger. The WHO itself and the National Cancer Institute in the United States they are clear than sunlight and other sources of ultraviolet radiation that directly cause photoaging and skin cancer. But the important nuance is that we are facing cumulative damage. This is important, because it is not necessary to lie in the sun to add up “reports” of suffering from a serious skin disease, but walking to work, taking the dog or sitting and having a coffee on a terrace are forms of incidental sun exposure. It is these daily and casual exposures that add up to clinically relevant doses throughout our lives. In the car. One of the clearest examples of this false sense of security is the car, since many drivers assume that being behind glass blocks radiation. But science here suggests that, while modern windshields are designed to block most UVA and UVB radiation, side windows are another story. Multiple studies show that the side glass blocks UVB rays, which are the main cause of immediate burns, but allows UVA rays to pass in very variable proportions. UVA rays penetrate deeper into the skin and are largely responsible for premature aging and long-term cell damage. Therefore, driving or even habitually sitting near a brightly lit window silently contributes to our total dose of UVA. The solar callus. In recent months This concept has become popular pointing out that the skin can “get used” to the sun little by little to generate tolerance without the need for creams that have also been demonized. But health authorities are categorical in this regard, pointing out that the skin cannot safely get used to radiation. The damage to cellular DNA is cumulative and the skin has a “memory” and does not forgive excesses, whether they come from an intense burn in August or from twenty years of moderate unprotected radiation going to the office. In fact, the WHO and the ILO highlight that occupational outdoor exposure has a real and documented weight in the development of non-melanoma skin cancer. Sun protection is non-negotiable and it is advisable to stop associating it only with summer or days at the beach and pool. Applying it before leaving the house and exposing ourselves to UV radiation is imperative if we seek to maintain good dermatological health. Images | Amy Humphries In Xataka | Science warns of the dangerous success of anti-suncream hoaxes on TikTok: “Despite being a minority, this content is influential”

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