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Why do prices go up if sales go down?

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The real estate market has started 2026 with a strange ‘photo’ that, a priori, seems to contradict the most basic laws of the market: sales fallbut prices go up. Or what is the same, thousands of fewer operations are closed in notary offices than a year ago without this apparent cooling in demand being passed on to prices, which continue to grow at the same time. double digit after saying goodbye to last year with historical data. The question in view of this duo trend is evident: What is happening? And above all, what can we expect now? Fewer homes sold. Although winter is not the time of year more dynamic For the real estate sector, the first quarter of 2026 has left a curious image: despite how tense the market is and that homes continue to be created at much more speed of which new homes are built, in Spain there are fewer houses changing hands. The purchase and sale operations chained three months downward during the start of 2026, which explains why the INE registered a 2.6% decline in the first quarter. The number: 4,713. To be precise, the INE registered 61,295 transactions of homes throughout March, 2.2% less than during the same month in 2025. If we talk about new constructions, the decline was even more pronounced: 10.2% (5.3%, if we talk about the entire quarter). In general, the aggregate for the year (January-March) is 178,473 purchases, 4,713 less than in the equivalent period of 2025. The ‘photo’ of the marketOf course, it is not the same throughout the territory. There were eight regions in which March closed with more transactions than last year, with Castilla-La Mancha in the lead; but in eight others (including some of the most populated) the trend was the opposite. In Madrid the INE recorded 2.5% fewer purchases and sales, in Catalonia the decline was 3.5% and in Andalusia 6.5%. The largest falls were recorded in the Basque Country (-11.6%) and Cantabria (-15.4%). The INE is not the only one to detect the setback. In March, the Notarial Council also registered a 4.7% puncture in transactions, more pronounced in the case of apartments. And the prices? They point in the opposite direction. He latest newsletter from the Ministry of Housing on appraisals shows that, in general, free housing became more expensive during the first quarter of the year until the residential square meter (m2) stood at 2,315.7 euros. For reference, it is 3.8% more than the previous quarter and 13.9% above what was paid a year before. In new housing, less than five years old, the increase compared to 2025 was 12.8% and in used housing (more than five years old) 13.8%. Once again, the trend was also felt in the offices of notaries. In it same statement in which it notes a general drop of 4.7% in sales in March, the sector reports a 7% rise in the cost of m2. Its balance sheet shows this apparent dissonance even more clearly: apartment transactions fell by 5.8% compared to March 2025, while prices rose by 9.7% to reach €2,332/m2; In the case of single-family homes, operations contracted by 1.1% while the cost rose by 2.2%. Year (1st quarter) Free housing (€/m2) less than five years More than five years 2020 1,640.4 1,891.5 1,632.5 2021 1,625.4 1,879.3 1,617.5 2022 1,734.0 1,980.9 1,726.7 2023 1,788.4 2,112.1 1,778.1 2024 1,865.8 2,199.3 1,855.8 2025 2,033.4 2,357.3 2,024.1 2026 2,315.7 2,685.2 2,303.8 But… Why? The first thing is to take perspective. The market may be stepping on the brakes with respect to 2025, but it continues to move at high levels if we analyze what the sector has managed since the setback that followed the brick crisis of 2008. That is, the 61,295 transactions in March may be less than those of 2025, but they are still well above the 44,664 of 2024. In fact, a year ago we were at record values that have not been seen since 2007. It is an important nuance because it shows that the drop in sales in the first quarter of 2026, as much as it may attract attention, seems to point more to a gradual slowdown than a sudden turn or change in cycle. The market gives signs, true, but they come after 2025 that closed with more than 700,000 salesthe highest figure in almost 20 years, since the bursting of the brick bubble. He last balance from the INE also shows that purchases do not suffer throughout the territory. In fact, there are regions, such as Castilla-La Mancha, Navarra, La Rioja or the Valencian Community, Galicia or Asturias, where they have grown. And the prices? Not everything is uphill. There are those who also appreciate some restraint. A recent study by Idealista shows, for example, that in the first quarter 14% of homes for sale they had to lower their price. During the same period in 2025 that percentage was 11%. Other reports specify that, beyond the general ‘photo’ provided by the Ministry of Housing, there are cities (including some capitals) in which prices have moderated. something moves. The above helps to put things into perspective, but it does not mean that the residential market is not changing. confirms it in theEconomist José García Montalvo, expert at the Pompeu Fabra University: “The slowdown in sales is one more example of a trend that is corroborated by the increase in sales time, the growing disparity between the prices that sellers want to receive and the growing limitations of buyers due to the difficulty of obtaining credits of the necessary amount for homes whose price has grown rapidly.” Ángel Talavera, from Oxford Economics, launches another reflection in elDiario: “When prices begin to rise uncoupled from rising incomes, it is likely that purchases will slow down.” The truth is that the cost of housing itself partly explains the slowdown in sales. Rentals, for example, they continue to get more expensive. And while this makes the purchase more attractive, it also … Read more

The Chinese brand that sells the most cars in Europe decides on Spain

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MG will manufacture cars in Spain. It is official after weeks of rumors in which we had been hearing that the Spanish region was one of the best positioned to produce cars from the Chinese firm of British origin. It is its first major investment outside China in almost a decade and, without a doubt, an endorsement of its European plans. The advertisement. MG has confirmed it: Galicia is the region chosen for the return to MG manufacturing in Europe. The announcement had been advanced by Alfonso Ruedapresident of the Xunta, this morning but it was not until this afternoon when the MG herself confirmed the news. For months it has been known that the Xunta de Galicia has been in talks with the Chinese brand to settle on Spanish soil for its new arrival in Europe. And in April, Rueda himself held a series of meetings with representatives of the brand between April 23 and 25 in China, according to The Automotive Tribune. The project. The company assures that, from the outset, the project has an investment of 200 million euros and that it will create “more than 2,000 jobs in Europe, establishing a strategic center for the next phase of MG’s growth.” That is, the press release provided by the company does not specify how many of these jobs will be in Spain and how many will be created by the increase in cars in the European market. The company assures that this new plant is scheduled to come into operation in 2028 and that it will have an annual capacity to manufacture up to 120,000 vehicles. At the moment, it has not been confirmed what types of vehicles will be manufactured (pure combustion, hybrid or electric) nor have the models been specified. For its part, in information collected by The Worldthe Xunta raises the figure to 2,300 jobs, of which 1,000 would be direct, another 1,000 indirect and 300 would be related to the company’s activity in As Pontes (a town near Ferrol). In this location, the company is expected to build a components plant. Some doubts. For now, what is known is that the company will establish itself in Ferrol and build an auxiliary plant in As Pontes. The choice of Ferrol is determined by its port, which has already served as a gateway for other Chinese manufacturers for sale in Spain or subsequent distribution throughout Europe. What has not been confirmed, in addition to the type of vehicle used, is what manufacturing method will be carried out. The Chery Group in Barcelona uses the DKD method where the local impact is minimal. The companies (Omoda/Jaecoo/Ebro) have repeated that they will increase the number of operations that will be carried out in Barcelona but, for the moment, the cars arrive semi-assembled in containers and on Spanish soil only the last pieces of the puzzle are being put together. At the moment, in its information SAIC (owner of MG) does not refer to whether the cars will arrive more or less assembled on Spanish soil. The more processes that need to be carried out in the Spanish plant, the more direct jobs and the more work will be given to auxiliary companies in the area. “In Europe, for Europe”. That is, according to MG, the maximum of this landing in Galicia. And the company has found a vein in our continent with the sale of cars with all kinds of technologies at very low prices. In Europe it is the Chinese brand that sells the most carsplacing in 2025 a total of 211,014 units in the European Union and 305,717 units if we put the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom into the equation. These sales are understood because the SAIC Group has found in MG a vein to sell cheaply in Europe. The brand, previously British, is not unknown to the public and both its hybrids and electric ones are cheap compared to traditional European proposals. In Spain, so far this year, the MG ZS is among the 10 best-selling non-plug-in hybrids and is the sixth best-selling car in the sum of all technologies, according to ANFAC data. Furthermore, the brand is the tenth best-selling company in our country. Duty. It remains to be known, as we said, what the bet is in terms of specific models but it is clear that the landing of Chinese brands such as BYD in Hungary and Turkey or the Chery Group in Barcelona is directly associated with the implementation of European tariffs on Chinese electric cars. SAIC, which owns MG, is the company facing the highest tariffs. Manufacturing in Europe may allow them to compete, even more, on price, but the European Union has already made it clear that it will be necessary to make a minimum number of investments to consider that the car is European. This does not mean that the car is electric. Although cars with combustion engines do not have tariffs, rumors point to greater European shielding of their economy. And producing in Europe for Europe can help, even more, to lower the price of cars with combustion engines, partially alleviating the economic effort that the company has to make with electric cars. Photo | MG and Counting Stars In Xataka | Spain has a new brand of Chinese cars and it arrives with an ambitious plan: “Five million units by 2030”

35 billion dollars to build the largest airport in the world

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95,192,160 passengers. This is the number of travelers who registered at Dubai International Airport (DXB) in 2025, according to data from Airports Council International (ACI). A figure that elevated it to second place in the world for passenger traffic, only behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States. This last location has been repeating for three years asThe busiest airport in the world and last year it moved 10 million more passengers than Dubai, breaking the barrier of 106 million passengers in a single year. A figure that, year after year, Dubai wants to reduce to become the airport with the highest passenger traffic in the world. And it has a $35 billion plan to achieve it. An airport like no one ever conceived As we said, so far Dubai has remained below 100 million passengers per year. However, the ambition is to break this barrier in just two years. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, assured Time Out that they aspired to break this ceiling soon and that by 2031 they want to reach 113 million passengers. These figures would predictably make them the busiest airport in the world but it has a problem: the current Dubai International Airport (DXB) and remodeling it would cost as much money who, directly, prefer to get a new one. At least that is what they maintain from the Emirate. And in 2010 the Al Maktoum International Airporta space that until now has operated at half throttle and is a ridiculous size compared to its Dubai brother. But in 2024 an expansion was approved to position it as the largest airport in the world with the capacity to handle 260 million passengers in a single year. That is, almost the same passengers as the three busiest airports in the world right now: adding Haneda in Tokyo (third in the world) to those mentioned in Atlanta and Dubai. According to the voices that have defended the project, the problem is that the current airport is so large that maintenance work drives up costs and, they say, it is cheaper to build a gigantic expansion of the current Al Maktoum International Airport than to renovate the famous Dubai International Airport. For this, it has been planned to invest 35,000 million euros to make the current Al Maktoum International Airport the center of the Dubai World Central (DWC), the most ambitious mobility hub in the world. This space has been planned as a megacity with residential spaces, hotels, golf courses… and, above all, the largest airport in the world built by man in its history. Specifically, has been projected that the renovation of the new airport costs $34.85 billion. This figure reflects the ambitions to multiply the size of the DBX by five, building five 4.5 kilometer long landing strips separated by 800 meters. It will have four main concourses and more than 400 doors to operate flights. The intention is that, operationally, the new airport will be operating at higher performance by the end of the decade to make the complete move from the current DBX to the renovated Al Maktoum International Airport in 2032. That year they hope to manage the traffic of 150 million passengers in one year. That is, about 44 million more passengers than the current Atlanta airport, the busiest in the world, handles. These passengers will be distributed across three terminals. The intention is that one of them is dedicated solely to the operations of the Emirates Group and another to international flights. The third will concentrate low-cost flights. In addition, a parking lot with 100,000 spaces is planned for workers only. The intention is to build a high-speed train between both airspaces but to transfer the bulk of the operations to the new construction. Of course, its surroundings and all its services are not expected to be built until 2050. By then, Dubai intends to be able to operate flights with the capacity to move up to 260 million passengers. That is, it should be able to manage half the population of the European Union in a single year. To consolidate this mega-move, the Dubai airport is already working with new biometric recognition and baggage management systems using artificial intelligence as a test before the airlines arrive at the new space. Obviously, the intention is scale operations to mitigate the risk of collapse. Consolidation as the largest mobility hub in the world is not only understood with commercial flights. Dubai wants this new space to be the best place in the world for landing flights. Airbus A380the largest passenger plane in the world, but also the best place to carry out your maintenance and repair work. Likewise, it wants to consolidate itself as a key place for the transportation of goods and have restricted space for the landing and takeoff of private flights to which it will be offered all kinds of luxuries with a huge range of auxiliary services such as the aforementioned hotels, shopping centers and leisure spaces. Photo | DWC and Adam Khan In Xataka | European airlines are taking advantage of the Iran crisis to accelerate something old: making your trip even more complicated.

They have asked 1,600 experts how the Universe works. They don’t agree on almost anything

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We continually read news about new findings that they defy the known physics of the Universe. This may lead us to ask ourselves something: do we know so little about the Universe that absolutely everything challenges it? To answer this question it is important to give a little context. Yes, a lot is known about astrophysics, but when we talk about something as immense as the Universe, even that “a lot” can fall short. Furthermore, much of this information is based on hypotheses that have been accepted as consensus, but not on absolute truths. Therefore, it is not strange that in the largest survey ever conducted It has been proven to astrophysicists and astrophysics fans that there is a lot of disagreement on almost everything related to the cosmos. The largest survey. In 2024, during an astrophysics conference in Copenhagen, a survey was carried out in which 85 experts participated. All of them had to answer a series of questions about some of the best-known theories in astrophysics. With this survey it was seen that there is a lot of disagreement, even in those theories in which there is supposed to be a great consensus. In order to check whether these disagreements were a result of the sample size, a new survey was carried out in 2025, this time with 1,600 people who had to answer 11 questions. Some participants were experts from the American Astrophysical Society. Others were amateur readers of Physics Magazine. With a larger sample, the results were very similar. There is very little consensus. From hypotheses to certainties. Science in general, and astrophysics in particular, is built on hypotheses that evolve as scientific advances are made. For this reason, it is often more full of probabilities than certainties. It is important to differentiate different branches of science. In health sciences, there are certainties. For example, we know that antibiotics attack bacteria and are not useful against viruses, no matter how many people insist on taking them for the flu. We also know that their abuse can be very harmful, since it contributes to the development of resistance in bacteria. Those are certainties, although logically there is also information that evolves over time. In astrophysics, hypotheses accepted by consensus often outnumber certainties. There are very clear certainties, such as that the Earth is not flat or that it revolves around the Sun. But also some hypotheses with which not even experts agree. Cosmic inflation wins. The issue on which there was the greatest consensus in the 2025 survey, the results of which were recently published, was cosmic inflation. That is, the hypothesis that points to an exponential expansion of the Universe which began in its first moments, after the Big Bang. 51% of respondents agreed that this theory explains many problems in cosmology at once and therefore has a high probability of being true. Talking about the Big Bang. The existence of the Big Bang was another of the theories with the greatest consensus in the survey, although the truth is that the figure is nothing to write home about either. 25% of the participants agreed that this event gave rise to the Universe 13.8 billion years ago. On the other hand, there were 68% of people who indicated that the Universe was born at a time when there was a large increase in temperature and density, but they did not indicate when that occurred. Disagreements with dark matter. Gravitational behaviors that do not respond to the observed mass have been observed in the Universe. That is, it seems as if there are massive objects exerting a gravitational attraction on others, but these objects are not detected, not even large accumulations of atoms. There is nothing. 27% of those surveyed consider that this can be explained by the existence of dark matter. However, there are 12% who believe that all this may be due to changes in the behavior of gravity on cosmic scales. That is to say, when we talk about the immensity of the Universe, the gravity exerted by objects is not the same. On the other hand, there are 5% of people who consider that the key is in primordial black holes. Although here we must emphasize that one of the hypotheses about the origin of dark matter is that it is formed in part by primordial black holes, so they would not be denying its existence. String theory to solve incompatibilities. The theory of general relativity was proposed on large, cosmic scales. On the other hand, quantum mechanics talks about the behavior of matter on a subatomic scale. Both questions seem incompatible, but to understand the Universe we need to work at both scales. Therefore, for a long time there has been thought about a theory that helps unify both issues. This, for 19% of those surveyed, is string theory. In it, subatomic particles, instead of being treated as points, are considered vibrational states of a more basic extended object, called a string. Normally, when we try to calculate the energy of a particle by considering it a mathematical point, without extension, we get closer to it eternally. We can do a kind of infinite zoom. On the other hand, when the points are replaced by strings with a minimum length, a result must necessarily be obtained. It does not tend to infinity. On the other hand, in string theory gravity, which not normally considered on a quantum scalearises naturally. Another hypothesis. The point is that, in the survey we are talking about, there are 12% of people who consider that string theory does not solve the problem, but that another theory does: that of loop quantum gravity. This, basically, acts in a completely opposite way. String theory emerges with quantum mechanics as a starting point and tries to find ways to make gravity make sense. On the other hand, the theory of loop quantum gravity starts from the General Theory of Relativity and attempts to quantize it in a way that … Read more

“They are hiring more engineers”

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Are you a software engineer and afraid of getting fired because of AI? Well don’t have it. At least, that is the position of a very interested party in the conversation around artificial intelligence. At this point, the name of Jensen Huang It will not be foreign to you. This is the CEO of Nvidia, a company that has gone from leading the GPU segment for playing video games for two decades to leave that market for focus on AI platforms. We cannot say that they are doing badly, of course, and within the strategy we have a Jensen who has become one of the most important ‘evangelists’ in the segment of the artificial intelligence. Within the framework of the Computex 2026 fair held in Taipei and in which PC manufacturers show their new products, Jensen commented that it is foolish to be afraid that an AI will replace us at work. The logic is that this AI will generate more jobsbut there is a question hanging over that argument: what kind of jobs. Because, if the optimism of all companies focused on the development and popularization of AI is one side of the coin, the other is that of lYoung people who cannot access jobs. And that of the companies themselves firing employees to replace them with… an AI. Jensen Huang is on a mission At Computex, Huang feels at home. Taiwan is home to some of the world’s most important technology companies not so much for their products. There we have giants like Asus, BenQ, Foxconn or Acer (among many others known to gamers). But, above all, we have TSMC. TSMC is the engine of the chip industry and Nvidia its current best client after overtaking Appleand Huang, furthermore, is a rockstar in Taiwan. During his time at the fair, Huang presented his new platform RTX Spark Superchip and a new chip to compete against Intel and AMD in the field of CPUs, but it has also taken advantage of the speaker to demonstrate again your opinion on the future of AI and work. The CEO consider that AI is something positive for both GDP and everyone’s profits, but also pointed out that it is “nonsense” to think that artificial intelligence is leading to people being fired from companies in the profile of software engineers. “The number of software engineers is actually increasing. People talk about AI reducing jobs, but it’s complete nonsense: it’s leading to more software engineers being hired” – Jensen Huang Huang is very vocal on this topic and has spent 2026 taking advantage of any interview, podcast or visit to universities and events to preach about the benefits of AI and the positive relationship between technology and employment. He has gone so far as to say that “AI creates jobs” and that it is the United States’ best opportunity to reindustrialize, pointing out that blaming AI for the very numerous layoffs in industries such as technology and video games is a “too lazy” practice. Now, as in every story, there is part that is true and part that is not so true. On the one hand, Huang is very interested the narrative that AI is a job creator. As we say, it is one of the parties most interested in technology continuing to advance because we are already seeing that it is a sector that moves a lot (a lot) of money and Nvidia is one of those that is taking advantage thanks to both its products and its commercial vision. On the other hand, the reindustrialization discourse is correct. The United States is seeking that reindustrializationthis flowering of the business fabric based on technology and, to this end, it is looking not only for part of its companies to move the industry from Asia to the US, but also to attract giants like the South Korean companies. Samsung and SK Hynix…and the coveted TSMC. Does data kill story? Huang’s argument makes sense. AI creates jobs. What it doesn’t say out loud is what type of job. Because engineers or those who have careers related to the development of AI Yes, it is “easy” to get into jobs related to AI, but the rest, and profiles without much experience, find it increasingly difficult. Technology companies are getting rid of juniorswhich are replaced by AI while those jobs are taken over by developers. AND jobs are opening in record numbers of more than 67,000 offers in engineering and 7,300 in product, but the fine print is that it is almost impossible for young recent graduates to apply for one of these positions due to the high degree of specialization that companies demand. And they are not only the requirements, but the technologies themselves who are citing AI efficiency as a driver for laying off their human workforce. Amazon with 16,000 employees and Microsoft with 15,000 are two examples. Heavyweights like Dario Amodei (CEO of Anthropic) point out that AI could eliminate approximately half of entry-level jobs and there are studies that link AI with almost 55,000 layoffs in the US in 2025 alone. For Huang, all of this is “ridiculous“because it won’t be AI that will make us lose our jobs: it will be because there will be someone who uses AI better than you. Furthermore, according to himAI has created 500,000 jobs in the last two years. And, in the background, we have two currents. On the one hand, the AI ​​optimists. On the other hand, a generation Z that is actively resisting adopting artificial intelligence in their daily lives and, especially at work. Because, compared to those who think that AI is a positive network for humanity because it gives opportunities that favor young people, there are some young people who they can’t find work once they graduate, they are thrown into a disconcerting work scenario and they are starring in a curious soundtrack in recent weeks. That of the boos to the AI ​​evangelists in universities. In Xataka | Companies are … Read more

To move the cutting head of the ‘Monica’ tunnel boring machine, a 152-wheel truck was needed. It’s the key to Australia’s ‘water battery’

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Transporting a gigantic tunnel boring machine to the work point is no small feat, and Madrid has a few things to say about this. However, in Cooma, a small town in the Australian state of New South Wales, they seem to have gotten the hang of it. And the colossal piece of steel crossed its streets at a snail’s pace on a 152 wheel truck. The cargo was part of Snowy 2.0one of the largest energy storage projects in the world. What is it about?. The piece was the central block of the cutting head of the tunnel boring machine named Monica. According to Snowy Hydro, the public company behind the project, this component weighs more than 137 tons and measures seven meters wide. The head is the part that really matters in a tunnel boring machine, since it is the rotating disc that faces the rock and crushes it as it moves. Media deployment. Monica’s head is too big to transport in one piece, so it had to be divided into five parts. Still, just moving the center block required months of preparation. The entire transport reached 73 meters in length, and was moved at night facing the last stretch along the Snowy Mountains Highway, heading to the Marica site, north of Kiandra, where the machine would be assembled. A colossal engineering project. This move was just one piece of a much larger puzzle. The company indicates that in the previous weeks more than 140 large loads were delivered to Marica from the port of Port Kembla, south of Sydney. The tunnel boring machines do not arrive assembled, as they are transported in sections (head, drive system, shields, support platforms) and are assembled on site. In fact, last October, the transport of Monica’s motor system (a component about 207 tons and eight meters wide) brought more than 1,500 people to Cooma, in what Snowy Hydro called one of the largest loads ever transported by road in New South Wales. What is all this for? Snowy 2.0 is, in essence, a gigantic water battery. The project will connect the Tantangara and Talbingo reservoirs through some 27 kilometers of tunnels and an underground power station. The idea is to generate electricity by turbineing water when demand is high and, in times of surplus solar and wind energy, pump it back uphill for reuse. The company assures that it will have a capacity of 2,200 megawatts and enough stored energy to supply about three million homes for a week. Start-up. Last February, Snowy Hydro announced that Monica had been commissioned and would be responsible for excavating the section of the tunnel that crosses the Long Plain fault zone, a geologically complicated area. Designed by the German firm Herrenknecht, the machine advances at one end of the tunnel while another tunnel boring machine, Florence, does so at the opposite. The idea is that both are underground before being dismantled. For those dates the project exceeded 70% execution. Snowy 2.0 has not been without controversy with news of cost overruns and delays, and completion is now scheduled for December 2028. Images | Snowy Hydro In Xataka | Canada is going to debut the residential skyscraper with the most floors in all of North America: it has 12 sides and 351 meters high

The prices of RAM and SSDs are skyrocketing everywhere, but there are alternatives to avoid spending a fortune

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It’s no longer just that the price of RAM memory is through the roof (which also): that of SSDs has followed the same path. Upgrading a PC right now is complicated if you don’t want to spend a fortune trying, but there are alternatives to spend less. The AliExpress Summer Promo has very powerful offers (on mobile phones especially), but also in PC components: you have this 1 TB Netac SSD for 114.80 euros if you use the coupon ‘XATAKAES20‘and pay with PayPal. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Speaking of coupons, AliExpress has right now lots of assets to save on your purchases. We leave them here so that you have them on hand in case you want to make any additional purchases (remember that the coupons cannot be combined). Discount minimum purchase coupon 1 coupon 3 coupon 4 COUPON 3 euros 15 euros XATAKAES03 WEBEDES03 ESSS03 SSES03 6 euros 39 euros XATAKAES06 WEBEDES06 ESSS06 SSES6 10 euros 69 euros XATAKAES10 WEBEDES10 ESSS10 SSES10 20 euros 139 euros XATAKAES20 WEBEDES20 ESSS20 SSES20 30 euros 209 euros XATAKAES30 WEBEDES30 ESSS30 SSES30 45 euros 319 euros XATAKAES45 WEBEDES45 ESSS45 SSES45 65 euros 459 euros XATAKAES65 WEBEDES65 ESSS65 SSES65 110 euros 650 euros XATAKAES110 WEBEDES110 ESSS110 – Upgrading a PC without spending a fortune is still possible Is it a good price? Let’s analyze how the price of SSDs is currently with this one from the Forgeon brand as an example, similar in features. The lowest price for it, also with 1 TB capacity, was 61.95 euros last September. Since then it has done nothing but rise and right now it costs 189.95 euros (reduced from 234.99 euros). In that sense, it is clear that we are looking at a good price with this one from the Netac brand. It is about a NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD able to reach speeds of up to almost 7,400 MB/s read. Of course, a small note: it is necessary that your motherboard is compatible with it. If your board only has PCIe 3.0 connectors, you can also use it, although it will not take full advantage of all its speed. The SSD is sold by the brand itself through AliExpress and shipping is free (delivery is estimated between June 7 and 15). It should also be noted that it is an SSD also compatible with PlayStation 5. DDR4 RAM can still be an interesting solution What if what you need is RAM memory? DDR5 RAM has very inflated prices, but we can find DDR4 RAM at good prices, which remains an interesting option for many usersespecially if your processor and motherboard are a few years old and you don’t want to change them. This Netac RAM memory can do you very well there: two modules of 8 GB of RAM each come out 75.45 euros with the coupon ‘XATAKAES10‘. DDR4 Netac RAM memory at 3,200 MHz (2 modules of 8 GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links As we say, they are two separate modules, so we will have a total of 16 GB of RAM in total. If we take a look at PcComponentes and look for something similar, it is difficult to find the same amount of memory with similar characteristics below 120 euros. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Andrey MatveevAliExpress In Xataka | DDR4 or DDR5? What RAM to choose so as not to pay even more than necessary in the middle of the price crisis In Xataka | Faster (and more expensive) is not always better: the big difference between buying an SSD and an HDD for backups

Wallapop believed it had conquered the second-hand market in Spain. Until Vinted appeared

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Wallapop, formerly known as Fleapster. Wallapop It was founded on May 23, 2013 in Barcelona with that name that referred to the famous “flea markets”. Its promoters, Agustín Gómez, Gerard Olivé and Miguel Vicente, started with the support of the Antai Venture Builder accelerator and an initial catalog that they had obtained by shopping at flea markets. The app was designed to meet someone nearby and do the exchange in person, so geolocation was essential for this first version. The team understood a couple of ideas that gave the app a definitive boost: sending a sofa from Seville to Vigo is a pain, and trust between buyers and sellers grows when the seller is three streets away. To make themselves known, they gave part of the company to Atresmedia in exchange for television advertising space. The result was a campaign that turned “Walla!” into a recognizable catchphrase before anyone knew quite what it meant. Vinted, the power of moving. Vinted has five more years of history. Milda Mitkute ​​founded it in 2008 in Vilnius, Lithuaniawhen I was 22 years old and needed to get rid of more than a hundred clothes before moving. At a party he met Justas Janauskas, a computer engineer who built the first version of the site in ten days. The original name was manodrabuziai.l (“second-hand clothes” in Lithuanian) and in the first version they forgot to include a buy button. The platform expanded to Germany the following year, under the name Kleiderkreiseland did not arrive in Spain until many years laterwhen Wallapop already dominated the local market. Differences in use. The most visible difference between both platforms, and the one that most influences the behavior of their users, is who assumes the costs of the transaction. At Vinted the seller does not pay commission. Publish, sell and receive the full price in your wallet. The buyer assumes a protection fee of 0.70 fixed euros plus 5% of the price of the item, which covers incident management and payment retention until confirmation of receipt. Vinted eliminated seller fees in 2023. At Wallapop, in-person sales have no commission, which for bulky or high-priced items is more profitable for the seller. When Wallapop Envoys is used (the logistics service integrated into the app, which generated 74 million euros in 2024) the platform applies a management fee of around 10% of the sales price. There is also a second way of monetization for the platform, which has grown strongly: visibility services that give more relevance to an ad. generated 22 million euros in 2024, 27.6% more than in 2023. An important income for Wallapop, since it represents money for the platform regardless of whether the sale closes. The figures. Let’s look at some figures from 2024 and 2025 that allow us to trace the real state of each company. Vinted closed 2024 with 813 million euros in revenue36% more than the previous year, and a net profit of 76.7 million, which represents an increase of 330% compared to 2023, its first positive year. In 2025, Revenues rose to 1.1 billion (+38%). Net profit, however, fell 19% that year to 62 million due to spending on the expansion of Vinted Go to Spain and Portugal and the launch of Vinted Pay. Wallapop, for its part, closed 2024 with 101 million in revenue (+13%)consolidated losses of 25 million and the first break-even operating in the Spanish market since its foundation. In an average year, platform users generate sales of between 2,000 and 2,500 million euros, according to the company itself. Since 2013 it has accumulated more than 120 million euros in lossesalthough the trend is for a sustained reduction in those red numbers. Enter Korea. This same year, Naver, South Korea’s largest technology company, completed in January 2026 the acquisition of 100% of the company in an operation valued at 600 million euros. The transaction makes Wallapop the European spearhead of Naver in the recommercejoining Poshmark, which already performs these functions in the US and which the Korean group bought in 2023. The CEO of Naver Europe, Seokjoo Han, declared in Barcelona that the group intends to use the city as a base to expand into more European cities, relying on the parent company’s capabilities in artificial intelligence and search. Southern Europe: here we are. What is happening right now in Spain is the clearest reflection of the evolution of the sector. The trade in reused items in Spain reached a volume of 13.8 billion euros annually by 2025equivalent to 0.86% of the national GDP. It is a market that has been growing at a faster rate than general consumption for years, driven by inflation since 2021. Vinted has responded to this situation with the launch of Vinted Go in 2025. The company already operates this network in five markets (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain), following the leap that Wallapop made some time ago from being a second-hand app to having a delivery infrastructure (although Vinted has its own logistics operator and Wallapop works with InPost). Wallapop, meanwhile, has been expanding its catalog beyond household objects for years. The engine is one of the categories where it maintains leadership in Spain. And the entry of Naver introduces the possibility of technological improvements in search and personalization that until now were out of reach. Both are getting closer to their rival as time goes by: Vinted is becoming less specialized in clothing, Wallapop is becoming more technological. A final and personal appreciation. Without this implying tipping the balance towards one of the two apps (which is not the purpose of this article), I would like to express my personal experience, linked to my long career selling items especially related to leisure (books, comics, movies, video games). For some time I have noticed how Vinted, which just a couple of years ago did not allow you to buy much beyond clothing, has made a very notable leap towards collecting: its presence in … Read more

The engineers who worked at FSD do not trust their own creation

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Elon Musk has been ensuring for a decade that full autonomous driving is just around the corner. Although the company has advanced in its driving assistance systems, a Reuters investigation reveals something worrying. Several people who worked on this project have denounced that the technology continues to suffer from basic and dangerous errors, and they confess that they would not get into a Tesla autonomous car for the world. what has happened. In this investigation, Reuters had the testimonies of nine “data taggers”—the people who train that Tesl AI system—as well as a software engineer who worked on the project. According to them, vehicles with these systems collide with animals, ignore the presence of school buses or accelerate in construction zones. One of the team’s veterans summed up everything in one sentence: “we have all seen the FSD fail.” Beware of public demos. Tesla has already launched robotaxi pilot programs in cities like Austin (Texas). Musk claims that his software is a generalized system that can be adapted to any city without high-precision maps, but these interviewees indicate that the operational reality is different. The trick. Tesla staff spent months recording videos and mapping the area of ​​Austin where the tests were to take place, and they spent hundreds of hours labeling curbs or road markings just to avoid problems during the demonstrations. According to these former employees, this level of intervention is unaffordable on a global scale. Comparing pears with apples. To maintain that the FSD system is up to ten times safer than human driving, Tesla uses a methodology criticized by experts. For example, he compares his cars (4.1 years old on average, modern safety systems) with the average American car, which is almost 13 years old. Phil Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, explained that “It’s like saying my jet plane is faster than a World War II bomber.” The data reveals that if only accidents with airbag deployment are compared, Tesla’s advantage would not be 10 to 1, but 3 to 1, and even that figure is questionable. The controversial “Mad Max” mode. Internal videos have shown Tesla cars driving at speeds much higher than those allowed after the introduction of certain aggressive driving modes like the so-called “Mad Max”. Some of the employees who participated in the investigation reported cars traveling at almost 100 km/h in zones limited to 40 km/h. This aggressive driving is often treated as a low priority problem by its engineers, despite the risk it poses to road safety in these urban environments. Investigations in progress. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) currently has four open investigations into FSD and Autopilot. These cases include situations in which Tesla vehicles ignored red traffic lights or they turned directly into oncoming traffic. Fatal accidents that occurred are also being investigated in low visibility conditions —fog, sun glare—, and where the Tesla sensors, which are focused entirely on the use of cameras, have turned out to be insufficient. Where are the robotaxis? Almost a year after its launch in Austin, Tesla’s fleet of robotaxis it’s still tinyand consists of about 50 vehicles. It is also limited to very specific areas, and in cities like Dallas or Houston, users have complained that the cars do not drop them off at their exact destination. Besides, many of these vehicles They still have human drivers in the passenger seat who are there to avoid problems. It’s a reasonable practice, but it destroys the promise of full unattended autonomy that these vehicles offer. In Xataka | Elon Musk has come up with two names for Tesla’s self-driving taxi. And legally you can’t put any on it

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