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The US has more than 800 F-35 fighters in service. Only one in four is ready to do everything he should

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We have talked many times about F-35 as one of the great symbols of American air power, but its most pressing problem is not in the capabilities that have made it a centerpiece of US military aviation, nor even in the number of units planned for the coming decades. It’s on land. The latest GAO report once again puts numbers on the tension: the US has many F-35s, but the fleet spends much less time fully prepared than it should. Deterioration. According to the GAOthe rate mission capable It measures the percentage of time in which an aircraft can fly and perform at least one of its assigned missions. The rate full mission capableon the other hand, measures when you can fulfill all of them. In fiscal year 2025, the US F-35 fleet recorded 44% in the first category and just 25% in the second. Simply put: America’s F-35s can do something a limited portion of the time, but are only fully ready a quarter of the time. Background. The report shows that the problem has been accumulating for several years. Between fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2025, the rate mission capable of the fleet fell from 67% to 44%, while the rate full mission capable fell from 38% to 25%. The difference matters because we are not facing a minor maintenance oscillation, but rather a sustained loss of availability. What we have seen is a fleet that remains central to the United States, but that spends less and less time in a position to fulfill its missions. New planes, old problems. One of the most striking parts of the document is that the 2025 drop is not explained only by aging devices or accumulated wear. Air Force officials attributed part of the decline to the acceptance of new aircraft that could not fulfill missions due to software delays. Added to this were the shortage of parts and inspection and repair work due to corrosion. The report also points to maintenance not optimized to reduce workload or time on the ground, and to high technical complexity due to the continuous development of the program. Global Support Solution Reset. The F-35 Joint Program Office launched this update to its sustainment strategy in June 2025, with an ambitious goal for 2030: to bring the rate mission capable at 80% and the full mission capable 65% in the fleet as a whole. On paper, it is the attempt to correct years of accumulated problems in maintenance, parts and industrial support. More money, not necessarily more margin. The solution is not only to reorganize processes or order more parts from the industry. It also requires a considerable budget injection. The document estimates that an additional $13.7 billion will be needed through fiscal year 2031, although not all of that money officially belongs to the GSS Reset. The Joint Program Office itself places that part at about 2.2 billion. The other 11.5 billion covers a wider gap: what the military branches had planned to spend versus what sustaining the fleet actually demands. The most expensive plane also becomes more expensive on the ground: The problem does not end with availability or missing parts. Since 2021, according to the report, F-35 sustainment costs have continued to rise while the program has not met its performance goals and its performance has continued on a downward trend. The scale helps understand why it matters: the F-35 is the Department of Defense’s most expensive weapons system, with sustainment costs for the United States estimated at $1.6 trillion over its lifetime, according to 2024 figures. By the mid-2030s, military branches would face an annual gap of more than $1 billion between what it will cost to sustain their F-35s and what they consider affordable. The exit. Auditors propose risk mitigation plans for initiatives such as the GSS Reset, a review of contractual incentives and a reliable system to record what is paid, why it is paid and with what results. The Department of Defense said it agreed with the recommendations, according to the report, but the challenge remains intact. The F-35 will remain a centerpiece of American military aviation for decades. The question is whether the US will achieve that this centrality is measured less by the number of aircraft purchased and more by how many are ready when needed. Images | Aawyer Andrews In Xataka | The European fighter may have died, but there is a plan B to avoid the F-35. One with Spain, Germany and an unexpected guest

China has a quantum platform for computing. Now he wants to turn it into an “attack and defense” system.

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For years we have talked about quantum computing as holding the promise of calculation: machines capable of tackling problems that conventional computers cannot solve, or cannot solve at a useful speed. But that same promise also opens a security front that is difficult to ignore. If sufficiently powerful quantum computers ever exist, part of the encryption that sustains our digital lives could be left in a delicate position. That is why the case of Origin Wukong is interesting: the story coming from China not only seeks to show the ability to calculate, it also wants to present it as a piece of cryptographic defense. What is Origin Wukong. The name may lead one to imagine a specific machine, but the case is something more similar to a remotely available quantum computing platform. According to Global TimesOrigin Wukong is part of a Chinese series of superconducting quantum computers and is linked to the Origin Quantum environment and the quantum research carried out in Anhui, in eastern China. The data that gives it dimension is not only technical: the statement collected by the media speaks of more than 1 million quantum computing tasks completed, more than 49 million remote visits from 192 countries and regions. The new defensive layer. The novelty is not only in the use that Origin Wukong has accumulated, but in how that infrastructure is now presented. The media claims that the platform has integrated a post-quantum cryptography framework and that this allows it to offer a double capacity, aimed at both computing and security. The text itself speaks of “defensive security measures”, an early “spear and shield” model and an “attack and defense” system. What post-quantum cryptography means. We are not talking about an automatic solution or a technology that makes any system invulnerable. According to NISTpost-quantum cryptography is based on encryption methods supported by mathematical problems that are difficult to solve both for conventional computers and for future quantum computers. The nuance matters because the risk is not in current everyday equipment, but in a generation of quantum processors much more powerful than those available today. That is the logic that allows us to understand why Origin Wukong is now also presented in a defensive key. Why does it matter anymore?. The problem does not only affect military documents or state secrets. NIST reminds us that encryption protects everything from emails and medical records to banking, e-commerce, personal photos and sensitive information of governments and companies. In addition, there is a particularly uncomfortable threat: that of capturing encrypted data today to try to decrypt it in the future, when more capable quantum machines exist. That is why the transition cannot be left to the last minute: integrating new algorithms into products and services can take between 10 and 20 years. Technical caution. All this does not mean that quantum computing has already solved its major obstacles. NIST reminds that the field is still in an early phase and that there are still significant challenges before building quantum computers powerful enough to break current encryption. IBM also highlights one of the best-known barriers: qubits are delicate, require extreme cooling conditions and can lose stability due to decoherence. Images | Anhui Quantum Computing Research Center In Xataka | Microsoft believed it would take decades to have a useful quantum computer. Majorana 2 just pushed that deadline to 2029

You don’t need to buy ‘Flight Simulator’ to explore the world. Google Earth has just put it at our fingertips

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I have long been a fan of ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator‘. That is why I followed with special interest his arrival in PS5: I wanted to try it beyond the PC, not only because of the possibility of piloting an aircraft, but because of something that has always attracted me to the game: exploring landscapes, looking for frames and using the photo mode almost as a small tool to explore the world from the screen. And that fascination makes sense precisely because Microsoft has worked for years to make ‘Flight Simulator’ much more than an airplane game. The company speaks in ‘Flight Simulator 2024‘ of its most detailed recreation of planet Earth to date, with improved elevation maps, more than 500 cities recreated with 3D models based on irregular triangular networks and more than 100,000 square kilometers of rural photogrammetry. The novelty is that now there is a much lighter way to get closer to that experience without going through a full game or installing anything on your computer. Google Earth announced last Friday that his flight simulator It is now available for all users. Fly without installing anything, directly from the browser Google Earth is not trying to sell us a full-fledged flight simulator, and that works in its favor. On their help pageGoogle describes the feature as experimental, available only in Earth on the web, and geared toward a casual exploration experience. He also warns that the flight physics is simplified, so if what we are looking for is a simulation in its most demanding sense, this is certainly not it. But it may be interesting to try it, draw our own conclusions and discover another way of exploring the world in images. If you want to start trying it, the path is quite simple. You just have to open Google Earth on the webenter Explore the Earthdisplay the Tools menu and click on Flight Simulator. The option appears within the menu itself. In a matter of seconds you go from the traditional map to a flight view, with the interface ready to start moving over the terrain. Once inside, the management also focuses on the immediate. Google allows you to control the plane with the keyboard: Page up to accelerate, Page down to reduce thrust, the up and down arrows to change the altitude and the side arrows to tilt the aircraft. You can also turn mouse control on or off by clicking inside the simulation. And if things go wrong, which can go wrong pretty quickly at first, the option to start over after impact appears. The most attractive part is that Google Earth dynamically loads 3D buildings and high-resolution images while you fly. This allows us to turn a very simple function into a quite interesting visual experience, especially if we choose recognizable areas and we change the basemap to Satellite when necessary. However, Google also warns that flying at extreme speeds or with a slow connection can cause temporary delays in loading. There are, in addition, known problems in some areas of the field, so it is best to assume it for what it is: a light and still experimental function. Then there is the other option, of course: taking a real plane. In specific searches on services such as Skyscanner we have seen flights from Spain for less than 40 euros, always depending on route, date and availability. Looking at an image from the browser is not the same as looking out the window and seeing how the landscape changes under the clouds. But that is precisely why it makes sense to bring it here: we are talking about different experiences, different ways of moving, looking and playing with the idea of ​​traveling. The interesting thing about Google Earth is taking a tool that many of us have used for years to explore the planet and adding a simple playful layer to it, free and accessible from the browser. It doesn’t always take a complex simulation to spark that curiosity. Sometimes a small, well-placed function is enough to make us look at the map again and want to get lost for a while. Images | Screenshots In Xataka | After marathons and combats, humanoid robots already have their next challenge: climbing Everest

This is what the new iRobot Roomba are like

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We have new Roombas. The new iRobot robot vacuum cleaners can now be purchased in Spain (with one exception that will arrive this month) and, as usual, they all have their strengths. We are going to talk to you about the new models, specifically their versions that are available on Amazon. These are identical in features to those that we can find in the brand’s official store, but they have two differences: the name and which include more accessories. Roomba Plus 416 Combo with AutoWash Base We start with the cheapest of all, the Roomba Plus 416 Combo. This new generation has 21% slimmer designwhich makes it easier to fit through narrow gaps or under furniture. It vacuums and scrubs in a single pass and has an anti-tangle rubber that is especially effective with pet hair. In addition, it has LiDAR mapping and has a technology called SmartScrub that applies additional pressure to eliminate those remains that refuse to disappear. To all this, we must add the base that it includes, which reduces (a lot) the maintenance that the robot vacuum cleaner requires. Part of the 549 euros and, as we have mentioned before, It comes with extra accessories that the 415 Combo model does not come with.. Specifically, there are six: three waste bags and three sets of rotating mops for the mop. These are the same ones that the next two models come with. Roomba Plus 416 Combo Base AutoWash The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Roomba Plus 516 Combo with AutoWash Base We continue with the next model, in this case the Roomba Plus 516 Combo. It is a robot vacuum cleaner that is one step above the previous one, with an improved LiDAR system to detect obstacles and an even finer design. Its suction power reaches up to 22,000 Paso it is especially effective in houses or apartments where we have pets. To all this we must add that the base washes the mops with hot water. Costs 649 euros. iRobot Roomba Plus 516 Multifunction Self-Cleaning AutoWash Base Combo, 22KPa, Liftable and Extendable DualClean Mops, Washes 75º, Dry 45º, Clearview LiDAR, Autonomy 90 Days, Extra Accessories, Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Roomba Plus 576 Combo with AutoWash Base The next is the Roomba Plus 576 Combo, which has even greater suction power (25,000 Pa). The main difference of this model compared to the previous ones is that, in addition to the LiDAR system, tIt also recognizes objects and obstacles with artificial intelligence. This way, your movement around the home is much cleaner. It is especially recommended in large houses where children live and its price is 749 euros. Of course, it must be taken into account that shipping for this model is expected from July 20. iRobot Roomba Plus 576 Multifunction AutoWash Combo and Base, 25KPa, DualClean PerfectEdge Mops, Heat Washing/Drying, AI, PrecisionVision, Clearview Pro LiDAR, 90 days autonomy, Extra Accessories, Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 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 | iRobot In Xataka | Best quality-price air conditioners 2026. Which one to buy and seven recommended models for less than 800 euros In Xataka | Best upright vacuum cleaners. Which one to buy based on use and six recommended models

the latest from the director of ‘Longlegs’, streaming in two days

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Oz Perkins has become one of the key names in modern horror thanks to films like ‘Longlegs’ (127 million grossed with a budget of less than 10) or ‘The Monkey’, which adapted a story by Stephern King, all filmed and released in record time. With them still fresh he arrivedKeeper‘, his third feature film in sixteen months, endorsed by Guillermo del Toro, Bong Joon-ho and James Wan. In theaters it did not attract as much attention as its predecessors, but from this Thursday you have the opportunity to see with your own eyes if Perkins is the last great master of horror or a bluff in Movistar Plus. ‘Keeper’ was filmed while work on ‘The Monkey’ was paralyzed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023. With these time and budget restrictions, a single location and a small cast were chosen: the film follows a couple celebrating their first anniversary in an isolated cabin in the countryside, where the dark secrets of one of them begin to emerge. In this way, Perkins turns topics such as control in the couple or toxic masculinity into horror material. The film relies entirely on the work of its two protagonists, especially that of Tatiana Maslany, known for ‘Orphan Black’ and Marvel’s ‘She-Hulk’. But The most striking thing about the experience is its wonderful monstersappearances and special effects: beings with faces frozen in an infinite scream, creatures with multiple faces, twisted necks… However, the film did not convince. The opening weekend numbers were the worst of Perkins’ directing career. ‘Keeper’ only cost 6 million dollars, and even so, it fell short when it came to recovering the investment, with 6.2 million dollars in collection that pale in comparison to the aforementioned 128 of ‘Longlegs’ or the 68 of ‘The Monkey0. Still, it is a wonderful claustrophobic nightmare that makes clearer than ever everything that Perkins owes to Cronenberg, Aster or Argento. Now you have the perfect opportunity to re-fish it. In Xataka | Today the new film ‘The Lord of the Rings’ arrives on Netflix by surprise, whose genesis is as interesting as its plot

when AI doesn’t free you from work, but instead creates a new task that ends up exhausting you more

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Imagine that you hire someone to help you manage your email. Of course, the first week you have to explain to him how you like him filter messages and tell you the most urgent thing. The second week, you correct the mistakes he is making and, for the third week, you have to explain again what you already taught him the first week because he forgot the instructions. At the end of the month, you have a helper, but it takes longer than before because not only do you have to be aware of what he is doing, but you also have to manage your email. That is, in essence, what is happening right now with AI at work, according to the report. Work AI Index of the Glean Institute, carried out by researchers from the universities of Stanford, Berkeley and Notre Dame. According to their findings, employees spend an average of 6.4 hours per week making AI work. Almost one day of work lost every week. Time is not saved, it is transformed. 87% of workers who participated in the study acknowledge that they use AI at work. Of these, 75% affirm that AI makes them more productivesaving them approximately 11 hours per week with automation alone. However, only 13% of companies claim to obtain a real increase in productivity. The gap between what the individual perceives and what the companies’ results show is enormous, and the report has an explanation: those hours do not disappear, they are only redirected towards a new layer of work that no one was taking into account. The authors have called this new task botsitting (a play on words that translates as “bot care”) which consists of little more than “AI kangaroo” to give context to the tool, review errors in the results it generates, relaunch prompts that do not go well and clean up results that seem correct, but are actually full of invented data or hallucinations. As Rebecca Hinds, director of the Work AI Institute, describes, this guardianship is “often tedious and exhausting work”, which no one measures or rewards, so the time that AI saves ends up being a loan that you have to return a few hours later. Too many tools and context switches. The researchers highlight that part of this excess time spent using AI not only comes from reviewing its results but also from how each tool is used. 77% of respondents use multiple AI tools each week, and a third of participants combine four or more. Each jump from one app to another has a cost of time which is rarely countedbut that implies repeating the same instructions or rewriting the prompt on another system because the previous model did not deliver the expected result. Nearly half of workers (46.5%) have to jump between two or more AI tools to complete a single task. Researchers call it the “toggle tax”, the cognitive tax of constantly changing context. Harvard Business Review already calculated the cognitive cost of changing applications and the consulting firm McKinsey calculated that workers waste an average of almost two hours a day searching for information between tools, inboxes and chats. AI, which is sold as the panacea of ​​productivityhas only added a new layer to that chaos instead of reducing it. Of the botsitting to the botshitting. The study found that when the worker spends too much time fixing AI bugs and maintains its delivery deadlines, begins to skip reviewing the results, generating something that the report has called botshitting or “bot crap” which would be delivering work generated by AI without having previously verified. 69% of the participants admitted to having done this at least on occasion. The consequences go beyond the quality of the work itself, when that content reaches the next link in the production chain. without anyone having reviewed itsomeone who did not produce it you have to clean it. That is, both the cost and the time are transferred to another person, but you don’t save that much as it seems. To no one’s surprise, more AI doesn’t solve the problem. Bob Sutton, professor emeritus at Stanford and founding member of the Work AI Institute who produced this report, has pointed out On other occasions, one of the solutions usually taken from management positions when a process generates friction is to add more of that element. In this case, trying to solve a problem of misuse of AI…with more AI. The data in the report suggests that the organizations that are ahead are not those that use AI the most. They are those that have built what the authors call “human infrastructure.” 53% of workers say that the information they need does not come through their AI systems. In companies where it does arrive, employees are 64% less exhausted and are 52% less likely to deliver works that have not been reviewed. In Xataka | OpenAI assures that AI has not had that much impact on employment. Anthropic believes just the opposite and therein lies the problem Image | Unsplash (Flipsnack)

After the failure of ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’, ‘Star Wars’ must follow the advice of ‘Andor’

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Memorial Day weekend 2026 should have been Dave Filoni’s and, by extension, ‘Star Wars‘. The first film in the franchise in seven years was released, starring the characters that he and Jon Favreau had turned into a global phenomenon, perhaps the only one that has transcended beyond fans of the series since Disney bought the saga. Instead, ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ has been the worst premiere in the history of the franchise under the aegis of Disney. And Filoni, who In January he took the reins of Lucasfilmnow has to decide what to do with the franchise. The figures. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu opened on May 22 with $81 million at the domestic box office over the three-day weekend, below Disney’s previous franchise low of $84 million.Han Solo: A Star Wars Story‘ grossed on the same holiday weekend in 2018. If we add the fourth day of this weekend, including Memorial Day Monday, very important for the box office, the film reached 100 million domestic and 163–167 million worldwide. It is not a catastrophic figure, but in the second weekend the film fell 70%, dropping to third place. In the third he had already left the top 5. Unlike ‘Han Solo’, which came with a production bill of over $300 million and grossed $392 million worldwide (becoming the first film in ‘Star Wars’ history to lose money in theaters), ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ was the franchise’s cheapest production in the Disney era: about $165 million. With that cost, and looking at the numbers in the rest of the world, around 315 million for the moment, the balance is not that of a financial catastrophe. But it says a lot about the public’s current perception of the franchise. Terror arrives. Although it apparently doesn’t have much to do with it, it’s worth looking at who did sweep the box office that weekend: two horror films from very young directors trained on YouTube. ‘Backrooms‘, practically matching the opening of the ‘Star Wars’ movie, and ‘Obsession’, with three weeks in theaters with great numbers. But the important thing is the ages: 86% of the ‘Backrooms’ audience was under 35 years old, and 44% under 21. In ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ the percentage of the 25-year-old audience was 27%. It is not just any detail: it is that audience that ensures that the films do not collapse at the box office in the second weekend, because they recommend the premieres to their friends and on networks. Dave Filoni: perfect imperfect. When Dave Filoni arrived at Lucasfilm, his first project was to direct the animated film ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ in 2008, kicking off the series. There he found a vein: rescuing second-rate characters from the expanded universe and giving them new depth. He did it, for example, with his most beloved recreation: the Jedi Ahsoka Tano. In the company of Jon Favreau, he applied that same method to live action with ‘The Mandalorian’, still today the most successful ‘Star Wars’ series on Disney+. However, the series worked because it hit the nostalgia of Generation Alpha and Baby Boomers, but that is not enough to sustain the film. What is now on the table. It is clear that Disney has to bet all its cards on revitalizing the franchise with ‘Star Wars: Starfighter‘, starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy, and scheduled for release in 2027. It is an original idea, approved by Kennedy before his departure, and is not linked to the MandoVerso. It will be the first real chance to see if ‘Star Wars’ can work with new faces, new history and without the burden of continuity. It was said that Filoni would direct a new MandoVerso film, featuring Ahsoka and Grand Admiral Thrawn, but obviously, with the box office disappointment of this first feature, those plans may have been foiled. Before leaving, Kennedy planned a new trilogy led by Simon Kinberg (‘Rebels’, ‘Logan’, ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’), and with clear guidelines: new characters and story, finally abandoning the burden of the Skywalker saga. Where is the solution. It is worth paying attention to an observation made by Tom Bissell, screenwriter of the acclaimed second season of ‘Andor’, on the Backstory Magazine podcast. There, Bissell remembered the advice of showrunner Tony Gilroy on joining the team: resist the urge to open the toy box and take them all out, and instead try to leave more toys than there were when you arrived, thinking as a storyteller instead of a child. ‘Andor’ followed the beginning to the letter, without cameos or characters rescued from oblivion. ‘Andor‘ used the ‘Star Wars’ perch to propose a vibrant story of fascism, surveillance and resistance that could have been filmed without ships or ray guns. Result: 22 Emmy nominations between the two seasons and 5 wins in 2025, including Best Writing in a Drama. According to The WrapFiloni would have privately expressed his disagreement with ‘Andor’ (something that was later denied), but given the failure of this last film, perhaps Bissell was closer to the key to the future of the franchise than Filoni himself. Maybe it’s time to put aside the toy box and create new toys. In Xataka | Before selling ‘Star Wars’, George Lucas imagined a megalomaniacal series: 10 times more expensive than a movie in the saga

Spain has so many reservoirs that it practically cannot build more. So in Aragon they are expanding them

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The town hall of Fraga (Huesca) has started the necessary works to raise the dam of the 190,000 m³ reservoir that supplies the city by two meters. It may seem like a detail, something almost anecdotal in a country with 1,200 reservoirs and more than 56,000 hm³. And it is. However, it is also the perfect metaphor for the enormous problem that is brewing at the bottom of our swamps. The end of the Spanish miracle. For practical purposes, Spain does not build new dams because it already has 1,200. It is, in fact, one of the countries in the world with the most dams and, although there are some areas that could be ‘usable’, these are increasingly scarce, smaller and most unsustainable at an environmental level. That is to say, even if we wanted to, we could not grow our reservoir capacity much. And there is no shortage of examples of this: Mularroya, in Zaragoza, has the dam completed, but with a nullity sentence for failing to comply with the Water Framework Directive; Biscarrués, in Huesca, is still under studybut the controversy over its environmental impact is enormous; Almudévar, although it has been completed for years, cannot be filled due to lack of pumping capacity. Building a dam in the 80s was already almost impossible and the situation has only gotten worse. In fact, in the last 15 years, Only 20 reservoirs have been inaugurated, totaling 803.6 hm³ A problem that is little talked about. The country loses about 100 hm³/year due to clogging while the CEDEX projected falls runoff of -11%/-14% in the next 40 years. In other words, the real problem with Spanish reservoirs is not that we cannot build more, it is that the mud and sediments are robbing us of storage capacity. Mequinenza has already lost 10% of its capacity And what do we do? That is the big question and it is where the example of the Fraga town hall is most interesting. Because many engineers have been arguing for years that, if we cannot create new dams on virgin valleys, we can still grow existing dams. In Yesa, between Navarra and Aragón, the work (the most emblematic of this approach) would allow up to 1,079 hm³ to be added. More than the 803 of the other approach. Right now, as far as we know, the work is stopped due to some allegations. Where it has been carried out is in Santolea, Teruel, adding 81.75 hm³ to the original reservoir. And why isn’t the process accelerated? Largely because many people believe that the dam model has reached its peak and believe that we must kill the culture of the reservoir: The storage capacity already exceeds the available water and adding more empty glasses does not create the water on its own. The water war is one of the fiercest battles in the Spain of the future. And I don’t think anyone knows how to sign a peace treaty. Imagwn | Yoann Laheurte In Xataka | Our reservoirs have a serious structural problem. And experts have been warning us for years.

a group of scientists just changed it

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Predict a solar flare it’s not simple. What is normally done is to use high-resolution instruments to follow the propagation of a coronal mass ejection that has already occurred and thus decide whether precautions should be taken on Earth. Unfortunately, there is not always time to design an action plan. Therefore, the ideal would be to predict the solar flare before it occurs. Until now, this has not been possible. However, last May a team of scientists from the New Jersey Institute of Technology discovered a series of changes in the atmosphere of the sun that could be the prelude to a solar flare. Three parameters. These scientists they observed that in the three hours before a solar flare, very specific changes occurred in three parameters of the plasma that makes up the solar atmosphere. Brightness, movement towards or against the observer and non-thermal speed. The latter measures certain turbulent changes and low-scale motions in the plasma. It was seen that, during the indicated period, all these parameters increase. But, in addition, within this increase, there are also regular cycles that last between 18 and 21 minutes. At the moment it has only been observed before a solar eruption, but if it is observed in others it could be the prediction we have been waiting for for so long. The right place at the right time. The authors of this study worked with the help of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) from NASA, whose mission is to concisely analyze very narrow fragments of the solar atmosphere. They used it to analyze a region of the Sun in which several solar flares had been detected in recent days. This meant that It was a very active regionalthough it could not be known for sure that another solar flare would occur. However, they were fortunate that they did indeed have the right instruments in the right place at the right time. The risks. Solar flares are explosions of electromagnetic radiation that occur in the solar atmosphere. They are often followed by solar flares, in which, in addition to radiation, powerful bursts of plasma are produced. That is, a large number of electrically charged particles are shot from the Sun. When these gusts When they impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, they can be deflected or penetrate through it and reach the atmosphere of our planet. If that happens, phenomena as beautiful as auroras or as dangerous as geomagnetic storms can occur. These generally do not pose a risk to humans, but they do alter our telecommunications infrastructureswith everything that entails. We will have to investigate more. At the moment, it is not known why these changes in the plasma occur just before a solar flare. In fact, further research will be necessary to verify whether these changes in the plasma also occur with other solar flares. If so, astrophysicists might finally have tools to predict geomagnetic storms well in advance. There would be no need to wait for the flare, time could be gained. In cases like this, time is money. Image | POT In Xataka | A sunspot 17 times larger than Earth caused red auroras across half the world. It is a very rare event

opinions, first contact and photos

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So far this year, between January and May 2026, 62,388 plug-in hybrid cars have been sold in Spain. 16% of these sales are accumulated by BYD Seal U DM-i and BYD Atto 2 DM-ithe two best-selling cars in Spain powered by this technology. A proposal that is not only the best-selling, has also opened a gap with the Toyota C-HR which last year fought to be the best-selling in Spain among plug-in hybrids. The Chinese company has found a market niche to exploit. The first of those mentioned above served as a thermometer to verify that the water in the electric car pool was still somewhat cold in our country and that it was worth betting on a technology that, as they told us On the brand presentation day back in 2023, they were not going to offer. Now, with the spaces of the large plug-in hybrid family SUV and the compact SUV covered, the urban SUV remained to be covered. A segment where, directly, the company does not have any type of rival. And the fact is that electrifying the B segment and the concessions that have to be made with it have discouraged manufacturers. The BYD Dolphin G DM-i arrives with the purpose of being a best-seller where it has no rival. BYD Dolphin G DM-i technical data sheet byd Dolphin (204 HP with 60.4 kWh battery) BODY TYPE. Compact five-seater SUV MEASUREMENTS AND WEIGHT. 4,160 meters long, 1,770 meters wide, 1,570 meters high and 2,700 meters wheelbase. Weight to be confirmed. TRUNK. 425 liters. MAXIMUM POWER. 156 kW (212 hp) WLTP CONSUMPTION. Active version: 2.6 l/100 km and 40 km of autonomy Boost, Comfort and Sport version: 1.4 l/100 km and 105 km of autonomy ENVIRONMENTAL DISTINCTIVE. Zero emissions DRIVING AIDS (ADAS). Automatic emergency braking, intelligent speed limit information, detection of vehicles in the blind spot, intelligent cruise control, LED lighting, 360º parking camera, rear parking sensors. OTHERS. Own software compatible with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Google services starting with Boost version or higher. 10.1-inch (Active) and 12.8-inch (Boost, Comfort and Sport) screen. Heated seats and steering wheel. ELECTRIC HYBRID. No. Plug-in HYBRID. Yeah. Active version: 175 HP and 40 km of autonomy Boost, Comfort and Sport version: 212 HP and 105 km of autonomy electric No. price and release Now available without aid or discounts: Active: €25,200 Boost: €28,200 Comfort: €29,700 Sport: €30,700 Now available with (advance) aid and discounts: Active: €18,700 Boost: €21,376 Comfort: €22,846 Sport: €23,826 When you are your own rival On March 31, 2023 we counted the arrival of BYD to Spain. 27 days later we tell that Plug-in hybrids are not for small cars. In that article we explained that the B segment was left orphaned by plug-in hybridization with the discontinuation of the Renault Captur that featured this technology. The plug-in hybrid in the low ranges has had two obvious problems. The first, almost testimonial trunks, victims of much larger batteries than those of a non-plug-in hybrid. And, above all, the price. Electrifying this type of car was so expensive that the final cost for the customer skyrocketed. The result was very low sales and a price that kept rising to compensate. In the case of the Renault Captur, In 2020 the car already cost 30,160 euros (today it would be 37,941 euros, using the INE calculator to update the price). The SUV could cover 50 kilometers in completely electric mode and its trunk was reduced from more than 400 liters of the non-electrified versions to just 265 liters. It’s not the worst. Compared to the basic versions, the plug-in hybrid was 151% more expensive in 2023 than the more modest options, making it difficult to justify the investment. The departure of the Captur seemed to represent the death of the small plug-in hybrid. But BYD has set out to conquer this market as well. The same old BYD recipe “The BYD Dolphin G DM-i is an electric car to which we added an efficient 98 HP 1.5 naturally aspirated engine,” BYD tells us before we get into the cars. And, perhaps, that is the key to everything. Until now, what we have seen among plug-in hybrids were adaptations of combustion versions to a more electrified proposal, putting the batteries where they could. BYD’s small plug-in hybrid comes from the opposite proposal. The car is based on the electric car, which allows it to add a battery without sacrificing trunk space. That is why the most modest version has a 7.4 kWh battery that allows it to travel 40 kilometers, but the most ambitious ones increase this to 18.3 kWh and reach 105 kilometers in completely electric mode according to the WLTP combined cycle. In the city, the autonomy reaches up to 150 km before depleting the battery. This allows you to kill two birds with one stone. The first thing is that the trunk and space for rear passengers remains intact, with a cargo space of 425 liters, which keeps it a very valid option for long trips. The second thing is that it works as a parallel series hybrid. That is, the vast majority of the time, it is the electric motors that drive the wheels and, if necessary, the gasoline engine can do the same but most of the time it will act as an electricity generator for the battery. With this system, the car feels like an electric car and the engine works at the most efficient rpm, where it consumes less energy to fill the battery. If necessary, when more power is unexpectedly demanded, that is when the gasoline engine also pushes the wheels. In these cases, the car can develop up to 175 HP of power in the small battery option and 212 HP in the large battery option. Consumption notices it. BYD approves a consumption of 2.6 l/100 km for the small battery and only 1.4 l/100 km for the large battery according to the WLTP cycle. But, in addition, the … Read more

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