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Congratulations, you already program without knowing how to program. Now prepare to wait six weeks for Apple to listen to you

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James Steinberg is a New Yorker, 35 years old, and has two professions. The first, cat sitter. The second, develop applications through vibecodinga technique in which knowing what one wants and iterating with AI manages to replace (in part) deep knowledge of areas such as software architecture or programming. Steinberg is not the exception, but the new norm in a phenomenon in which amateur programmers are saturating the software distribution system. Let them tell Apple. Wanting is power. There was a time when publishing an app on the App Store was a rite of passage for an engineer or software developer. After months of fighting with Swift or Objective-C, the app was ready and all that was missing was the blessing of the App Store and its strict terms of use. Today that wall has fallen, because since the vibecoding has appeared, the creation of software is no longer about being able to do things, but about wanting to do them. However, this democratization of programming comes at a price: before the problem was writing code, but now the bottleneck is get the App Store to validate it. The growth rate of apps published in the App Store has grown extraordinary since the end of 2025. The impact of vibecoding is evident. Source: BI. The explosion of agentic software. Data from the consulting firm Sensor Tower confirm that we are facing an extraordinary situation. In January 2026, the volume of new apps launched in the App Store in the US grew 54.8% compared to the previous year. A very similar figure had already been recorded in December: a 56% increase compared to the same month in 2024. Here there is not suddenly a batch of experts fresh out of university programming as if there were no tomorrow, but rather a bunch of “amateur programmers” who have used vibecoding to program their apps in a matter of minutes or hours and who have uploaded them to the App Store. Apple has a problem. When Steinberg or any other developer tries to publish their app on the App Store, they run into a problem: Apple’s validation process is dragging out and the average wait time is around six weeks to achieve the desired “green light.” Apple, aware that this saturation can damage its reputation, has wanted to come forward with figures to calm the market’s spirits. Apple says one thing, developers another. According to the company, 90% of the proposals it receives from all these programmers are reviewed in less than 48 hours, and the average wait is, according to the company, 1.5 days. In the last twelve weeks, Apple employees have analyzed more than 200,000 weekly shipments, which seems to make it clear that, at least according to them, the bottleneck is not that big. The developers don’t seem to be of the same opinion, and in forums and social networks there is talk of how reviews of existing updates take up to a week and new releases enter a kind of administrative limbo that exasperates this new legion of programmers. Apps that are AI Slop? A potential reason for this slowdown in deadlines may not only be the quantity of apps, but their quality. Both among traditional programmers and probably within Apple itself, there is a fear that this new batch of apps “vibecodeadas” is largely another variant of the “AI slop” or “AI Slop” that has already been presented in the form of images or videos. For some experts, many of these apps are mediocre, have been generated with little supervision and simply seek to monetize search niches. The strict terms of the App Store may be criticizable, but they are a kind of retaining wall that could flood the App Store with absolutely irrelevant apps. The App Store facing the dilemma. Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee indicated in Business Insider that “this is not a problem that Apple can get out of by rejecting apps. As AI accelerates the creation of applications, the company will have to evolve from artisanal surveillance to curation at scale.” Or what is the same: either Apple automates part of the process, or waiting times will continue to increase. The other option: tighten the entry criteria for apps created with AI so much that it disproportionately penalizes the developers who use these tools… of which there are more and more. Wanted vibecoder. What seemed like a hobby for hobbyists is becoming an increasingly striking economic ecosystem. According to Business Insiderplatforms like Lovable already publish job offers in which they are looking for “vibecoders professionals”, which seems to validate this new type of programmer, no matter how much the traditional market criticizes him. But. This avalanche of applications created with AI may be striking, but comments from professional developers usually agree on the same thing: these apps are more difficult to maintain in the long term. Even Linus Torvalds, who had partially fallen into the networks of AI, I warned him: “AI will be a tool, and it will make people more productive. I think vibe coding is great for getting people to start programming. I think (the code it generates) is going to be horrible to maintain… so I don’t think programmers will go away. You’ll still want to have people who know how to maintain the output.” Image | James Yarema In Xataka | Vibe coding wants to help Open Source. But developers don’t want AI botches

We wanted electric cars and solar panels. The Hormuz blockade has returned us to the era of coal and nuclear energy

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The Third Gulf War has caused what decades of climate summits tried to avoid: the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has erased 20% of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) in one fell swoop. Faced with the imminent threat of a large-scale blackout, governments around the world have put their energy transition plans in a drawer. However, to keep the lights on and the economy afloat, the immediate response has been to look back to the past: burn coal by the piece and resurrect nuclear power. The mirage of “bridge fuel.” Asia buys more than 80% of the crude oil and gas that transits through Hormuz, but the problem goes far beyond a simple ship jam. This crisis has destroyed one of the great pillars of the energy transition. As explained The New York TimesLiquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was sold during the last decade as the perfect “bridge fuel”: less polluting than coal, more reliable than intermittent renewables and capable of being transported by sea to any corner. That bridge just blew up. The damage is far from being repaired, and it is estimated that the infrastructure attacked It will take years to operate again. Added to this is that Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a kind of maritime “VIP discotheque”deciding by hand which ships can cross. No one can depend on LNG ships to guarantee their sovereignty. The main problem: live without pantry. But there is a technical factor that has turned this crisis into an immediate catastrophe: lack of storage. Unlike the West, most Asian countries lack underground gas stores, leaving them completely exposed to supply disruptions. While nations like South Korea can last up to 52 days and Japan about three weeks, Taiwan walk on a wire extremely fragile, with a legal security threshold of just 11 or 12 days of reserves. Without a “pantry” to store the LNG, Asia has no room for maneuver: if the ship does not arrive on Monday, the blackout begins on Tuesday. This structural vulnerability is what has forced an unconditional surrender to coal. Coal’s dirty lifesaver. As Jonathan Teubner, the aforementioned analyst, perfectly summarizes by Financial Times: “No coal ship passes through the Strait of Hormuz.” That is the key to everything. Being a cheap, abundant resource that does not depend on the troubled waters of the Middle East, the most polluting mineral has returned with a bang. According to FortuneSouth Korea has removed the 80% operational cap for its coal plants, a decision that has drawn the ire of environmental groups who accuse the government of using “energy security as a pretext.” Thailand, for its part, is restarting plants it had dismantled last year. From Seoul to New Delhi: the dilemma of the powers. Japan, one of the world’s largest gas importers, has also bowed to the evidence, allowing its least efficient coal plants to operate at full capacity for a year. Energy desperation is such that in Japan There are already voices demanding cancel the emissions trading system, calling it a “death sentence” for the coal plants they now need to survive. In India, the situation is critical. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned of a “major challenge” ahead of the summer. To avoid massive blackouts, New Delhi has commanded giants such as Tata Power and Adani Power operate at full capacity, while Bangladesh seeks multi-billion dollar loans. Sam Chua, analyst at Rystad Energy, sums it up in Financial Times: We are not seeing a transition, but a brutal “destruction of gas demand.” Although it is not that simple: the money wall. This coal revival has a glass ceiling. As experts point out in Japan Timesthe banking sector flatly refuses to finance the construction of new coal plants for fear of being left with “stranded assets” (stranded assets) in the face of global climate commitments. That is, countries are squeezing their dirty old infrastructure to the last drop, but they can’t build new ones. Charcoal is the assisted respirator, but not the cure. The atom as a shield: the great redemption of uranium. Panic too has broken atomic taboos. Taiwan, whose government promised a “nuclear-free homeland” in 2016, has announced plans to restart two decommissioned reactors. The Philippines has charted a fast track to atomic energy by 2032, and Vietnam has just struck a deal with Russia to build its first reactors. Uranium is no longer seen as a threat, but rather as the only way to protect the electricity supply against maritime blackmail. The domino effect reaches Europe. What started as an emergency solution in Asia is already infecting the West. The crisis has forced the European Union to break its own historical taboos, admitting that Europe committed a “strategic mistake” by moving away from atomic energy. Brussels has already put 200 million euros on the table to develop Small Modular Reactors (SMR) by 2030. This shift shows a continental fracture: while France entrenches itself protecting its nuclear investment of 300 billion euros and blocks energy interconnections with the Iberian Peninsula, Europe assumes that it cannot guarantee its future solely with the sun and the wind. War rationing in the 21st century. While the plants uproot, the daily suffocation hit the streets. Philippines has declared a “national energy emergency.” In South Korea, the government implores families to take short showers and Samsung has prohibited its employees from driving to work based on the license plate. In Thailand, officials operate with work weeks for four days and they are prohibited from wearing ties in order to raise the temperature of the air conditioning. The collapse is so severe that Thai ambulances have taken to Facebook to beg gas stations to reserve diesel for them to save lives. The collateral damage. The scope of this blockage transcends the electricity bill. If the conflict lasts until June, Bloomberg alert that the barrel could touch $200, a price designed to cause “demand destruction.” This would lock global inflation at a chronic … Read more

lock up China without a single shot

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Japan is a country made up of more than 6,800 islands, although only about 400 are permanently inhabited. Many of them are small, remote and barely appear on the map, but their location places them in some of the most strategic points of the planet. The invisible barrier. It is evident that international views have been marked by the war in ukraine and now in Iran but, in the meantime, Japan has been raising a kind of “invisible barrier” fortified on a chain of islands off China that completely redefines the balance in the Pacific. It is not a single base or a large visible deployment, but a dispersed network of military positions stretching from southwestern Japan to remote points of the ocean, creating a continuous line of surveillance, detection and potential attack. This strategy turns small islands, many almost uninhabited, into key pieces of a system designed to stop the Chinese advance without the need for open war. From forgotten territory to the first defensive line. It we have counted in recent years. For decades, these islands barely had a military presence, but that has been changing radically in recent times. Places like Yonagunia few kilometers from Taiwan, have gone from having no troops to hosting radars, electronic warfare systems and permanent military unitswhile other positions have been reinforced with new bases and military equipment. There is no doubt, this turn responds to a crystal clear reality: if China tries to act on Taiwan, these islands would be the first objective or the first shield, and Japan is no longer willing to leave them exposed. One of the Type 12 models installed on the islands by Japan Missiles, radars and drones. The real change is in the type of capabilities deployed, which turn this chain of islands into a system offensive and defensive at the same time. As? For example, Japan is deploying long range anti-ship missilessystems capable of hitting hundreds or even thousands of kilometers, along with advanced radars and drones that allow you to detect and track targets in real time. Not only that. Added to this are new weapons such as hypersonic projectiles and cruise missiles that extend the range to the interior of the rival territory, thus marking a clear break with its historical policy of limited defense. Lock up China without firing a shot. Beyond protecting his territory, he recalled this week the wall street journal in an extensive report that the network has a strategic objective much more ambitious: complicate China’s movements at sea in a kind of trap. We are talking about a group of islands that is part of what is known as the “first chain”a set of narrow sea passages that any Chinese fleet must pass through to project power into the Pacific. By deploying weapons at these points, Japan turns each transit at a riskraising the cost of any possible operation and creating a kind of encirclement that limits freedom of maneuver without the need for direct confrontation. The definitive jump. In short, all this reflects a profound change in Japanese strategy, which has gone from passive defense to an active deterrence with the ability to strike from a distance if necessary. The introduction of rocket missiles attests to this. Type 12 long rangethe Tomahawk purchase and integration with US forces, all indicative that Japan no longer just wants to resist an attack, but prevent it threatening key adversary objectives. If you like, we are facing a delicate balance, because reinforces securitybut it also turns these Japanese islands into possible targets, increasing tension in an increasingly unstable region. Image | NARA, Tokoro_ten In Xataka | A single island houses 70% of the US military bases in Japan. There is a compelling reason for them not to leave: China In Xataka | China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles

what these skills are, what they are for, how they are used and who can use them to create their own Claude

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Let’s explain to you What are Claude’s Skills?also called Skills in Spanish. This is a method with which you can create custom versions of Claudean alternative to GPTs of ChatGPT or the Gems of Gemini. Skills are a very powerful feature, and also very open to be shared on the Internet. Its uses are as many as you can imagine. They are a series of instructions that you can add or generate, and that artificial intelligence will read before answering your questions. What are Claude’s Skills? Skills or abilities are a system with which you can create Claude customizationsor own versions of artificial intelligence. The skills are something similar to ChatGPT’s GPTs, but much more complete. They can be simple files like a GPT, but they can also be folders of instructions, scripts, or other resources. What you are going to achieve with this is that instead of using the generic version of Claude, when you use it loading a skill you interact with a version that is much more personalized and adapted to what you need, or that takes into account a specific context. Skills teach Claude how to complete specific tasks in a repeatable manner. In short, a skill is an encapsulated procedurethe way to tell Claude how to perform specific tasks, under what conditions and with what rules you want him to do it, without having to repeat these instructions in every conversation. For example, you can create a specific skill to teach you the rules of a board game you want to learn to play. Or you can also create it to help you improve your writing, to review your texts, or to teach mathematics to your children. They’re like skills that you set up and load whenever you want. When you activate a Skillwhen you make a request to Claude the AI ​​will first read the file for this skill, incorporating its instructions into the context window. If these instructions refer to other files, Claude will also read them, or if the instructions mention executable scripts the AI ​​will also execute them. What are Skills for? To understand what Skills are for, you must first take into account how Claude’s memory works. AI keeps some key data about you and how you want things, but does not remember the contexts from one conversation to another. In a chat you can give detailed instructions to do something, but when you open a new chat you will be starting from scratch. And this is where Skills come into play. If you usually or want to do recurring tasks with Claude, you don’t need to give detailed instructions every time that you are going to do it in a new chat. You can create a skill that contains all the precise instructions you need, and then load it whenever you want or are going to use it. This allows you to do several things. In the most practical case is to create a type of specific applications. For example, imagine that you like to analyze the SEO of something you write. So, every time you go to ask for this analysis you have to give the instructions to Claude, but If you load a Skill you do not need to give the instructionsand you can simply activate it and write the text you want to analyze. You can also use it to maintain your brand’s tone of voice when writing contentsuch as writing emails or making posts on social networks. You can use it to have a specific formula active when analyzing data, or generating code that follows your team’s internal standards. A Skill can be a simple set of instructions, but it can also be much more complex and include dozens of reference files. So, there are many ways you can schedule it. How to use Claude’s Skills In Claude you will find two types of Skills. One is the pre-designed ones, those created by Anthropic itself to give its AI capabilities to do specific things, and which are activated automatically when you ask to do something for which there is one of these skills. And secondly there are custom skillswhich are those created by any user writing instructions in Markdown. It doesn’t require any programming knowledge, because you can create them by typing the instructions, upload one you created outside of Claude, or even ask Claude to create one following your request. There are two methods to use Skills. The first is to mention it, add it explicitly so that what you write next takes these instructions into account. But they will also be activated automatically when you ask it to do something for which there is a Skill, such as creating web artifacts. How Claude’s Skills are created To create a Skill in Claude you have to go to section Personalize from the left column in Claude. Inside, click on the section Skillswhere you will be able to see all the pregenerated ones that the AI ​​has already created. Once you are in the Skills section, click on the + button and a dialog will open with the three available options. This will allow you to create one with Claude, manually write the instructions or load a Skill that you have downloaded or downloaded from somewhere. If you are going to create a Skill by handyou will only have to add a name, a short description and then write all the instructions you want it to include. You can expand all you want. If you decide to upload a skill, you will need to upload the .md file containing that name, description, and the skills in YAML format. You can also upload them with .zip or .skill fileswhere the SKILL.md file is with the instructions, but it also has other files that you should take into account and that are mentioned within the instructions. Who can use Claude’s Skills Anthropic’s pre-designed Skills can be used by everyone users, including free users. These are used … Read more

Spain awarded 20 million euros to Stellantis to create jobs in Galicia. Europe has prevented the money from being delivered

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20,660,434 euros. That was the aid that the Government of Spain granted in 2017 to PSA (now Stellantis after its merger with FCA) as “regional incentives for the correction of territorial economic imbalances.” Just two years later, the European Commission already doubted the appropriateness of this aid. Almost a decade after its delivery, Stellantis will have to return the money. 20.7 million euros. It was the money given by Mariano Rajoy’s Government in 2017 to the automobile conglomerate PSA. The company, then directed by Carlos Tavares, had been looking for money framed within the “Industrial Plan 2014-2020” in which funds from the European Union were available. The Spanish subsidiary of PSA, known as PCAE, requested aid of 392 million euros in 2014 to carry out the necessary actions to modernize the plant and launch a new model. The aid program was expanded, with another 100 million in subsequent years because PSA was going to produce a new vehicle platform and a new SUV car in Vigo. In 2017, shortly before Mariano Rajoy left Moncloa, the Government of Spain provided the aforementioned aid of 20.7 million euros since it corresponded to the maximum percentage allowed with respect to the investment that was planned to be used. many doubts. In 2019the European Commission was already beginning to doubt the legality or compatibility of this aid. In a document submitted thenquestioned whether the subsidies provided were meeting the criteria to create employment in the area. In said letter, PSA was already invited and the Government of Spain has explained the reason for this aid. In that document, the European Commission questioned whether the positive effects of the aid outweighed the negative ones and, therefore, that the decision to financially support the company with those more than 20 million euros was not economically doping its commitment to our country instead of taking production to the Trnava plant (Slovakia) with which Vigo competed. According to the European Commission, it believed that both plants were competing on equal terms and that the socioeconomic context of the Slovaks was no worse than that of Vigo. Furthermore, they pointed out that the defense that this aid helped preserve employment in Galicia in the face of a possible relocation to Morocco (a position defended by Spain) was not sufficient because PSA had already previously relocated other vehicles that were previously manufactured in Spain. Seven years of research. Already in 2020, Europe continued to defend that the Commission had its doubts “regarding the contribution of investment projects to the development of the region in question”, as they stated in elDiario.es. Then it was thought that the company’s true intention was to improve the factory facilities with the sole objective of improving the company’s competitiveness but that it had nothing to do with an improvement in innovation and local investments. There were even doubts about the compatibility of being able to deliver these aid to a company like PCAE (the Spanish subsidiary of PSA). One of the most compelling reasons presented by the European Commission is, as they point out in The Worldthe choice of the Vigo company to the detriment of the Slovaks. And it is considered that opting for a more economically developed region to receive aid contravenes the principles of cohesion of the European Union, which prevents the delivery of this type of subsidies. Case closed. Now, the Government of Spain has notified the European Commission that it is withdrawing the subsidy of 20.7 million euros. He has done it because he cannot prove its legality. As the money has not yet been delivered, the European Commission has closed the investigation, they explain in the Galician media. praza.gal. At this time, Spain has not been able to demonstrate that the number of jobs increased after the aid was granted nor that it represented an economic boost in the region. In fact, it was possible that the number of jobs could even be reduced, as they point out in Motorpassion. During this time, the money has not been delivered because it remained frozen with the European investigation. Now we know that Stellantis will not charge it. Photo | Stellantis In Xataka | The Stellantis factory in Figueruelas has been looking for a reconversion plan for years. You already have it: make Chinese electric cars

We Spaniards love low-cost telephone operators. So PcComponentes has gotten on board

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In the middle of the operators’ war to offer low cost ratesthe Murcian PcComponentes has decided to enter the battlefield. The company debuts with fiber and mobile rates thanks to Likes Telecom, a Spanish company focused on the creation of telecommunications brands and with the support of XFERA MÓVILES (MásOrange). A new participant. From the PcComponentes website You can now contract fiber and mobile. At the moment, there are three fiber and mobile packages, and three possibilities to contract a mobile line. To stand out from its rivals, PcComponentes ensures that customer service support will be especially taken care of. The rates. At its launch, these are the three rates offered by PcComponentes. Core rate oNers rate hyperuser rate fiber 300MB 600MB 1GB mobile 30 GB cumulative + another 30 GB gift line 100 GB cumulative Unlimited additional Basic TV +3€/month Additional mobile lines from €5/month Basic TV +3€/month Additional mobile lines from €5/month Premium TV +5€/month Additional mobile lines from €5/month permanence No 6 month stay 6 month stay In the case of mobile line only rates, we have these three options. 30 GB Mobile Line for 6.90 euros per month. Mobile Line 100 GB for 13.90 euros per month. Unlimited Mobile Line for 19.90 euros per month. All of them have MásOrange 5G coverage, unlimited national calls, Roaming Zone 1 in the EU, the possibility of eSIM and cumulative gigs without permanence. The conditions. PcComponentes only sets a six-month permanence for two of its rates, which is conditional on the quality of the service. In the event that the client suffers more than two connection incidents for which the operator is responsible, it will be cancelled. Likewise, in rates like Hyperuser, there is a commitment to quality. If there is an incident caused by the operator that prevents the client from connecting to the internet, nothing will be paid during the current month. Go deeper. The company adds that, as customers of its mobile and fiber service, we will access discounts on the PcComponentes website. At the moment, there is no concrete data on how they are going to raise them or what exactly they consist of. The challenge. Digi is staying with practically all the ports in Spain, stealing customers from Telefonica, MásOrange and Vodafone. A fight for low prices that practically no rival is able to match, including PcComponentes. Despite this, it remains to be seen how this small proposal on PcComponentes’ “own MVNO” coexists with Digi, Lowi, Simyo or Finetwork. In Xataka Mobile | The uncomfortable truth about fiber: the speed that the operator promises us can never be maintained

Instagram wants you to be able to gossip about your ex’s stories without getting caught. Paying, of course

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Instagram stories they turn ten years old soon and the company is preparing a novelty that could completely change this product. The format, popularized by Snapchat, has some basic “rules”, such as that they disappear after 24 hours and that we can know who has seen our story. Instagram suggests that we can bypass these and other rules if we pay a subscription. Instagram Plus. This is what this new subscription model will be called, as they say in TechCrunch. Meta is testing a paid subscription for Instagram that will allow users to enjoy a series of benefits over normal features. Currently, Instagram has the Meta Verified subscription option (to have the blue tick) aimed at creators, but this new subscription is aimed at normal users who want to have certain benefits. Meta’s goal with this move is to diversify Instagram’s sources of income, which mainly come from advertising. Functions for the stalking. In an email to TechCrunch, Meta has detailed what extra features will come with the subscription. It is striking that the majority of functions fuel, let’s say, unhealthy uses of the platform, just when Meta has been found guilty of having designed its products to generate addiction. The functions of Instagram Plus are as follows: View stories anonymously, without the person who posted them knowing. Know which people have viewed your story more than once. Search within the list of viewers, to find out if a specific person has seen your story without having to search the list Extend the length of stories for an additional 24 hours. Feature a story so it appears at the top of your followers’ stories carousel. Send animated “superlikes” to other stories. Create audience lists beyond “best friends.” Why it is important. Instagram openly recognizing that gossip and obsession with the metrics of your stories are behaviors widespread enough to monetize. But there is something that is also very important: being able to highlight stories so that they are seen more is a change in the rules of the game. These types of functions end up creating a distinction between users that affects not only the functionalities to which they have access, but also the visibility of their content. Why now. This is the next question to ask ourselves. Instagram is, along with Facebook, the social network that generates the most incomeso it’s not that you have a liquidity problem. However, right now Meta’s actions are not going through their best momentlargely due to the mistrust generated by the astronomical spending on infrastructure for AI. With 3 billion active usersInstagram Plus has the potential to boost revenue even more to face what is coming. TObackground. Instagram is following in the footsteps of other social networks that have opted for this type of subscriptions. We saw the case of the most aggressive subscription model with Twitter (now X), which after the acquisition by Elon Musk completely changed the meaning of the blue tick. Today, if you don’t pay you can’t send messages to any user, edit posts, create longer posts or access Grok. At the other extreme we have Snapchat+, which is a subscription that adds benefits without deteriorating the free experience. Among its features are being able to access experimental features first, more storage, and access to premium lenses. They launched it in 2022 and they have done quite well: Today it has 25 million subscribers and has generated 1 billion in revenue. Availability and price. At the moment, Instagram Plus is going to be tested in a limited number of countries. Meta hasn’t said which ones, but we know it has already appeared in Japan, the Philippines and Mexico. Regarding prices, according to some users have postedin Mexico it is 39 pesos per month, which at the current exchange rate is 1.88 euros. It is not clear in which other countries they will test it or when they plan to launch it globally. Image | Sanket Mishra, Pexels

attract more visitors but distribute them better

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The dilemma brings them. Japan wants more tourists, but not at any price. The first is quite understandable if you take into account that the Government estimates that at the end of this decade the country could be entering billions of dollars extra thanks to tourism. The second is also not difficult to understand in a country that has seen how in record time its main cities, temples, monuments, parks and trails they have been crowded of foreigners. To get out of this crossroads, the Government of Sanae Takaichi has had an idea: to draw a plan to continue gaining visitors between now and 2030, although in a much more orderly and compatible way with the daily lives of the Japanese. What has happened? that Japan has proposed an ambitious goal that, if it goes well, could lead the way to Spain and other countries dealing with the effects of mass tourism. The Japanese authorities do not want to give up the ‘goose that lays the golden eggs’ of the arrival of foreign visitors, but they are also not willing to allow the sector to continue putting pressure on the local population. Both objectives are understandable, especially on a political level. Tourism generates billions of yen each year, a constant cash flow that irrigates both the private sector and the coffers of the Japanese State itself. Furthermore, the Executive led by Takaichi is convinced that the country has not reached its ceiling as a destination and can receive even more tourists. On the other hand, massification has become such a thorny issue that it already conditions the political agenda and has given wings to one far right xenophobic and ‘anti-tourist’. What does the Government want to do? At the end of last week the Council of Ministers approved an ambitious 94 page document titled “Basic Plan for the Promotion of Japan as a Tourist Nation”, basically a roadmap that outlines the path that the country wants to follow between 2026 and 2030. In their presentation, the authorities insisted above all on two messages. First, they want to continue working to establish Japan as an international destination, making tourism a “strategic industry.” The second idea is that they want to advance on that path in a “sustainable” way. “Based on the fact that tourism is a strategic industry (and) with the aim of achieving tourism that sustainably transmits the attractiveness and dynamism of Japan to future generations, it has been decided to promote tourism policy with the following guidelines: ‘sustainable development of tourism’, ‘increased spending’, ‘promoting the attraction of visitors to the regions’, ‘strengthening collaboration between tourism, transportation and urban development’, and ‘large-scale application and deployment of new technologies’”, resume the Executive. Is it that important? Yes. It may sound like bureaucratic language, but it brings up some very interesting ideas. For example, the Government is not willing to take its foot off the accelerator. Although there are regions of Japan that give samples of being saturated by the avalanche of foreign visitors and there are even voices that warn that the country will end up suffering a staffing deficit If demand continues to grow, the Government maintains its growth goals. There is no course correction, no steps back. The objective is the same as the Executive It was marked in 2016: reach the 60 million visitors foreigners in 2030, 40.5% more than in 2025, when the year ended with 42.7 million of international tourists. The idea is that these 60 million visitors will also generate spending of 15 billion yen, almost 60% more than last year. How do you want to do it? Increasing the capacity of the Japanese administration to put an end to excesses. The Government has decided increase regions that apply policies against overcrowding: from the 47 in 2025 it will be 100 in 2030. The idea is to reinforce the measures deployed thanks to the “international tourist tax”a tribute paid by visitors and that also will redouble in a few months, going from the current 1,000 yen to 3,000. With this commitment, the Executive seeks to provide more resources to local authorities that want to find solutions to, for example, alleviate saturation problems or combat conflictive behavior, such as the one that a few years ago led the Kyoto authorities to prohibit access of tourists to the geisha district or the Fujikawaguchiko Government to install a fence to cover the views of Fuji and get rid of the tourists who hindered traffic. Is it the only measure? At all. The plan also proposes reducing congestion on the roads, contemplates limitations on visitors, applying different rates to the native and foreign population, boosting per capita spending by tourists by more than 9% in the coming years… Tokyo also wants to address the challenge of unlicensed accommodationplaces that have strengthened the country’s capacity to welcome tourists but at the cost of feeding a deregulated supply. With Chinese tourism in low hoursJapan also aspires to diversify your market. Until now, China represented a fundamental source market for the country of the rising sun, but the political conflict generated in November following Takaichi’s statements about Taiwan has caused collapse. The Government plans to expand its market and attract travelers in Europe and the US. And will it come with that? In reality there is another measure. One with quite a bit of logic. Japan wants to continue gaining tourists without aggravating the situation of those national destinations that are already saturated, so… Why not diversify demand and supply? Why not take tourists out of Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka and take them further afield, even to rural areas? That is one of the ideas collected in the endorsed plan by the Government, which talks about promoting regional areas. What does it say exactly? “It is essential to reinforce measures aimed at preventing and stopping ‘mass tourism’ (…) and correcting the concentration in certain cities and regions,” collect the document, which is also committed to “diversifying” demand, “improving the attractiveness of … Read more

There is a much deeper and more important AI race in which China is crushing its competitors: human talent.

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The AI ​​race It’s about many things. Not only who makes the best AI modelswho has more and better data centers or who has more cheap energy to power this revolution. It’s also about something that right now China dominates with an iron fist: AI experts. China surpasses the US in talent. In The Economist have analyzed the evolution of the publication of studies at NeurIPS, one of the most important conferences in the world on AI. In the 2025 edition they have discovered a singular fact: for the first time in the history of this conference, China has surpassed the United States in studies presented, and that is the definitive sign of how the Asian giant has achieved a victory in a crucial area for the future of this technology. Alarming data. This data is not something isolated, but the result of a trend that began ten years ago. In 2019, 29% of researchers presenting their work at NeurIPS had started their careers in China. In 2025 that figure is 50%. Meanwhile, the proportion of quinees who began their careers in the US has increased from 20% in 2019 to 12% in 2025. The analysis is based on a sample of 600 articles written by almost 4,000 researchers (many studies have several researchers as authors). Chinese universities dominate. This analysis also served to analyze the origin of the researchers who published these studies. Nine of the ten institutions where the most NeurIPS 2025 researchers completed their studies are in China. Tsinghua University is, for example, the protagonist with 4% of all researchers. The prestigious MIT in the USA? Only 1% comes from there. Quantity matters, but also quality. It must be taken into account that this does not necessarily mean that China wins (or loses) in research quality, but it does in quantity. But this parameter is very relevant, because scale matters: when China manages to “produce” a huge number of AI graduates, its chances of those experts being responsible for new advances in this discipline increase. Not only that: it also makes these advances spread faster within the Chinese technological ecosystem. The US depends on Chinese talent. One of the most uncomfortable details of this study is where those who signed studies from US institutions were trained. Of all of them, 35% They graduated from Chinese universitiesthe same proportion as those who did so in US universities. Many leading AI companies in Silicon Valley are drawing on AI experts trained in China, which is increasingly the world’s largest pool of this type of engineers. Come home come back. What is worrying for the US is that the Chinese talent that US companies sign increasingly ends up returning to China. Chinese programs like Thousand Talents Plan They offer up to $100,000 annually plus subsidies for housing and research to attract that talent back. The United States government is also promoting just that, because the funding cutsthe uncertainty with visas and suspicions towards researchers of Chinese origin make working in the US no longer so attractive for these experts. Or what is the same: The US is shooting itself in the foot (again). From the American dream to the Chinese dream. In 2019, about a third of NeurIPS researchers who had graduated in China stayed in the country to work. In 2022 that proportion rose to 58%, and in 2025 the figure already reaches 65%. And as we mentioned, those who had left are returning: in 2019, only 12% of Chinese researchers who had completed postgraduate studies outside of China had returned, but in 2025 that figure has risen to 28%. The case of DeepSeek It is significant: none of its main contributors have a university degree outside of China: the talent who achieved that milestone He didn’t go through Stanford or MIT. The trend doesn’t lie. If we stick to the authors of studies published in NeurIPS as a metric, about 37% of the best researchers in the world now work in Chinese organizations, compared to 32% of those who do so in North American institutions. If this trend continuesin 2028, researchers working in China could outnumber those working in the US by two to one. Silicon Valley may continue to attract a lot of international talent, but the direction of the trend is clear, and that points to a worrying future for the United States. Image | Tommao Wang In Xataka | There is a city in China that goes head to head with Silicon Valley: welcome to Hangzhou, the home of the ‘Six Little Dragons’

How to add AccuWeather to ChatGPT to request the best weather information

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Let’s tell you how to link AccuWeather to ChatGPTso that you can use all the information from one of the best weather apps for your queries. With this, the artificial intelligence OpenAI no longer searches the Internet when you ask about the weather or future forecasts, but will search directly in the information in the app. You will be able to do this because AccuWeather has been included in the list of applications ChatGPTwhich allow you to interact with them and their information. With this, you will be able to have hyperlocal weather informationforecasts, and even see any weather alerts there may be. You can even ask about the chances of rain and when it is most likely to occur. Add AccuWeather in ChatGPT The first thing you have to do is open ChatGPT and Click on the section Applications in the left column. This will take you to an index with a search engine. In it, you have to search the term AccuWeatherso that it appears as the only result. When you see it, click on the name of the application. You will enter the AccuWeather tab, where you will have all the information about what you will be able to do with this application. Within this tab, press the button Connect to proceed to add the application. When you go to connect, you will go to a screen where allows you to activate the consultation of memories and chats when using AccuWeather. This is optional. If you activate it, you will be sending AccuWeather information about everything you talk about with ChatGPT, but also other information such as the city where you live, so that you do not need to say it when you ask for weather information. Use AccuWeather on ChatGPT Once you have linked the application, you can use it. To do this, when you open a new chat with ChatGPT, before doing anything, click on the + button to open the options window, click on Furtherand Click on AccuWeather in the list that appears to activate it within this conversation. When you do, you’ll know the app is activated because it will stay still below the writing field. This means that whatever you are going to ask ChatGPT now, the AI ​​will look for it in this application. Now, with AccuWeather activated you can ask ChatGPT to tell you any weather information you want. The AI ​​will look for the answers in the application, and will give you the information it has collected. AccuWeather will remain activated in this ChatGPT conversation, so you can return to it when you want to ask a new question or continue asking about something you had asked before, even ask it to update the information. In Xataka Basics | How to create an image of yourself and a Pixar character with your face using artificial intelligence, with Gemini or ChatGPT

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