Mobile Tech & Gadgets

How the Panama Canal is being lined thanks to the war in Iran

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When an international conflict breaks out, there is always someone who manages to take advantage. As the world watches with concern the Third Gulf War, thousands of kilometers from missiles and drones, the Panama Canal has been crowned the unexpected winner of this global chaos. What began as an energy crisis in the Persian Gulf has become, for the small Central American nation, a gold mine of historic dimensions. Since the attacks triggered the virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s main artery for fuel transportation, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade transits – maritime trade has entered a phase of genuine desperation. The urgency to move goods has reached such a point that, as confirmed by Ricaurte Vásquez Moralesadministrator of the Panama Canal, a shipping company paid 4 million dollars in an auction just to skip the line and cross the interoceanic waterway as soon as possible. The mechanism of urgency After the Hormuz blockade, traffic through the Panamanian canal has experienced a general increase of close to 11%, registering peaks of up to an additional 20% on the days of greatest demand, as reported by the Panama Canal Authority itself BBC. During the first half of fiscal year 2026 – from October 2025 to March 2026 – the channel registered 6,288 transits, 224 more than in the same period of the previous year, according to data presented by the channel authority to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In order to absorb this flow, nature has also been complicit. The deputy administrator of the channel, Ilya Espino de Marotta, explained to cnn that unusually intense rains during the dry season have kept Gatún and Alhajuela lakes at maximum levels, which has made it possible to manage between 40 and 41 daily transits compared to the usual average of 36. A notable recovery if one remembers that during the El Niño drought between 2023 and 2024, daily transits fell to 24. “The Panama Canal is open and fully operational,” assured Vásquez Morales. “Amid all the geopolitical complexities of today’s world, the Panama Canal remains open and reliable.” But the true profitability is not only in the volume, but in the price of urgency. The companies they pay a fixed rate between 300,000 and 400,000 dollars to transit with prior reservation. Those who do not have it must compete in a relentless auction system where the highest bidder takes the coveted spot. Víctor Vial, vice president of finance of the channel, detailed in the same presentation to investors that the average auction price before the crisis ranged between 135,000 and 140,000 additional dollars. After the start of the conflict, “that average increased to approximately $385,000 between March and April.” Desperation has pushed some oil companies to pay more than 3 million additional dollars to avoid waits, according to Bloomberg. The absolute record of 4 million is explained by Vásquez himself: “It was a ship that transported fuel to Europe, but they diverted it to Singapore, and it had to get there because Singapore is running out of fuel,” declared. With this extraordinary injection, Vial estimated that the growth of the channel’s income will be between 10% and 15% this year, although he warned that “we are still not doing the math or modifying our projections.” A logistical lifesaver, not a replacement The profitability of the channel is explained by the geography of the panic. More than 80% of the oil that usually transited through Hormuz was destined for the Asian continent, according to Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). When that route was blocked, buyers from Japan, South Korea, India and China turned to the United States Gulf Coast. According to data from the maritime intelligence company Kpler cited by BloombergUS crude oil exports through the Panama Canal have exceeded 200,000 barrels per day, approaching their maximum since July 2022. The logic is implacable. A trip from the US Gulf Coast to Japan via the canal takes almost a month, while going around Africa around the Cape of Good Hope would take almost twice as long. “With all the bombings, missiles, drones, companies say it is safer and less expensive to cross through the Panama Canal,” explained Rodrigo Noriegalawyer and analyst in Panama City. “All of this is affecting global supply chains.” Despite the boom, experts are categorical when comparing both routes. The EIA data, updated as of March 2026illustrate it crudely: in the first half of 2025, 20.9 million barrels of oil per day transited the Strait of Hormuz, compared to the 2.3 million that crossed the Panama Canal in its entire fiscal year 2025. A ratio of almost one to nine. Furthermore, VLCC-type supertankers—capable of transporting up to two million barrels in a single trip—are simply too big for the Panamanian locks, as both France 24 and OilPrice point out. Panama is a golden shortcut, but it does not have the muscles to replace the massive flow of the Persian Gulf. Marc Gilbert, global leader of the Geopolitics Center at Boston Consulting Group, summed it up: “What is really happening is that energy from the United States is replacing the volumes that cargoes from the Gulf previously sent to Asia.” And he added that what this crisis shows is that “when a sea lane fails, the entire system must adapt.” From economic bonanza to diplomatic minefield Panama’s sudden strategic prominence has not gone unnoticed by the great powers. As reported by Al JazeeraWashington and its allies accused China at the end of April of applying “selective economic pressure”, retaining dozens of Panamanian-flagged ships in Chinese ports in retaliation for the annulment, by the Panamanian Supreme Court, of a port concession that a company linked to Hong Kong maintained over the ports of Balboa and Cristóbal. Beijing categorically denied the accusations. The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lin Jian, described them as statements that “lack foundation and distort reality”, and in turn accused the United … Read more

It is their asset to overcome Shanghai

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Singapore has a problem that many countries would envy: its port is becoming too small. The city-state, which has become a hub for global trade located in the Strait of Malacca, already handles more than 41 million containers a year and is approaching the limit of its capacity. His government has chosen to build a port from scratch instead of expanding the one they already have. And since Singapore is a land of eccentricities, they want to do it in a big way: with a fully automated megaportdestined to be the largest of its category in the world. Puerto Tuas It has been under construction for a few years now. and below these lines we tell you what is special about it. Behind China. Singapore has been the world’s second largest port by cargo volume for decades, just behind Shanghai. The city’s port reached a record of 41.12 million TEUs (units equivalent to a twenty-foot container) managed in 2024, 5% more than the previous year. Shanghai, for its part, reached 50 million. The idea is that once the new port is completed, it will have an operational capacity of around 65 million TEUs annually, which would make it the largest container terminal in the world. Colossal dimensions. The port was officially opened on September 1, 2022. When completed, sometime in the 2040s, it will occupy some 1,337 hectares (the equivalent of 3,300 football fields) and will have 66 docks along 26 kilometers of coastline, capable of accommodating the world’s largest container ships. The project is being developed in four phases and is being executed by PSA International, Singapore’s public port operator. According to they counted According to Bloomberg, the project would have a total cost of about $14 billion. Automation. What sets Tuas apart from any other port infrastructure under construction is the level of automation. The idea is that operators are in charge of monitoring everything in the port, while automated vehicles (AGVs), sensors and all types of monitoring systems and autonomous technologies take care of the rest. The current fleet of AGVs exceeds 200which communicate with underground transponders using RFID technology to know their position in real time and avoid collisions. The technology that moves it. In addition to container transportation, port automation allows remotely manage your operations through the Tuas Control Center. PSA works with technology partners to develop automation solutions in cranes and AGVs, and will deploy a private 5G network to support all these systems. On top of all this, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore will develop a ship traffic management system with the intention of monitoring traffic in real time. through artificial intelligence and satellites. The goal is that every movement within the port, from the arrival of a ship to the departure of a truck, is controlled and optimized by algorithms. How the work progresses. Tuas Phase 1 currently has twelve operational docks, and PSA plans to add four more throughout this year. Two more will enter service in 2027, which would bring the total to eighteen docks with a capacity of up to 20 million TEUs annually. For its part, Phase 2 has already taken its first steps, with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore handing over to PSA the first land reclaimed from the sea, where the operator can now begin construction of the facilities. The first dock is scheduled to come into operation in 2028. On the other hand, also the transfer is being managed little by little from the current port. The deadline remains unchanged for 2027, the year in which all of Singapore’s historic terminals will have closed and migrated to Tuas. The Pasir Panjang terminal will do so later, already in the 2040s. In 2024, PSA laid the first stone of the PSA Supply Chain Huba $647.5 million logistics center designed to complement the port. Lawrence Wong, Prime Minister of Singapore pointed out at the opening ceremony that the hub will replace the old Keppel Distripark and will “be Singapore’s gateway to the world”. The problems that are saved. Have all the terminals in a single point has been key to decongesting trafficsince there is no longer a need to have trucks crossing the city center to transport cargo from one terminal to another. Furthermore, in terms of sustainability, PSA aims for Tuas achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Additionally, the port design will incorporate above-ground platforms to add an additional 240 hectares of space, and its operating level is set at 5 meters above mean sea level to accommodate rising ocean levels. Cover image | MPA Singapore In Xataka | There are so many boats plying the Strait of Gibraltar that, underwater, the whales are screaming desperately

why in moments of fatigue or anxiety we look for certain flavors and textures

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Reaching the end of the work day, closing the computer and having very high anxiety levels are the ideal components for going to the kitchen almost automatically. And we are not looking for a healthy food like a salad or an apple, but the brain seems to be urgently asking for a pizza or a tub of ice cream. And it is not a question of gluttony, but it is pure and simple neurobiology. The evolution. Something we know quite well is that the human relationship with food completely transcends the mere caloric need for survival, but is one of the most important primitive tools. of emotional regulation. But it doesn’t always work in the sense of eating the more calories the better. And it is that, while the chronic stress and fatigue push us towards a carbohydrate binge, deeply negative emotions, such as extreme sadness or grief over losing someone, cause exactly the opposite: the hermetic closure of the stomach. Because? When we talk about stress eating, science is quite clear that this pattern does not seek to satisfy the “physiological hunger” that we all feel in order to survive and that appears gradually and is satisfied with almost anything. Here we talk specifically of an “emotional hunger” that appears suddenly and is satisfied with a very specific, and not at all healthy, food. The blame for this food kidnapping lies with to a large extentthe hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This is a very important system that in a situation of acute stress, such as when a car is about to hit us, releases a large amount of adrenaline. In short, it is a system that prepares us to fight or flee, and logically suppresses appetite because in this moment of danger, the last thing the body ‘thinks about’ is digestion, but rather it ‘thinks’ about sending blood to our muscles so that they function at maximum performance. The problem It comes with the chronic stress that work, bills or studies can generate, where the body is constantly releasing cortisol. And this is fundamental, since as demonstrated the classic study According to researcher Elissa Epel, high levels of reactive cortisol alter satiety signals and send a message that warns that the body is in constant danger and needs store energy quickly in case it is necessary in the future. This is where we see that our overall system was developed at a time where food was not always availableand has not yet adapted to ‘modern life’ so as not to have these types of reactions. The carbohydrates. We’re not just looking for calories, we’re looking for neurochemical rescue. This is where the consumption of sugars and fats explosively activates the brain’s reward system, releasing a flood of dopamine which is a form of self-medication, since here food temporarily acts as a buffer from emotional discomfort. In addition, simple carbohydrates play a fundamental role in the synthesis of serotonin, the neurotransmitter associated with well-being and calm. In this way, when eating a plate of pasta or a sweet, we make it easier for tryptophan crosses into the brain and the result is a real, although ephemeral, calming effect that conditions our brain to repeat the action every time we feel very overwhelmed. The case of sadness. If stress pushes us to the refrigerator, acute pain and grief keep us away from it, since in the case of being sad it is quite common to have hardly any appetite, which is also one of the most classic symptoms of some types of depression. Something that we see as quite logical, but the reality is that we have seen that food is comforting; The obligatory question would be: why doesn’t it help with sadness? The reason. Grieving the loss of someone very dear to us establishes in the body a state of biological alarm that is different from the daily stress generated by work or studies. Deep sadness activates the sympathetic nervous system, keeping it in exhausting hypervigilance, and this is a problem. The problem is that digestion is managed by the parasympathetic system and the vagus nerve and in this state of sadness it is completely inhibited, because when the sympathetic system is activated, the parasympathetic is ‘turned off’. The most immediate consequence is that the gastric emptying slows down drasticallycausing nausea, a knotted feeling in the stomach, and a physical inability to swallow or digest solids. Priorities. In this way, the body in its maximum state of sadness prioritizes psychic survival and emotional processing of the trauma that has been experienced over routine metabolic maintenance. From here, the food simply loses its flavor, and the inability to feel pleasure blocks the release of dopamine that would normally give us an appetizing and caloric bite. A cultural question. Since the state of grief causes someone to be unable to eat properly or do everyday tasks such as cooking, all human cultures have developed eating rituals around grief and death. This translates into sharing food in these times of grief or at least making it available to anyone who needs it. But we have also seen how in some cultures food is shared after a funeral to reinforce the social fabric. Here food acts as a tangible reminder that life goes on and that the individual has not been isolated from the group. Images | Drazen Zigic in Magnific Robin Stickel In Xataka | Eating in front of a screen is not a modern mania: it is the new social ritual

There is a battle to have the AI ​​model that programs best. And a good, pretty and very cheap rival has appeared in it: Cursor

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Cursor has introduced Composer 2.5a generative AI model specifically intended for one thing: programming well. How good? Well, according to this startup, it does it as well as the best models of the moment, Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT 5.5, but it also does it for a lower cost. The challenge is striking not only because of what it means for Cursor, but because of how they have created that model: it turns out that it is based on a Chinese AI model. AI models specialized in one thing. While OpenAI and Anthropic try to develop general-purpose models—they do a lot of things really well— Cursor you have decided to focus on a specific task. The AI ​​startup has created an AI model specialized in programming, and has done so by arguing that a billion parameters are not necessary to compete with the best. Devoting yourself to a single thing allows you to not only gain efficiency, but also costs. This is not a decathlete, but a specialist in the 200 m event, so to speak. As good as GPT-5.5 or Claude Opus 4.7? That’s what they say in Cursor, because according to their tests with several specific programming benchmarks, the performance is on par with those two models that today are the great references both in programming and in other areas. And much cheaper. These results are also especially interesting when we add the cost factor. The average cost per task in the CursorBench 3.1 benchmark showed that Composer 2.5 managed to solve almost 65% of all tests for a cost of just $0.3. Opus 4.7 max and GPT-5.5 xhigh managed to reach that 65%, but at much higher costs: just over 4 dollars in the case of GPT, and 11 dollars in the case of Opus. The difference is abysmal. He API access price demonstrates the differences: 0.5 dollars per million input tokens 2.5 dollars per million output tokens, when Claude Opus 4.7 is 5/25 and that of GPT-5.5 is 5/30 respectively. Textual feedback. Unlike models that only learn from the final result, Composer 2.5 has been trained with a reinforcement learning technique (Reinforcement Learning) that allows us to offer clues about what is happening if errors are being made. This allows the model to recalibrate and act as a transparent teacher. One that also corrects word by word as it solves the exercise, not just when seeing the final result. 85% of the training budget has been dedicated exclusively to reinforcement learning, calibrating the model not for chat, but to execute code refactorings or fix bugs in real time. A model “born” in China. Those responsible for Cursor themselves have explained that Composer 2.5—like its predecessor, Composer 2launched at the end of March—is a model derived from Kimi K2.5, the AI ​​model of the Chinese startup Moonshot. Although that is the basis, already in Composer 2 the training and post-training tasks manage to improve the behavior in a very notable way in programming benchmarks and also in others such as Terminal Bench that evaluate the agentic behavior of these models. Cursor gets older. This startup became famous for creating a programming AI agent that was a pioneer in that fever we live for vibecoding. The user experience is no longer that of programming, as in traditional IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), but rather that of directing the machine to program it for you. Composer 2.5 doesn’t just program: it understands the structure and relationships between files, and turns Cursor into a much more competitive AI company, because it no longer depends on being able to work with Anthropic or OpenAI models, for example. Having both the AI ​​agent and the model processing everything makes it a much more competitive solution. Elon Musk has Cursor in his sights. Cursor’s good performance has led to growing interest in buying this company even before it becomes too big. Elon Musk knows this well and Grok, xAI’s model, is not so popular in the programming field. In April we learned that SpaceX had reached an agreement that gives you the option to buy Cursor for 60,000 million dollars. It would be a promising deal for both, because Composer 2.5 has already used Colossus’ infrastructure to train, and xAI could thus try to gain market share in the juicy enterprise sector. In Xataka | Elon Musk knows that TSMC is overwhelmed: Terafab is his idea to completely change the global chip industry

Sony has been aiming for the best noise cancellation in headphones for years. Now he wants to aim for something else: luxury

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One of the companies that is most committed to sound is Sony. It makes all the sense in the world considering the company’s history and they have just presented their new model of over-ear headphones. These are the Sony 1000X The Collexion, headphones apart from the WH-1000XM6 For a few months now, they have been betting on sound quality, comfort and something as palpable as it is, at the same time, intangible: luxury. Are expensive headphones always better than cheap ones? Hand finished with noble materials It seems unbelievable, but ten years have passed since the Japanese company launched the MDR-1000X. They were the first generation of what would later be renamed the WH-1000 that have given the company so much success (especially the XM3 and XM4) and, to celebrate the event, Sony wanted to look back to create your 1000X The Collexion. In terms of design, they are very similar to the WH-1000XM6, but with finishes that are reminiscent of those MDR-1000X with synthetic leather wrapping the headphones (and not just the pads). Speaking of the pads, Sony assures that they have redesigned both the part that covers the ears and the headband with a highly padded material designed so that we can wear them for hours and hours without them bothering us. But where the Japanese want to show that luxury is in the finishes. To start, the materials. All we see is faux fur and metal. Plastic is far from the rest of the family to opt for this metal that has brushed parts and others polished with a mirror effect. Furthermore, it is not just any polish, since something that they wanted to make clear during the presentation is that they are all hand finished and with several layers so that the Sony logo and the connectors between the headband and the headphones themselves have a shiny finish. At a design level, it is evident that this attempt to call for luxury that the Japanese are looking for is fulfilled, with a telescopic system to adapt the headphones to more head sizes that does not reveal their moving parts or rails. Apart from this, there is also a redesign inside the capsules to eliminate dead spaces. With this, they have managed to pass from a width of 45.4 mm on the XM6 to 40.1 mm on these The Collexion. The main idea in the design of this model is that they “resonate” with you, that they are a functional accessory, but an almost fashionable accessory with that exterior of synthetic leather, metal and with a much more premium finish. Regarding the weight, it remains at 320 grams. Sound with old acquaintances and new technologies Headphones do not live on design alone and you need a sound to accompany them. During the presentation, Sony wanted to clarify something: the XM6 series continues to be the spearhead in terms of noise cancellation. The 1000X The Collexion has 12 earcups to capture ambient sound, and the Japanese company is aiming for active cancellation comparable to its main line of headphones. In the sound part, things change. The interior redesign has also been used for a new custom diaphragm unit with which they aim to achieve greater separation between instruments and voices, as well as richer high frequencies to, in general, offer a richer sound. It supports Hi-Res Audio Wireless LDAC, a 10-band equalizer and is the first headphones with DSEE Ultimate technology that uses AI to “decompress” digital music signals. It’s something they do in real time to, according to Sony, restore the lost details and dynamic range of the songs. To round out the software section, the 360 ​​Upmix function has three modes (game, music and cinema) to create spatial audio. And regarding autonomy, Sony says up to 24 hours on a charge. Launch and price of the Sony 1000X The Collexion Given the features, it’s time to talk about the price. As we say, Sony aims at a different segment than the one they already have covered with the WH-1000XM6 that move around 350 euros and these 1000X The Collexion will arrive for 630 euros. They will be available this May and, in addition to the redesign of the headphones, the box now looks like a bag with a magnetic closure that accompanies that premium “package”. In Xataka | The best quality-price Bluetooth headphones: which one to buy for your mobile in 2026

the new Sihoo Doro C300 Pro V2 has been released with a discount

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If you work (or study) at home like me, you probably spend much of the day sitting. The human body is not designed to spend long hours sitting in front of a computer, something that we can combat with short breaks where we move a little and with some stretches. But even with all this, you’re going to be sitting down a lot of time. And therefore, the ideal is to do it in a chair where you are as comfortable as possible. There are many chairs. The majority bets on an office chair because they combine comfort and an elegant design (ideal when you have an online meeting). There are options that you will most likely know, such as the Markus from Ikea either the Actiu Stay. Today we bring you an alternative that has just been released: it is called Sihoo Doro C300 Pro V2 and it costs 449.99 euros with the coupon ‘SihooXa6’. What does it stand out for? In that it is a chair that, without you having to touch anything, adjusts to you even if you move while sitting. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A chair that “follows you” so you always have your back supported We are going to see the most notable points of this new Sihoo chair, but what you mainly have to stay with is what we mentioned above: it is a chair designed to support your back or head even if you recline its backrest (which, in fact, reclines up to 135 degrees). Chairs like the Markus from Ikea are static. This means that if you lean back or move a little, your body is no longer supported correctly. That does not happen with this Doro chair, which has a system called DynaCore. And what does that mean? Which has a structure of four coordinated zones (head, back, lumbar and arms) that is always in contact with your body. To this we must add another system called SyncroFlex. The chairs are adjustable through a system of levers. In the Sihoo one there is also one to adjust the height or the inclination of the backrest, but that’s it. The support Automatically slides to match the shape of your back and adjust to it. This is also ideal if several people are going to use the chair at home, because it adjusts to different heights without having to touch levers. Another point that is also great about this Sihoo Doro C300 Pro V2 is its armrests. It is no longer rare to find what many brands call ‘4D armrests’, so called because they move back, forward and up-down. Those of the Sihoo chair go one step further with their 8D adjustment, since they can also be configured or moved depending on the position we have. This is great if, for example, you recline the backrest and want to read a book or tablet: Not only will you have support for your elbow, but also your forearm. More things to keep in mind about it. Its headrest is a good size, but the best thing is that it is flexible and also accompanies the movement of your neck. Besides, the seat can be adjusted in depthsomething that we cannot do in chairs like the Markus and that is ideal for people with very long or short legs. Finally, it is a chair that has breathable mesh as the main fabric. It is not that it is the only chair on the market to use this, but it is what ideal in hot environments and now that it’s starting to get hot everywhere. In addition, we cannot forget that Sihoo offers a 30-day free trial and a three-year warranty. This, added to all of the above, makes this Sihoo Doro C300 Pro V2 a very interesting option to make spending many hours at home sitting more bearable. Other Sihoo chairs that may interest you SIHOO Doro C300 Ergonomic Office Chair with 3D Ultra Soft Armrests, Dynamic Lumbar Support for Home Office Chair, Adjustable Backrest for Desk Chair (Black) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links SIHOO M57 Ergonomic Office Chair with 3D Armrests, Lumbar Support and Adjustable Headrest, Synchronized Tilt Function and High Backrest – Light Gray 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 | sihoo In Xataka | How to set up your home office: buying guide for stands, monitors and other peripherals, cables, headphones and more In Xataka | Buying guide on how to make your home workplace ergonomic

7,000 employees move to AI while 8,000 clear their desks

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Thousands of Meta employees will go to sleep tonight without knowing if tomorrow they will have work. Mark Zuckerberg’s company has set a date and time to put end to the long agony that their employees were suffering in one of the further staff cuts that Meta has done in its recent history. According to advanced Reuters, the company has asked its US employees to telework tomorrow while layoff notices are rolled out. A measure that, beyond logistics, reflects the enormous tension that the company knew would be generated that day. Layoffs at 4 in the morning and without relief. According to an internal document to which the news agency has had access, the layoffs will be carried out in three waves that will begin at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, local time, in each region. This was detailed by Janelle Gale, director of Human Resources at Meta, in an internal memo shared with employees. “Many leaders will announce organizational changes,” the directive wrote. According to that document, the set of layoffs will affect about 10% of the entire workforce of the 77,986 employees that Meta had at the end of March. Furthermore, the company has withdrawn 6,000 offers of work to fill vacancies that were open. More than 7,000 employees relocated to AI. The layoffs are just one part of the restructuring movement that Mark Zuckerberg is carrying out. Meta has already reassigned more than 7,000 employees to new positions in new projects linked to AIaccording to the same Gale memo. Some transfers have already become effective before May 20, but in other cases employees will be notified throughout the same Wednesday. In that internal communication, Gale explained the goal of the changes: “We are now at a stage where many organizations can operate with a more horizontal structure, with smaller teams of groups or cohorts that can move more quickly and with greater autonomy.” The company also will eliminate middle management to flatten your hierarchy and speed up decision making. Weeks of anguish before the cut. The last few weeks at Meta have been especially hard for workers after the news of the layoffs leaked, and the hasty confirmation by the company. Meta employees rated the experience as “a hell of 28 days.” During these days a group of employees protested against the use of mouse tracking technology to monitor productivity, in a tension scenario in which many workers questioned their permanence in the company. The price of betting everything on AI. These changes are part of a profound renewal at Meta this year, which many are already calling Meta’s “second Year of Efficiency”, in reference to the first major restructuring that Mark Zuckerberg applied between 2023 and 2024. According to pointed Business Insider, several company leaders did not rule out further cuts beyond this initial 10%which makes May 20 the beginning of a process of thinning the Mera structure that is more intense than anticipated in the initial figures. In Xataka | Technology companies have laid off 92,000 employees to invest in AI. The problem is that the layoffs are costing them a fortune. Image | Unsplash (Mariia Shalabaieva), Goal

There is a Chinese manufacturer eating the entire electric motorcycle pie. And his next goal is Europe

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The increase of fuel prices caused by the iran war It is being the perfect excuse for one of the most relevant electric motorcycle manufacturers in China to focus away from its territory. Given the growing demand for economical and electric motorcycles outside Asia, the focus is clear: Europe. Yadea. Yadea is, by sales volume, the world’s largest manufacturer of scooters and electric two-wheeled vehicles. Its success is given by the very high demand for this type of motorbikes both in China and in Southeast Asia and South America. And now it’s time to conquer Europe. Since the conflict with Iran raised oil prices and created obstacles to its transit, international sales of Yadea They are growing at a rate of 70% year-on-year compared to 2025. The new. Yadea is not a new player in Europe. They have been present in Spain since 2022, distributing affordable mopeds and electric motorcycles. A discreet operation that wants to begin to consolidate and grow starting this year. Yadea is closing the opening of a factory in Hungary to produce within the European Union and protect itself from tariff tightening. It is not a new practice: China is starting to manufacture in Europe to make their products competitive, and the electric motorcycle is no exception. Why it is important. Of the almost 60 million electric scooters sold in China, 16 million correspond to Yadea. If there is a manufacturer with enough muscle and knowledge to flood Europe with two-wheeled vehicles at an affordable price, it is this one. Why now. Wang Jiazhong, vice president of Yadea, has made it clear in his statements that the current situation is the best possible opportunity to begin expanding into more markets. “The situation in the Middle East presents a good opportunity for us to enter the market and guide consumers towards the use of our electric vehicles, as they can clearly feel how much fuel prices have increased.” Not so fast. Europe is a peculiar and complicated market for electric two wheels. It represents around 9% of global volumes and is skewed towards premium models. It is not a volume market like Asia, at least today. Quite the opposite happens with the combustion motorcycle: China is sweeping and soon the top 3 best-selling motorcycles will be led by Chinese motorcycles. Therefore, the company is exploring joint ventures and collaborations with local companies to adapt their offer culturally and aesthetically. What giants like NIU, Super Soco or Silence have not achieved (example of the resounding failure of the electric motorcycle in Spain, with the SEAT MO), Yadea wants to achieve it. In Xataka | Spain loves one thing: cheap motorcycles. Europe doesn’t like something else: cheap motorcycles.

We have been going to the Moon the wrong way for decades if what we want is to save fuel

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When you travel to the same place many times, little by little you learn which are the best routes. You don’t just need to know the shortest path. It is also good to locate the one with the most gas stations, the best road or the most beautiful landscapes. It all depends on your tastes and needs. If the trip is made in space, it is important to find the shortest path; but, above all, the main need is to locate the one that represents a greater fuel savings. We hope that in the future humans will be able to travel regularly to the Moon, but it would be very expensive and unviable to wait until then to find the best path through trial and error. Therefore, an international team of scientists has developed the formula that calculates the ideal path. Spoiler: it is not any of the ones that have been seen so far. Biggest savings so far. The study, carried out by an international team of scientists and directed from the University of Coimbra, points to a saving in delta-v of 58.80 m/s. This measure refers to the amount of effort necessary to carry out an orbital maneuver. In other words, the total change in speed needed to carry out said maneuver. The lower the delta-v, the better, since a high gear change means more fuel consumption. In the case of the complete trip from Earth to the Moon, the delta-v is 3,342.96 m/s. It may seem that reducing that figure by less than 60 meters per second is not much, but we must keep in mind that A single meter per second already represents a great waste of fuel. Therefore, the results obtained in this study are very positive. Theory of functional connections. When you are going to calculate the trajectory between the Earth and the Moon you need to leave the Earth’s orbit, with a certain speed and position and reach that of the Moon, also with specific characteristics. All those specific parameters are restrictions. When we are in a place as wide as space, there can be many different paths. An infinite number of them. Therefore, to locate them, simulations must be carried out. The problem is that, no matter how powerful the simulators are, if the restrictions are not reduced a little, the possibilities remain endless. This is where the theory of functional connections comes into play. This, basically, consists in changing the approach of the formulas so that the conditions are already included. Said with a more earthly analogy, if we want to find the best route from Madrid to Barcelona, ​​we can analyze absolutely all the roads in Spain or look only for the best option among the roads that start in Madrid and end in Barcelona. With this theory of functional connections you achieve just that. The restrictions are not eliminated, but are included directly in the mathematical approach. With Artemis II there was a moment when connections were lost Much fewer simulations. By changing that approach, more simulations can be done. No time is wasted simulating paths that do not leave Madrid and end in Barcelona. For this reason, the authors of this study have managed to go from 280,000 simulations to more than 30 million. This makes it easier to find an optimal route. A stop along the way. The optimal route includes a stop along the way, right at the Lagrange point L1, a place between the Earth and the Moon in which the gravitational attraction of both objects is compensated, so that the effect is similar to the absence of gravity. The ships could remain there as long as necessary without losing communication with Earth. In the case of Artemis II, for example, there was a point where connections were lost. That wouldn’t happen here. Finally, once everything is ready and the orbits are aligned correctly, the second part of the trip could be carried out, heading to lunar orbit. Better near the Moon. Previous simulations that looked similar to this one included entering this trajectory on a near-Earth branch. However, with this research it has been seen that fuel savings are better if done on the opposite side, closer to the Moon. The cheapest way so far, but not the cheapest possible. The authors of the study acknowledge that this is the cheapest path that has been calculated so far between the Earth and the Moon, but not the cheapest possible. And, in their calculations, they have taken into account the gravitational attraction of the Moon and the Earth, but not that of the Sun. If this were added, savings could also be improved, but the launch window would be restricted. That is, there would be fewer possible days to carry out the launches. That would make logistics difficult, so for now, the cheapest option so far has been chosen, but not the cheapest possible. That alone is a great advance. Image |Rfassbind In Xataka | We have not yet colonized the Moon and we have already filled it with garbage: there are even abandoned golf balls

In Alicante, the Animal Welfare Law is causing demonstrations for a very specific thing: feline colonies

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Despite the rain and the cold and the fact that the call was made Sunday at noona few weeks ago around 200 people They went out on the street in Alicante, with banners and a megaphoneto demand, among other things, the resignation of the city’s mayor. They did not mobilize the housing, the increase in price from the shopping cart, unemployment, immigrationcorruption or any of the other issues that according to the CIS It keeps the Spaniards awake at night. What led them to complain are the feline colonies from Alicante. Or rather, how the City Council is managing them despite the fact that since 2023 the Animal Welfare Law (and the autonomous) clearly states what your responsibilities are. What has happened? April 12 around 200 people They met on the Explanada de España, on the seafront of Alicante, to demand that the City Council change its management policy for feline colonies. Between messages such as “cats are unprotected” or “not looking is abandoning,” the protesters denounced what they consider a passive attitude on the part of the City Council, responsible for the street colonies. “He has done absolutely nothing,” regretted in statements to the newspaper Information Antonio Ripoll, president of the Felinos Lo Morant association. The group assures that, despite their insistence on the situation of the colonies, from the Consistory they have only received “excuses” and answers that they interpret as “a way of delaying things.” One of the triggers for the April 12 demonstration came to early marchwhen the Colonias Felinas Alicante (Acofal) association denounced that the municipal cleaning services had removed the cat houses installed in the Parque de la Ereta, which left their colony without shelter or food. “Scattered and disoriented”. What happened in Ereta even led PACMA to launch a statement in which it denounces “the repeated withdrawal” of food, water and shelters in the area, which affects “more than one hundred cats registered”, and warns the City Council of “a possible violation of regional and state animal protection legislation.” “It is impossible to move the cats from the Ereta Park, which occupies the entire slope of the mountain that surrounds the Santa Bárbara Castle,” underlines the collective: “The withdrawal of food, water and shelter leaves the animals unprotected, dispersed and disoriented, especially in episodes of rain.” What does the LBA have to do with it? Both in the messages of the animal associations and in that of PACMA it is repeated a fundamental idea: If the focus is on the City Council it is because for a few years the Animal Welfare Law (LBA) clearly states that local administration plays a key role in the management and care of feline colonies. In fact, PACMA warns that what happened in Ereta could “constitute a violation” of state regulations, the Law 7/2023but also the autonomous range, the 2/2023. “They oblige public administrations to guarantee the correct management and protection of feline colonies,” argues the animalist party. The message is very similar to the one sent from the associative world. Ripoll, for example, matches in which the City Council “is systematically failing to comply with the animal welfare law.” Even they point out that colonies often depend on caregivers who manage them by investing their own resources and time, something they attribute to the lack of “budget and adequate technical personnel” in the animal protection office. Chapter VI. Article 39. The truth is that the legislation is very clear on this matter. The state law 7/2023 of protection of the rights and well-being of animals details in its chapter IV, article 38, the role of city councils: “In the absence of other provisions in regional legislation and respecting the scope of competence established by current legislation, it is up to local entities to manage community cats, for which purposes they must develop Feline Colony Management Programs.” Even precise What minimum requirements should these management plans cover: encourage citizen collaboration, launch training and information campaigns, and establish population control plans. Also the care of animals. In fact, the rule makes it clear that it must be the local entity that assumes “responsibility for health care”, using registered veterinarians to do so, and also establishes protocols for treating cat colonies. Does the law say more? Yes. It puts a few homework extra to city councils (for example, including sterilizations in population control plans), specifies the roles of regional administrations and citizens and finally highlights certain actions that are categorically “prohibited” in the colonies. These include sacrificing cats with very specific exceptions, taking specimens from colonies (and therefore not used to being among humans and confined) to “animal protection centers” and exchanging animals from one colony to another. The law too precise that cats can only be removed from their communities in certain cases. In case there were any doubts Valencian law It also emphasizes that the town councils, hand in hand with animal associations and veterinarians, “will carry out comprehensive management” of the colonies in their municipalities. And that includes CER (Capture, Sterilization and Recovery) programs, feeding, shelter, supervision and health treatment for the felines. “Community cats will be identified with a microchip under the ownership of the local administration.” Beyond Alicante. Alicante is not the only municipality in which the application of the LBA and its obligations has generated friction with the town councils. In Torres Torres (Valencian Community) the volunteers who take care of the feline colonies recently threatened also with going to the Ombudsman in the face of what they consider the “inaction of the city council” and at the end of 2025 PACMA denounced that the Donostia City Council was violating Law 7/2023 in a neighborhood of the city. Similar situations have been experienced in Sangunt (Valencian Community) or Saint Joseph (Ibiza). “Volunteer veterinarians”. Two years ago, shortly after the approval of the LBA, the Alicante College of Veterinarians even released a statement to remember two key ideas about caring for cat colonies. The first is that “population and health control” depends on … Read more

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