Mobile Tech & Gadgets

the problem is different and it is much closer

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Bitcoin It has been presenting itself for years as a decentralized system, resilient by design and less exposed to the single points of failure that affect traditional banking. The idea is powerful and, to a large extent, true. But it has an important nuance that is usually left out of the conversation: to function, Bitcoin continues to rely on a very specific physical infrastructure that connects the world and that also conditions its real resistance. The study that puts figures on resilience. A study by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Financebased on eleven years of network traffic and 68 real cable incidents explains something very interesting. The significant disconnection threshold of the clearnet of Bitcoin is between 72% and 92% of submarine cables in random failure scenarios. However, the same work introduces a decisive nuance: this solidity changes noticeably when the problem is no longer random. Decentralization, but not isolation. Just because Bitcoin does not have a central authority does not mean that it works independently of other infrastructures. Its network is made up of distributed nodes that constantly exchange information, but they do so through providers, routes and physical systems that also support the Internet. The Cambridge study itself highlights this interdependence between layers, where the logical and the material coexist. For this distributed network to work, the nodes need to continuously exchange data, and that occurs over a global infrastructure shared with the rest of the Internet. We are talking about submarine cables, terrestrial links, service providers and routing systems that determine where information circulates. Bitcoin’s resilience, according to the study, depends largely on how all these components are organized and connected. Where everything changes is in targeted attacks. Compared to the resistance shown in random scenarios, the study warns of a much more accessible vulnerability when the attack focuses on large ASNs or key routing infrastructures. Damaging cables indiscriminately is not the same as hitting specific surfaces of the network, and this difference paints a very different scenario from that of massive and indiscriminate failures. Researchers support their conclusions with documented events. One of the most significant is the cable cutting recorded on March 14, 2024 off the Ivory Coastwhich affected multiple countries in the region. On a global scale, the impact on the Bitcoin network was minuscule, although at a regional level the consequences were much more visible. Tor’s role in resilience. The study identifies another element that influences the robustness of the network: the growing use of the protocol Tor. According to their data, in 2025 around 64% of Bitcoin nodes will already operate through this network and, in the four-layer model used by researchers, this evolution not only does not weaken the infrastructure, but rather increases its resilience against cable cuts under the current geography of the relays. So, overall, the study paints a less intuitive scenario than is usually proposed. Bitcoin does not seem particularly exposed to a collapse caused by massive and indiscriminate failures in the global infrastructure, but rather to much more focused disruptions. The key, according to researchers, is not so much in the scale of the damage as in where it occurs, which forces us to rethink how we understand its resilience. Images | Jen Titus | Erling Løken Andersen In Xataka | Seedance 2.0 has used Hollywood intellectual property to go viral. Hollywood has used the courts

We knew that mobile phones had an impact on children’s mental health. A study has defined the border: 16 years

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Today, we live in a time of great debate around Instagram, TikTok or X, wondering if they really negatively affect our minors, with several governments promoting the possibility of banning them, including Spanish. Now, a new study longitudinal has shed light on the true impact that using social networks can have on mental health, pointing to a much more complex scenario than we think. The study. It has been a team from the Miguel Hernández University that has decided to put the focus precisely on social networks at a time when research paints a very worrying picture. But in this case wanted to put the focus in the nuances that should really matter to us: age, gender and mental health status prior to entering the world of social networks. And its conclusions change the classical conception. It’s not how much, but how. Until recently, the most classic concept to measure danger was “screen time.” In this way, different reviews suggested that spending more hours in front of the cell phone was equivalent to having a worse well-being. But the UMH research goes a step further and focuses on how networks interfere with daily life, sleep or personal relationships. Here the most striking finding that the research team saw was that the impact of this problematic use on depressive symptoms has a very clear boundary: 16 years. But it fades. Although researchers have observed that increased depressive symptoms It is much more acute in those under 16 years of age, it has also been seen that around this age the effect diminishes. The reason that marks 16 years as a true frontier is precisely the greater capacity for emotional and cognitive self-regulation that adolescents have as they mature little by little. In this way, young people from the age of 16 become less vulnerable to the negative impacts of the digital environment, something pointed out by other external studies that already warned that early pre-adolescence is the true critical period of exposure to social networks as they are more sensitive. A gender gap. Another worrying point raised by science is how digital popularity affects depending on whether the teenager is a boy or a girl. And right now we live in the era of followers where anything is done to see how our accounts have more and more followers. And while it may seem like having more followers is a positive reinforcement for any teen, the data says otherwise. The researchers point out here that having a greater number of followers is associated with a greater number of depressive symptoms, and especially in girls. The reasons lie in the pressure to maintain a perfect image, the fear of being analyzed down to the last detail and, logically, the cybervictimization. A set of factors that act as a toxic cocktail towards mental health. In the boys. Here, having many followers has a neutral or even somewhat protective effect, operating as a status enhancer within a group of friends, for example. That is, the complete opposite of girls, marking a gender gap that has also been investigated by other third-party studies that already warned that the mental health of minors is much more susceptible to the dynamics of online validation. Previous vulnerability. Do social networks depress you or were teenagers already depressed? This is the question we can ask ourselves when addressing this complex issue, and science indicates that adolescents who already suffered from a previous vulnerability before using the networks are the most susceptible. In this way, if a young person already presents depressive symptoms, their evolution will be significantly worse if they develop problematic use of networks. In these cases, the screen becomes a true refuge that ends up worsening the original picture when exposed to a large number of people or by consuming negative content. What should we do? The great conclusion that can be drawn here is that We must protect preteens as they are the most vulnerable, and also give priority attention to girls because they suffer much greater aesthetic and validation pressure. This is where governments come in with the regulations that are already being put on the table to prevent these most vulnerable young people from being exposed to something that can be so harmful. Images | Johnny Cohen In Xataka | We say we are “depressed” beyond our means: where does the illness end and where does the illness begin?

The problem is that no one can agree on what they are.

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He James Webb Space Telescope It has been targeting the most remote regions of the universe for years and, with each new observation, it has revealed something that doesn’t quite fit. In his images, small, tiny, bright red dots appear, which repeat with a frequency that is difficult to ignore. They are not a specific anomaly or an observation failure: they are objects that astronomers have been studying for some time without having yet achieved a convincing explanation of their nature. The novelty. A recently published study in The Astrophysical Journal, led by Devesh Nandal and Avi Loeb, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, opens an alternative to the most widespread interpretation. Specifically, it suggests that some of these red dots might not be systems dominated by active black holes, but rather supermassive stars formed in the early universe. Speaking to Live ScienceNandal argues that this type of star can explain key features of these objects without depending on the presence of growing black holes. Before this turn, the so-called “little red dots” had already been on astronomy’s radar for some time. The term began to be consolidated in studies published in 2024, when several teams began to analyze them systematically after the first Webb observations. We are not talking about a recent discovery, but rather an accumulated enigma: At Xataka we already address it as a phenomenon that is difficult to fit into current modelswith very compact, extremely luminous objects present in the early universe. The dominant hypothesis. During the first years of analysis, the explanation that gained the most traction was that these red dots were driven by growing black holes. In the first phase, some of the researchers attributed its red color to dust in the environment, although later work has shifted part of that focus to hydrogen gas. What is starting to not fit. With the passage of time, some observations have complicated this initial interpretation. Several of these objects do not show clear X-ray emissions, one of the most common signs of active black holes, and their spectra lack strong metallic lines beyond hydrogen and helium. Added to this is “The Cliff”, one of the objects analyzed by the RUBIES program, which does not fit either as a conventional galaxy or as a system dominated by dust. The proposal of the new study fits into this context, which proposes a different reading for at least part of these objects. Instead of active black holes, some small red dots could be supermassive stars formed from primordial gas, composed almost exclusively of hydrogen and helium, and observed just before collapsing. According to the model developed by the team, this scenario reproduces both its extreme brightness and specific features of its spectra, without having to assume the presence of a growing black hole. The new study does not close the debate, rather it expands it. The researchers themselves acknowledge that directly demonstrating what lies behind these objects remains extremely difficult, and other voices in the scientific community insist that none of the hypotheses can yet be ruled out. The presence of black holes in these systems remains to be demonstrated directly and, for now, is inferred mainly from their brightness and how abundant they are. Images | NASA/ESA/CSA (1, 2) In Xataka | The Zoo Hypothesis: Why Aliens Likely Know About Us and Don’t Want to Contact Us

It’s geopolitics. And China goes with the accelerator to the table

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When commercial 5G was taking its first steps in 2018, China was already talking of the next generation. The Asian giant saw very early that 6G would be a strategic element and got to work to dominate the conversation before its rivals. Because this is not about playing with less latency at a cloud game or download data faster. It is about having frontier technology before the rival. Strategic 6G. Since the middle of the last century, China has had something known as the ‘Five Year Plan’. It is a roadmap that sets out the objectives to be developed and achieved over a period of five years. Everything goes into it: energy, economy, society, technology and the environment, and it represents an organizational chart to coordinate policies that make the set objectives possible. In the 14th Five-Year Plan, the focus was on developing technologies that would allow China to be self-sufficient in semiconductors and digital technologies such as 6G. Time has passed and we have been able to see enormous progress during this time (especially in semiconductors), and now the new development plan has just been published in which we want to strengthen that sovereignty, but where two key objectives are framed: AI and 6G as a lever for economic growth. Calendar. The new roadmap defines the objective for the period 2026-2030, but the country has been preparing the ground for years. Huawei, already in 2019, He pointed out that they were testing 6G internally and that it was considered that it would not be until the end of the next decade when it would begin to be deployed commercially. The moment is approaching and steps have been taken. In 2020, China deployed what was considered the world’s first 6G satellitein 2022 experimented with sending data packets of one TB per second from a kilometer away, and in 2023 we learned that military uses were also being analyzed. For example, vibration analysis in water to detect even smaller submarines and drones in the open sea from the air. In the middle of last year, the state media CCTV commented that China’s objectives with 6G were being met as planned, highlighting, again and as they do every time they make a communication on the subject, the country’s leadership in this field. And… for what? China wants the world to know that are very actively developing this technology. And the big question is… do we need 6G? And here there is a big mistake: thinking that 6G is a technology for users. Obviously, consumer devices capable of having connections of these speeds will be essential for applications, for example, of artificial intelligence that are not calculated at the local level, but 6G is not so much for mobile phones but for the global network. From the same CCTV statement it is detailed that “6G is more than a communication technology.” This is something to drive more complex devices, smart terminals and new generations of sensors. Speeds above 100 Gbps are targeted with a delay of less than a millisecond (in 5G, the figures are about 1Gbps) and this will benefit the remote manipulation of devices, the number of simultaneous connections and tasks that require total precision, such as “swarms” of robots working in the field and coordinated by artificial intelligence. This sounds like science fiction, but recently Samsung presented its plans to transform its factories by 2030. Robots will be the workforce and the brain will be the AI. In its own updated five-year plan, China emphasizes the development of ’embodied AI’, that “robotics with AI” as one of the pillars of the country’s technological development. Everyone wants to lead. The country detailed that “the future 6G will not only be a mobile communication network, but a new generation of mobile information.” But of course, with all the range of possibilities that something like this opens up, and with how important it can be for an accelerated and massive deployment of robots, Physical AI and even of the remote computing in data centersno country wants to miss the train. Because China has giants like Huawei, but South Korea has SK Telecom and Samsung. Both have already expressed their intention to start conduct short-term technology tests with an ambitious goal: to have a functional 6G network by 2028. Japan is also in that raceEurope (which missed out on 5G) He doesn’t want things to repeat themselves. with 6G and the United States, whose current president already said in 2019 that I wanted 6G for yesterdayis also in garlic. A basic problem. My colleague Laura points out in Xataka Mobile that China wants to win the 6G battle before the battle for 6G begins, but although it is evident that they are in it and they lead patent applications worldwide (as has already happened thanks to Huawei with 5G), as users… we say again that the thing will take a while to start. At least in Europe. In a report last year, Ericsson, which is a communications giant, He pointed out that there is a basic problem: While competitors have deployed the millimeter band, most European countries have prioritized medium and low bands. More coverage, less speed, and although soon it will be time to talk about 6G as a current technology, the 5G has been with us for more than six years, and it is still taking its first steps. And if Europe wants to be a reference in robotics, AI and new technologies, it will have to start deploying towers as they are already doing in other regions. Pexels (edited with Gemini) In Xataka | Qualcomm believes that 6G will be the definitive network for AI and has already set a date: the reality is that 5G is still in its infancy

New BMWi3, features, price and technical sheet

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In six months with the order book open, BMW has collected 50,000 reservations from the BMW iX3. The figure is even more striking if we take into account that the car has arrived exclusively with a single 469 HP engine and a gigantic battery of more than 100 kWh, so its starting price of 69,900 euros is a starting point that will probably fall. The electric SUV was the first car of the New Classthe reset in the BMW electric family that will mark its future. The purely electric platform that promises combustion car ranges, charging powers of 400 kW and a cabin built from the software. Now, it is the BMW i3 that will take over in this New Class that will mark the company’s purely electric future. A car that draws aesthetically from some of its historical sedans but that, again, repeats with a cabin that will surprise the most classic. The most important Series 3 in (many) years The BMW i3 was, in its day, a car ahead of its time. A sort of small electric car, very spacious inside, with electrical technology that was a rarity in the market and a touch typical of BMW. A combination that could only be found in what it was: a laboratory. Today, thanks to those investments in R&D with wheels, BMW has a new i3. One that couldn’t be more different. Because this BMW i3 is already part of the 3 Series range. It will be the first purely electric and it does so with the weight of taking the reins towards the electric car that the Germans have been diversifying but that, forced by Europe, they will have no choice but to prioritize in the coming years in the Old Continent. Almost proportionally sculpted like one of its great successes from the past, the BMW E36, the new BMW i3 arrives with a thin and wide kidney grille, opposite to what we saw in the BMW iX3. Here the horizontal is prioritized over the vertical, unlike in the electric SUV where the verticality of the front was deepened. The shapes tend to be monolithic, with a continuous pilot rear that crosses its entire width. Inside, BMW repeats the formula with its BMW Panoramic iDrive. That is, we have a multifunction steering wheel with touch keys whose icons light up or turn off depending on whether we are driving, parked or moving on a fast lane. The central screen is gigantic, 17.9 incheswith a rhomboid shape to bring the functions on the left side closer to the driver. It combines customizable widgets with the map or any other function we want. But the idea is that the central screen is a mere accompaniment to be accessed from time to time. And the BMW i3 has the thin screen that covers the entire width of the vehicle in the upper area. Instead of a traditional Head-Up Display, BMW has this customizable digital surface to which we can send information about the trip we are taking, the calendar, what is playing on the radio or the corresponding music application or the weather, to give some examples. It is an interior that seems difficult to convince purists. It will try to convince them with its mechanics and battery. As in the case of the electric SUV, the BMW i3 xDrive 50 is the first to hit the market. That is, one of its most powerful versions. Adding its front and rear axle motors, the BMW i3 xDrive 50 comes with 345 kW of power (469 HP) and a torque of 645 Nm. It is accompanied by a battery whose capacity has not yet been revealed, but taking into account that BMW announces a range of more than 900 kilometers (before homologation according to the WLTP cycle) we can expect it to be around or exceed 100 kWh. What we do know is that the car will have 800 volt technology and a charging power of 400 kW, promising to recharge 400 kilometers of autonomy in just 10 minutes. In any case, we will have to wait for more details to have a clear idea of ​​this aspect but one of the best consumption on the market is expected. To manage all the power and dynamism of the car, BMW will have what they call heart of joythe superbrain responsible for controlling the load and energy recovery but also the traction of the wheels or the response of the steering. According to BMW, the response of all the systems involved is 10 times faster than previous systems. BMW wants to make the new i3 the perfect balance between dynamism and consumption to win over those who still have their reservations about the electric car proposals. Photos | bmw In Xataka | BMW i7, analysis: how to bend the limits of the electric car with a sedan that makes no concessions

Spain has the cheapest wholesale energy in Europe in the midst of the Hormuz crisis

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The outbreak of war in Iran on February 28 and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have plunged the world, overnight, into an energy crisis of alarming proportions. In the midst of this global chaos, a European country is resisting the challenge much better than its neighbors: Spain. A shield in front of the market. To understand why electricity in Spain has not become more expensive at the same rate as in the rest of the continent, it is essential to look at how the electricity market works. The European system is “marginalist”meaning that the most expensive technology needed to meet the demand for a given day (usually gas) is what dictates the final price of all electricity. The day after the start of the conflict in the Middle East, the price of gas rose by 55%, according to Euronews. However, the impact on Spanish bills is being cushioned, thanks to the fact that the share of clean energy in the country’s generation mix already exceeds 60%. Since 2019, Spain has added more than 40 GW of renewable capacity, doubling its wind and solar farms. Added to this structural deployment is a key seasonal factor: a solid spring “hydraulic cushion”, with the reservoirs located at 82.6% of their capacity. The data of the Iberian exception. The x-ray of the European wholesale markets, reflected in the records of Energy-chartsconfirms this gap in a very visual way: The Spanish daytime miracle: Spain’s graphics during February and March They show almost absolute dominance of renewable generation and hydraulic pumping. This massive injection sinks prices from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., becoming free, or even registering negative prices, because many plants find it more profitable to bid at zero price than to assume the very high costs of stopping and restarting their machines. The fossil condemnation of Germany and Italy: The European contrast is devastating and explains the asymmetric impact of the war. German market data for the same period reveal a heavy dependence on non-renewable sources, illustrated by a thick gray strip of fossil generation that sustains their system. The case of Italy is even more illustrative about the dangers of depending on foreign gas: its graphs show a huge constant load of non-renewable generation, which condemns the transalpine country to maintain a systematically high and flat price curve throughout the day. The “green shield” night fissure: However, we are not invulnerable. As analyst Antonio Aceituno, from the consulting firm Tempos Energía, warns, in Europa Pressthe Spanish balance is broken when evening falls. When the sun disappears, gas combined cycles begin to cover demand, returning tension to prices. This explains why in March the monthly average It woke up abruptly to 64.05 euros/MWh, with nighttime peaks of up to 247.15 euros/MWh. It is empirical proof that, no massive batteries to save the sunat eight in the afternoon we are still at the mercy of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. Furthermore, time is against us. Antonio The Tempos Energía analyst warns that our precious “hydraulic shield” could begin to give way at the beginning of summer if the conflict becomes entrenched. In the worst case scenario, the June bill could jump above 100 euros per MWh, reaching the feared 120 euros between July and August. A halfway transition. The current energy crisis has left an irrefutable lesson: renewables are our best social shield. The deployment of recent years has prevented Spain from suffering the same financial drowning as its neighbors. As energy financing expert Gerard Reid reflects, in Euronewsit is preferable to depend on China to import a solar panel once every 25 years, than to depend on oil and gas from the Persian Gulf every day. But the transition is painfully incomplete. As long as lack of storage forces us to turn on gas plants when the sun sets, our pockets will continue to be hostage to global volatility. Whether due to a military drone over the Strait of Hormuz or due to political retaliation in the Oval Office, Spain’s true energy independence will not come until we are able to massively save the sun and wind that we have left over. Image | Photo by Alexis Presa on Unsplash and Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Unsplash Xataka | Skyscrapers are full of glass, so some Spanish researchers have had an idea: let them serve as “solar panels”

now he is banning them for pesticides

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The summer of 1994 was a wild year on the French border. Images of French farmers overturning strawberry trucks Spanish protests in Toulouse went around the world and the ancient tension between the two countries became a memory for history. In these 30 years, many things have changed. But that tension is not. That tension has left La Junquera and Hendaye, but it is still there and the institutional-health path demonstrates it. On March 16, the French Government ordered the withdrawal of all strawberries of Spanish origin sold by two supermarket chains. The reason? Residues of phytosanitary products above the community limits (MRL). What exactly happened in France? Something relatively common: the withdrawal of certain products due to problems with phytosanitary residues (although the sheet does not make it clear what the specific problem was). What complicates the management of the alert is that, since they were sold in bulk, they did not have easily identifiable batches: all the product has been withdrawn. Does this mean the alert is false or politically motivated? Nothing of the sort. In principle, the controls They are real and the excess waste is documented. What it does mean is that the historical rivalry is not only summarized in overturned trucks at the border: the regulatory and phytosanitary route is another playing field. France is not persecuting us in the literal sense of the term, but it is true that Spain has a real problem with this (and we have to get our act together). A very real problem. According to EurostatSpain is the largest consumer of pesticides in the European Union: we are talking about 75,774 tons in 2020, almost a quarter of the total. It is true that France is following closely, but the distance is increasing. We must not forget that, recurrently, different products have been blocked for health reasons. He North American veto on fresh pepper between 2022 and 2023 is perhaps the best-known example. Most of the problems come from imports from third countries and the asymmetry of border controls. But there is much more, the analysis of wastewater has led us to think that There is a black market for pesticides in the country. Spain facing the future. That is the best way to say it: the world has changed and Spanish leadership has to assume it. The agribusiness has demonstrated an unbeatable capacity to compete, lead and conquer markets; But as they say in the financial world: “Past earnings do not guarantee future returns“. The withdrawal of a product is an anecdote, but it is also a reminder that there is always a moment when anecdotes become trends (and changing trends is more complicated than it seems). Image | cyril mzn | Raghavendra Mithare In Xataka | Boycotts reach supermarkets for Huelva strawberries: how the drought is confronting German and Spanish consumers

reducing the target bonus when you are on medical leave is not discriminatory

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Getting sick if you work at Mercadona it can be very expensive. Not because of the medical leave itself, which is covered by Social Security, but because the days you spend recovering can take money away from the annual milestone bonus that the company distributes among its employees. A recent sentence The Supreme Court has given approval for Mercadona to deduct the proportional part of the sick leave periods from this objective bonus, and has made it clear that doing so does not mean discriminating against the worker for being sick. What the Mercadona agreement says. He article 31 of the collective agreement of Mercadona, valid until 2028, regulates the annual bonus that the company pays to its workers. To receive this bonus you must meet individual annual objectives, pass an assessment interview and have worked in the company for at least three months during the evaluated year. Its amount is a monthly payment of the salary of the professional group corresponding to the month of January of the year valued, and the company pays it during the first week of March. The point that has generated controversy is the one described in section c, which establishes that, if an employee accumulates more than 30 calendar days on sick leave common throughout the year, all those days no longer count as time worked for premium purposes. If the loss does not exceed that threshold, the days do count. On the other hand, sick leave due to work accidents, birth permits, risk benefit during pregnancy and paid leave are always considered time worked. The unions said enough. The Galician Inter-Union Confederation (CIG), which represents 1.7% of Mercadona’s workforce, took this clause to court with the argument that treating differently those who fall ill for work reasons and those who fall ill for common causes amounts to discrimination based on illness. The union relied on the violation of articles 2.1 and 4.1 of the Law 15/2022 on equal treatment and non-discriminationwhich expressly prohibits discrimination based on illness or health condition, something that before that law neither the Supreme Court nor the Constitutional Court recognized as a cause of prohibited discrimination. The National Court already rejected in September 2024 the lawsuit presented by the main unions with representation in Mercadona. Being on sick leave does not count as work. The judges’ reasoning in their ruling is based on a principle of labor law that many are unaware of, but which is included in the article 45.c of the Workers’ Statute: When a worker begins a medical leave, his or her contract is suspended. This means that, during this time of convalescence, the company has no legal obligation to pay the salary or any remuneration concept linked to actual work. As the CCOO and UGT unions pointed out in their writings to the court, during the leave there is no guarantee of equal pay with respect to the periods of effective work, and the company is not even obliged to pay the base salary, so it is not obliged to maintain the supplements for objectives. The Supreme Court says it does not discriminate. Regarding the difference between sick leave (for maternity or paternity leave, for example) and sick leave, the Supreme Court considers it justified because anyone who falls ill due to work has lost their health precisely for the benefit of the company, which deserves more favorable treatment. Furthermore, the Supreme Court remembers that it is the Social Security legislation itself that in its articles 156 and 157historically establishes those differences between professional contingencies and common, in aspects as varied as the requirements to collect benefits or their duration and amount. A victory with nuances. However, despite ruling in favor of Juan Roig’s company in the bulk of the matter, the judges have detected a specific point in the agreement that does violate the rights of workers. While reducing the target bonus proportionally to the days of sick leave is legal, preventing the employee from accessing that bonus system due to that sick leave is not. The ruling declares void the section of article 31 in which the days of common illness were excluded from the minimum calculation of three months necessary to be able to collect the objective bonus, even if it were for a lower amount as the Supreme Court has recognized. The practical consequence of this nuance implies that, if a worker has only been contributing normally for two months to collect that premium and the third month he takes it offthose sick days must count towards reaching the minimum three-month stay required to access the bonus. However, this bonus will be lower than expected because the company may reduce it proportionally to the days that have actually been worked. That is, the withdrawal cannot be a reason for exclusion from the count, but it can reduce the final amount of the premium. In Xataka | A company fired the same employee twice in eight months. The court has annulled them and returns to work with 25,000 euros Image | Wikimedia Commons (Carlos), Unsplash (Owen Beard)

The last thing was a Navy submarine for 130,000 euros

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The Spanish Navy embarked on the path of renewal some time ago, one in which the old glories are left without a place and must make way for new generations. Within this strategy, Spain put up for sale last year one of the last submarines of the S-70 family, a Tramuntana which for almost 40 years was the backbone of the country’s submarine force. The price? Little more than what it costs Xiaomi SU7 Ultraand it is an important step in the cycle of weapons renewal in which Spain finds itself. What you pay. The S-74, baptized ‘Tramontana’, was the fourth of the Navy’s S-70 series submarines. Based on the French designs of the Augustaleft the shipyards of the old Navantia in 1984 and served the Navy since 1985. With about 68 meters in length, capacity for 60 crew members, four torpedo tubes and a propulsion system with a double diesel engine of 3,600 HP and an electric engine of about 3,500 kW, the submarine could last up to 45 days without surfacing. After participating in numerous exercises and the occasional international deployment, his moment came in February 2024. After 38 years of service, and after a stretch in his useful life while awaiting the ddeployment of the first S-80the Tramontana was decommissioned and immobilized at the docks of the Cartagena Military Arsenal, ready to await its fate. What you take. In May of last year, the BOE published a resolution detailing the sale of the Tramontana. As is usually the case with this type of sales, it is not about anyone arriving and being able to get hold of a military submarine: the operation aims to serve as scrap metal. The base price was set at 138,468.53 euros and whoever was interested had to leave a provisional deposit of the base price: 27,693.70 euros. The final deposit will also be 20% of the amount reached in the auction. Is it easy to sell one of these things? Not at all, and if not… Ask the Prince of Asturias. The legendary Spanish aircraft carrier that was once the spearhead of the Navy also went up for auction after completing service. After having to repeat them with succulent discounts because no one wanted it even for scrap, he undertook a last trip to the Aliaga ship cemetery in Türkiye, where it ended up scrapped. In fact, the BOE already contemplates in these operations that, if no one opts for it, three additional auctions will be held, one every seven days and with a 15% discount compared to the previous auction if the previous one is void. Emblematic. For some it will be sad, but when something so enormous reaches its life cycle, there are only two alternatives: keep it as an element of maneuvers for training or auction it to recover money and have it scrapped. Unlike the aircraft carrier, the S-73 Mistral submarine has already been acquired by a scrapping company in Cartagena. A third option is to display it, but it is something much easier to do with a plane than with a submarine (although there are some, of course, as a museum ship). Scrapping. Speaking of the Mistral, after decommissioning it in 2021 after 35 years of service, it sold for 150,000 euros to a scrapyard that dismantled the vehicle to recover the valuable metals inside. The starting price was slightly lower than that of the Tramontana: 136,078.53 euros. Inflation affects everything. If we get philosophical, it is a bitter end for a submarine that, for decades, acted as a protection element in the Mediterranean. He participated in several NATO missions, but perhaps the most remembered operation was when he patrolled the waters around the Perejil islet in the dispute with Morocco in 2011. The S-73 Mistral, to get an idea of ​​the size Renewal. In the most pragmatic sense, it is still a 40-year-old submarine, so it didn’t make much sense to sell it to other nations (especially when looking for clients for the S-80newer and whose sale would help defray the costs of development). Because Spain has been creating for years – not without a few problems – its new fleet, the aforementioned S-80. They represent a generational leap in absolutely all their capacities, and they held out for the S-74 as long as possible until the arrival of the S-81 Isaac Peral. Now, the only one of the veteran submarines operational is a S-71 Galerna which keeps alive that strategy of at least two ‘live’ submarines at a time in terms of defense. And when the next units of the S-80 begin to arrive, the easiest thing is for the S-71 to have the same fate as its brothers the Siroco, the Mistral and the Tramontana. It’s still the weapons cycle, which can be stretched to a certain point, but when the time comes… better to get some money than have a dead asset. Images | José María González, Alberto Hernandez In Xataka | The new fear of Western fleets is not nuclear. They are conventional submarines armed with surprise and a flag: China

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