Mobile Tech & Gadgets

The European Bizum wants to be working next Christmas, but first a problem must be resolved. One of power sharing

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“Wow, but if it gives me the option to pay with Bizum, how cool.” That was my expression a few months ago when in an online purchase the online store offered me to pay directly like this. No debit or credit card, no Google Pay. With a Bizum. The instant payment system that is triumphing in Spain is so good that What we want is for it to work further. And that is precisely what the banking entities of the European Union want, who saw a “European Bizum” as a great idea. There’s just one problem. Who will control it. The European Bizum is approaching The European Central Bank he has been fighting for five years for that application that does the same as Bizum but throughout Europe. There was a major power struggle here with two large factions. On the one hand, the consortium Spain-Italy-Portugal. On the other, that of France-Germany-Belgium-Holland, who wanted to impose its own Bizum, called Wero. Fortunately, in recent months we have seen how the positions of both consortiums have become closer and the unification now seems almost definitive. This is what they indicate in five dayswhere they quote “market sources” who talk about the agreement being signed in early 2026. The European Bizum should start operating at the end of next year if everything goes as expected. This system may not be a new application, as requested by the French and German entities, but rather a system that interconnects existing ones. It is a somewhat more confusing solution but also more practical, because users will not have to change apps. For example, a Spanish user will be able to send a Bizum to a German at no cost, and the German will receive that money in his Wero app in a way that is transparent to him. The European banks participating in the negotiations have reached an agreement to establish a new company that will be the owner of this interconnection technology. There was talk of applying certain commissions, “but it was finally rejected in favor of a multilateral network.” Power distribution And there is the new challenge: Who is in charge in this new society? The distribution of power is now the great unknown, and there are several options. On the one hand, each national platform receives practically the same participation. On the other hand, the distribution should be made based on the volume of each country and then corrected. The Bizum model seems like it can also be applied to that pan-European solution. It is interesting to realize that as explained in the economic newspaper, the owners of Bizum are 22 Spanish banks, among which the participation varies: Caixabank: 25% Santander: 21% BBVA: 18% Sabadell: 12% Other minority banks such as Unicaja, Bankinter or Cajamar have lower participations, but Bizum’s statutes establish that no bank can have more than 25% participation. Do we need a digital euro? Europe has been looking for a solution for some time that would allow it to mitigate its dependence on the two great giants of electronic payments: Visa and Mastercard. The European Payments Initiativecreated in 2020 by 16 banking entities, had precisely the objective of creating a European interbank network that competed with these platforms and with others such as PayPal. And little by little it has been proven that Bizum was precisely a great candidate to achieve this. The application, with more than 30 million users in Spain, has not stopped growing in benefits and alliances like the one a year ago they signed with Revolut. There are still other obstacles in the creation of this European Bizum. For example, building a common deposit guarantee fund to deal with large US entities. It does not seem that this is going to be a major impediment to the implementation of the pan-European alternative, and that makes us wonder what happens now with the digital euro. The European Central Bank (ECB) has been designing the design of this digital asset for years. There have also been important movements in that sense, and if the European regulations are approved in 2026, there will be a pilot starting in 2027. The EU seems to want to be ready for a possible first broadcast in 2029. However, that European Bizum will theoretically solve part of what the digital euro wants to achieve, so does it make sense? It is very likelyespecially since the digital euro is a legal tender issued by the ECB. It is not just a way to transfer money, but a digital form of official money itself. Both alternatives can coexist, and this European Bizum may be the best way to promote the use of the digital euro. In Xataka | The Treasury confirms it: payments for dinner and gifts to your friends through Bizum do not go to the Tax Agency

How to create a Christmas sugar cookie image with your pet’s photo in a couple of clicks with ChatGPT

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We are going to explain to you step by step how to create a Christmas sugar cookie image with your pet’s photo wearing ChatGPT Imagesthe section to create images from photographs of ChatGPT. This tool will allow you to do the editing with artificial intelligence without having to write a prompt certain. Therefore, the best thing about all this is that these images are very easy to makeand you only need a couple of clicks to get them. Furthermore, since when the photo is generated you will also be shown the prompt generated by ChatGPT itself, you can copy and paste it into another AI or make any modifications you want. Make sugar cookies from your pets The first thing you have to do is enter the ChatGPT website or application on your device. Here in the side menu Click on the section Images that will appear just below the search options. Once you enter the section Imagesnow you have to look in the row where it says Test a style on an image. Here, search and click on the option sugar cookie that appears with the drawing of a dog biscuit. This will open a window where you have to choose the photo of your pet that you want to use as a reference. For this, you can use one of the recent ones that you have used in this section, or manually choose another one that you want to use. And that’s it. Just by doing this, ChatGPT will create the sugar cookie image with the photo of the pet that you have uploaded. If you are not satisfied, you can try again or copy and paste the prompt with another photo. You can also edit and modify the prompt so that the result is different. In Xataka Basics | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

The EU needs to rearm quickly and cheaply. And your best option right now is through AI

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Both GPS and ARPANET, the germ of what would later be Internetwere born within the United States Department of Defense. From radar, which was developed during the 1930s and perfected during World War II, advances later emerged such as the air traffic control system or the microwave. There was a time when military technology was a source of inventions for the civilian sphere. With AI, technical advances begin to occur in the opposite direction: from the civil to the military. They are companies that we all know – Google, OpenAI or Anthropic – that are developing the most sophisticated models in the world and defense organizations are waiting. For the European Union, this trend coincides with an acute crisis in the field of defense. The war in Ukraine has undermined the foundations of political life in Brussels, while presenting Russia as a growing threat. Added to this is the Trump Administration’s willingness to stop security aid to European countries. A breeding ground that has driven the need to rearm. In March, the European Commission announced the ReArm Europe initiative o Readiness 2030. The objective is to significantly increase the EU’s defense capabilities. This is a plan that wants to mobilize nearly 800,000 million eurosincluding 150,000 million in loans for military investments. State governments are expected to push for the modernization of their armies, but the mobilization of private capital is also sought. The increase in security spending is also reflected in the Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034)presented in summer. This budget, which defines at a financial level the EU’s priorities for the coming years, provides for an allocation of 131,000 million euros to support investment in the areas of defense, security and space. Without knowing how the distribution is, the funds are five times higher than those of the previous period (2021-2027). (Pablo Bejarano) These efforts of the EU to recover the lost ground in defense could benefit from the technological race that is currently being experienced. Above all, advances in AI, called to reconvert armies and forms of deterrence that countries exhibit today. In one of the round tables at the Web Summit, held in Lisbon last November and which acts as a meeting point for startups from around the world, several experts addressed this topic. Under the title ‘From code to combat: Why AI defense tech is exploiting‘, participants discussed the rise of AI in defense. “What is changing the technological landscape is the speed of innovation,” commented Josh Araujo, CEO of the startup Forterra, in reference to the accelerated pace of technological evolution. “And in Europe, what happens with defense budgets is that it is no longer interesting to buy old things. You can take a system, man it with humans and put armor on it, so we are talking about refined and expensive systems that take decades to design. Or you can deploy autonomous systems low cost that put humans out of danger and allow more firepower and more deterrence capacity to be projected at a much lower cost.” The boost of startups and private capital Forterra is an American company dedicated to developing autonomous ground systems for the field of defense and industrial logistics. Araujo is used to dealing with both military and civilian actors and highlights the importance of deterrence: “The point is that for Europe and our allies, it costs aggressors much more to carry out an aggressive action. The key here is to deploy as much capacity as quickly as possible at the lowest possible cost.” To make this deployment at low cost, AI will be key. a report of the think tank RAND recommends estimates that advances in autonomy and robotics will allow this type of technology be used en masse. “AI represents a great opportunity. If we realize what we generate today on the battlefield, with swarms of drones, autonomous ground vehicles and different mission systems, we see that there are enormous amounts of data,” says Araujo. “Traditionally you had to have a lot of people staring at their computer screens to analyze and absorb the information. But AI offers us the possibility of taking this information, giving it meaning and putting it in context so that a human can make decisions based on that information,” he adds. Forterra’s CEO adds that this change has occurred over the last three or four years. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit/Commons) One of the most direct use cases of AI has to do with improving the surveillance capacity of the terrain, through the analysis of mass images. But the technology has also been used in the search and identification of targets or to guide drones towards the target without the intervention of an operator. Likewise, in Ukraine has been rehearsed vehicle deployment terrestrial autonomouswhile the launch of swarms of drones that act on missions in a controlled manner is proposed. All are formulas for increasing war capabilities at low cost, compared to the means that have been used to date. There is still a lot to refine, yes. In an informal conversation, a director of a company in the defense sector in Spain admitted that generative AI is still in the exploration phase and that for now it does not have clear uses in the military field. This does not prevent a flood of technology startups from directing their efforts towards the defense sector. James Cross, co-head of private investment at the firm Franklin Templetonwas the other participant in the Web Summit round table and painted a context full of economic incentives: “I have been investing in defense since the late 90s, but things have changed a lot in the last ten years. Before, no venture capital firm would have invested in a defense-oriented company and today, apart from AI, defense is probably the hottest sector.” Cross seasoned this vision with two notes: governments now they have gotten involvedsomething that has not happened for a long time, and more and more money is going to startups instead of traditional arms contractors. In the first half … Read more

what it is and how to use it to create artificial intelligence images from your photos

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Let’s explain to you what it is and how you can use it ChatGPT Imagesthe new section of the artificial intelligence Designed to help you create and edit photos and images. This is a forceful response to Free Nano Banana of Geminiso amazing that it already represents a new evolutionary leap in images created by AI. Since the launch of Nano Banana on Gemini, Google had managed to compete head to head with ChatGPT in creating images from photographs. Gemini was able to use your face and be recognized, something that OpenAI’s AI could not do… until now. We’re going to start by explaining what this new feature is and what features it has to differentiate it from the rest, because there are some very interesting and innovative things. Then, at the end we will summarize how you can use it to create images with different styles from your photos. What is ChatGPT Images ChatGPT Images a new section dedicated to image creation within ChatGPT. This artificial intelligence chat has updated and improved its image creator from photos so much that it has decided to give it an exclusive section. Just as ChatGPT’s normal chat allows you to create images from scratch or from your photographs, This section is exclusive for creating images from photos. Come on, the idea is that when you want to do this, instead of getting complicated by asking ChatGPT, you can enter the section and speed up the process. This is so because In the Images section you will have several ideas for designs and tools to edit your photos. Thus, it will be as easy as clicking on one of your designs, choosing the photo and that’s it, ChatGPT will do the rest. With this, eliminates the need to know how to write a good promptand the process is simpler and more visual for inexperienced people. When you choose the design and upload the photo, it will automatically be sent to ChatGPT with a pre-generated prompt that you can see. Showing you the prompt changes everything This is important, because being able to see the prompt that ChatGPT uses in its presetyou will also be able to copy and paste it to modify it, or even use it in Gemini or some other competing tool. Thus, ChatGPT Images is also not only a good testing ground, but by offering you several prompts it gives you the basis to later generate a much more personalized image from them. You will also know how the image editing prompt works in a more transparent way, and you will be able to use things from both prompts to create a completely unique one. Until now, when you were faced with creating an image from a photo you had to do it from scratch, composing the prompt on your own or searching the Internet to find them. That’s why showing it to you changes everything, because it makes anyone without knowledge can create images very elegant with AI. To all this we must add an interface that also simplifies everything, and in which ideas are shown to you with an image of the resultso that if you see something you like, you just have to click and choose the photo. How to use ChatGPT Images The first thing you have to do is enter the ChatGPT website or application on your device. Here in the side menu Click on the section Images that will appear just below the search options. This will take you to the main screen of the section Images. In it, at the top you have a search field to write a prompt manually, and below you have pre-generated styles of images and ideas of styles or other things you can do. When you choose one of the designs or ideas, you will go to a screen where you simply have to choose the photo you want to use. You can choose any of the last ones that you have used, or click on Choose a new photo to manually upload another photo. And that’s it. When you do so, a chat with ChatGPT will open that includes the photo and the prompt created to generate the type of image you have chosen. In a few minutes you will have the result. You will be able to copy this prompt to reuse it with other images in the chat itself and even modify it to your liking. In Xataka Basics | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

An underwater drone from Ukraine has changed the future of wars

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A little more than 24 hours ago an event occurred that was unprecedented in the history of war conflicts. It happens that there was only evidence from a video and statements of some involvedbut something else was missing that could certify that, indeed, an underwater drone had been able to disrupt a fortified port. Now there are no longer any doubts: the satellites have revealed what happened. Silent attack. The pfirst satellite images of the Ukrainian attack against a Russian submarine in Novorossiysk have confirmed that kyiv managed to introduce an unmanned underwater drone into one of the best protected ports in the Black Sea and detonate it a few meters from an Improved Kilo class diesel-electric submarine. According to the Ukrainian Security Serviceit would be the first known attack against a Russian ship using an unmanned underwater vehicle and, potentially, the first successful use of this type of system as an anti-ship weapon in a real conflict. Although the exact extent of the damage remains impossible to determine with certainty, the simple fact of having reached the objective is already a major operational and psychological milestone. What we know. Images obtained by commercial satellites confirm that the drone, named by Ukraine as Sub Sea Baby and until now unknown, detonated next to the stern of the submarine while it was moored to the dock. Part of the port infrastructure was clearly destroyed, consistent with the videos recorded from land and released by the SBU, where the explosion and damage to the dock can be seen. The submarine, a Project 636.3 Varshavyankaremains in the same position as before the attack, while two other units that were nearby have been displaced, suggesting an immediate security reaction. However, there are no unequivocal signs of sinking, no visible emergency operations, or fuel spills, which suggests that, if there was damage, it could be below the waterline or be of a limited nature, something impossible to confirm with aerial images alone. Satellite image after the attack, with a general view of the target submarine, inside the port, and another submarine moored outside. There are also other boats moored nearby Official denials. As expected, the Russian Ministry of Defense has denied any damage to the submarine or personnel, and has released a video which supposedly shows the ship intact, although without offering a clear view of the stern and with large areas censored. Still, even that material suggests concrete rubble on the dock, coinciding with the recorded explosion. The Black Sea Fleet has also rejected any operational impact, and Russian naval channels they have replicated that speechalthough without providing conclusive evidence. At this point, uncertainty is part of the information battlefield itself: Russia avoids recognizing vulnerabilities, while Ukraine emphasizes the audacity of the attack more than its physical effects. The same area seen before the attack, in an image from December 11, 2025. The gap in the defenses. Beyond the specific damage, the truly disruptive element of the attack is that the underwater drone managed to get through the defensive barriers of the port of Novorossiysk, designed to stop incursions Ukrainians. Those defenses had been deployed primarily in response to the surface drones that kyiv has used with notable success in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to adapt its port protection. The use of a UUV introduces a new dimension to the Russian defensive problem and confirms a key dynamic of the conflict: each countermeasure generates a different technological response, in a constant race of adaptation. Ukrainian ecosystem. He Sub Sea Baby It doesn’t come out of nowhere. Before this attack, Ukraine had already presented other underwater drones such as the Marichka, designed for kamikaze attacks against ships and maritime infrastructure, or the Toloka, of which fewer details are known. It is not clear whether there is a direct relationship between these systems, but the pattern is evident: kyiv is cbuilding a portfolio of unmanned submarine capabilities, aware that Russian underwater dominance was one of the few areas where Moscow still maintained clear superiority. The submarine as a target. The attack further confirms that the Black Sea Fleet remains a priority objective for Ukraine, especially its submarines Project 636 classcapable of throwing Kalibr cruise missiles regularly used against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Sustained pressure from kyiv had already forced Russia to withdraw a large part of its fleet from Crimea to Novorossiysk, and it is not the first time that these submarines have been attacked: in September 2023the Rostov-on-Don turned out seriously damaged in Sevastopol during a combined attack with missiles and surface drones. At the beginning of the large-scale invasion, Russia had six submarines of this type: each lost or neutralized one has considerable strategic weight. A message for Russia. Even if the submarine was not critically damaged, the attack has sent an unequivocal message: No Russian port is completely safe and naval warfare has entered a new phase, where underwater unmanned systems move from experiment to actual operational use. Other military powers, from United States to Chinacarefully observe a precedent that validates years of doctrinal development on UUVs as attack, reconnaissance and mining platforms. In that sense, the Novorossiysk episode reinforces a already recurring idea in the conflict: the war in Ukraine is not only fought over territories, but functions as a brutal laboratory for the military technologies of the future, where each innovation is tested in real conditions and its lessons are studied in all the military capitals of the planet. Image | VANTOR In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right In Xataka | If the video published by Ukraine is real, it has just blown up the naval war: an underwater drone has made history

Toledo has stretched its Christmas season to last 49 days and attract more tourists. Some neighbors think it’s a bad idea.

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Day of celebration for some. Outrageous to others. The one of Friday, November 21 It was a night of conflicting feelings in Toledo. While the City Council celebrated the official switching on of its Christmas lights (the early risers of its history) a group of neighbors gathered in the historic center to protest the ‘bill’ of mass Christmas tourism. For them, long celebrations of 49 days (until January 8) marked by crowds and difficulties in continuing with their lives. The (mega)Christmas. They do not reach the height of Vigo, which turned on its lights November 15 and probably won’t turn them off until well into Januarybut Christmas in Toledo will be much longer than usual this year. The City Council decided advance one week the implementation of its lighting and redoubling its commitment to attract tourists: if in 2024 the red button is pressed on November 29in 2025 it was activated the 21stwhen they started to shine 1.1 million LEDs100,000 more than a year ago. The result: Christmas brighter and more extensive that are remembered in the Castilian-La Mancha town. A percentage: 94.25%. The bet seems to have gone well for the City Council, which a few days ago he stuck out his chest due to the flood of tourists it received during the Constitution and Immaculate Bridge. According to the data provided by its Tourism Councilor, the city achieved a hotel occupancy of 94.25%, which, he emphasizes, consolidates it as “one of the preferred destinations” for visitors. As a reference, the year-on-year increase in visits has exceeded 47%. Visitors came to Toledo from Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, ​​Seville, other towns in the province of Toledo and even travelers from France, Italy, Argentina and the USA. The tourist boom was not limited to just the long weekend. Although Christmas has not yet started as such, The Spanish posted last week a series of photos that show that the historic center of the city was crowded again on the weekend of December 13 and 14. One coin, two sides. Greater influx of visitors usually translates (not always) in more business for restaurants, more guests in hotels and a greater number of potential clients for commerce. In Toledo, however, there are those who has raised his voice to warn that all this does not come for free to the city. And not just because of the cost of Christmas decorations. The same Friday that the mayor presided over the ceremony a group of residents of the historic center turning on the lights they concentrated to denounce the impact that crowds and mass tourism have on their lives. Is it something new? No. The debate on tourism (and its impact) it’s not new in Toledo. In fact, a few months ago the City Council gave the green light to an ordinance that seeks precisely to “promote a balanced coexistence between visitors and neighbors” and sets limits to the use of megaphones or tourist groups. This Christmas, however, the patience of the neighbors seems to have been exhausted. First for the phenomenon of Christmas tourismwhich transcends to other areas of Spain. Second, because this year Toledo has decided stretch your holidays. “Dangerous streets”. The most critical residents warn of the saturation of the historic center and how this affects their daily lives. After all, those who live in tourist areas are forced to continue with their routines (working, shopping, walking the dog…) with the streets crowded with visitors. “There are a lot of people circulating. I understand that they come to do tourism, to enjoy themselves, but they should be aware that there are people living there who are carrying out their normal daily lives,” explains to elDiario Natacha, a neighbor of the Historic Center who complains about the “overcrowding” on weekends. One of her neighbors, Carmen, goes even further and warns: “The streets are becoming dangerous.” And what is the solution? There is who poses distribute the tourist offer throughout the town to decongest the historic center and seek a “more livable” city model. One thing is clear: Toledo is forced to deal with two realities that seem to collide with each other. A, the discomfort on the part of its inhabitants with the agglomerations, something that is clear with their protests. The other reality is that tourism is a fundamental (and inalienable) source of wealth for the region. In 2023, for example, it assumed 7.3% of GDP of Castilla-La Mancha. Beyond Toledo. Toledo is not the only city that has encountered such a dilemma. In Vigo too have registered protests of neighbors and groups critical of the Christmas lights phenomenon, which according to the City Council attracts several million of visitors to the city in a matter of two months. Perhaps the most critical voice is that of the Vigo Central Zone Neighborhood Association, which complaint that the holidays become “a period of circulatory chaos, mobility problems, security problems, dirt and noise and light pollution in the heart of the city.” Your complaints already They have arrived at the court. Images | Toledo City Council In Xataka | There is a reason why Vigo is announcing its Christmas in Japan. And it has little to do with Japanese tourists

There are discounts on graphics cards, monitors and more

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It is never a bad time to renew part of our setup, no matter if we are looking for a new peripheral or directly changing a part of our gaming PC. If we are at that point, we have a very good opportunity right now with the Christmas offers that PcComponentes has active. Store that, in fact, has its own advent calendar with daily offers. This promo, which will last until next December 26has discounts of up to 40% on all types of products such as cell phones, televisions or even video games. With them, we will have it easy to find that perfect gift, no matter if we have a budget of, for example, 30 euros either 100 euros. All taking into account that we will be able to return orders until January 15 and that we even have several options to finance our purchases. As usual, we have laptops, monitors, graphics cards and even notebooks at a good price. To make your task a little easier, we leave you below a selection of some of the most notable discounts: Palit GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card by 545.90 eurosan ideal GPU for gaming at 1440p. MSI MAG 276CXF Monitor by 246.73 euroscurved screen option with a refresh rate of 280 Hz. Toshiba Canvio Basics Hard Drive by 67.95 euroswith 2 TB of storage to take our files everywhere. Logitech G203 Lightsync Mouse by 19.99 eurosa great gaming mouse if we prioritize quality-price. Sapphire PULSE AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card by 369 eurosideal for achieving top performance at 1080p. Palit GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card If we are looking for a new graphics card, this RTX 5070 from Palit is a great option right now: it is discounted to 545.90 eurosits all-time low so far. It is perfect for playing at 1440p with great performance, all without taking into account that thanks to it we will be able to use a technology as important as the DLSS 4. As for the design, it is a fairly minimalist assembly with three fans. Palit GeForce RTX 5070 Infinity 3 12GB GDDR7 Reflex 2 RTX AI DLSS4 Graphics Card The price could vary. We earn commission from these links MSI MAG 276CXF Monitor Choosing a monitor with a good response time and refresh rate is key if we want a gaming monitor, especially for playing competitive titles. This one from MSI fits there perfectly thanks to its rate of 280 Hz and a response time of 0.5 ms. In addition, it is a curved option, which is ideal for increasing immersion while we play. It is available for 246.73 euros. MSI MAG 276CXF 27″ LED Rapid VA FullHD 280Hz Adaptive Sync Curve Monitor The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Toshiba Canvio Basics Hard Drive Having a portable hard drive can allow us to carry files of all kinds with us from one computer to another, although it can also simply give us extra storage. This Toshiba HDD is one of the brand’s best sellers: it has 2 TB capacity, uses USB 3.2 and we have it available for 67.95 euros. Toshiba Canvio Basics 2TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.2 Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Logitech G203 Lightsync Mouse There are few things more essential to play comfortably on a PC than a good gaming mouse. There are very interesting wireless options, although we can find wired models with a great quality-price ratio. This Logitech G203 is one of the most used models that is difficult to go wrong with, since it combines comfort, precision and design. It is available for 19.99 euros. Logitech G203 Lightsync 2nd Gen Gaming Mouse 8000DPI RGB Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Sapphire PULSE AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card We close this selection of offers with another graphics card, although this time one from AMD. This is the RX 9060 In this case, it is a much more compact card than the previous one, since it has two fans. Costs 369 euros. Sapphire PULSE AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB GDDR6 FSR 4 Graphics Card The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Other outstanding offers from PcComponentes 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 | PcComponentes, Palit, MSI, Toshiba, Logitech, Sapphire In Xataka | Best laptops in quality price. Which one to buy based on use and seven recommended models In Xataka | What is the best laptop for working in 2025. Tips and recommendations

the reason is due to Russia and a new military corridor

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For years, the Finnish Arctic Circle has been reinvented as a theme park permanent winter, reindeer and northern lights, converted in global destination for those looking for an eternal Christmas and an experience carefully designed around the myth of Santa Claus. But there are always more surprises in Santa’s house, and an element that no one expected has just arrived in Finnish Lapland and that changes everything: Europe rearming itself. Santa and war. Rovaniemiinternationally promoted as the official home of Santa Claus, has been one of the great icons of the world for years. european arctic tourisma place where Christmas has become in permanent industry and where the experience is carefully designed for visitors from all over the world. However, this winter season the city is experiencing a silent but profound transformation: along with sledding, reindeer safaris and festive lights, the capital of Finnish Lapland has been filled with NATO soldiers who train for a scenario that until recently seemed unthinkable. Thousands of allied soldiers have recently passed through the area to maneuvers in Rovajärvithe largest training camp in Western Europe, located just 88 km from the Russian border, making Rovaniemi a a key point of the new security architecture of northern Europe. The longest and most sensitive border. The reason for this deployment is geographical and strategic. Finland shares almost 1,500 km of border with Russiaone of the largest and most complex in the entire Atlantic Alliance, and more than a quarter of it runs through the sparsely populated Lapland. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finnish intelligence services and military commanders have warned that Moscow is strengthening its infrastructure and its presence on the other side of the border, especially around the Kola Peninsula, a key enclave due to its enormous concentration of nuclear capabilities. The forecast in Helsinki is that, once the war in Ukraine ends, Russia can redeploy troops towards the north and adopt a much more robust stance towards Finland, structurally raising the level of tension in the region. NATO umbrella. Finland does not start from scratch in this defensive logic. His history and their relationship with Russia have marked for decades a culture of constant preparation, with national defense integrated into the Constitution itself and a conscription system widely accepted by society. However, the entry into NATO in 2023 It has meant a qualitative change: the country has gone from a defense designed in a national key to being part of a collective system that requires interoperability, allied presence and joint planning. This shift has translated into international cooperation much more intensethe opening of a new Allied command at Mikkeli and the designation of Rovaniemi as a future base of the Forward Land Forces, the Swedish-led battle group intended to reinforce the Alliance’s eastern flank. Military exercises in the Arctic. It we have counted before. While the tourists fill the Santa Claus Village and cameras capture idyllic scenes of snow and lights, a few kilometers away carry out military exercises of great technical and logistical complexity. Maneuvers like Lapland Steel 25held after other large multinational exercises, bring together Finnish, Swedish and British troops who train in extreme conditions, combining armor, helicopters, infantry and movement on skis in frozen forests and deep snow. Although a specific scenario is not officially tested, the maps and orientation of the exercises clearly reflect the type of threat that is in mind, making visible direct connection between the seemingly remote environment of the Arctic and high-intensity conventional warfare. A mentalized population. For many young Finns who serve in the military, in many cases voluntarily, the possibility of conflict is no longer an option. a distant abstraction. counted on a report in the Guardian that soldiers and conscripts assume extreme physical effort, endless marches and the weight of equipment as part of a collective responsibility, convinced that preparation is the best guarantee against uncertainty. The commanders describe the current situation as a new cold war, marked by the melting of the Arctic, the opening of new routes and natural resources and the rrenewed interest from Russia to ensure both its strategic deterrence and its economic assets in the north, in a context of prolonged and structural competition. Deterrence as a political message. The intensification of joint exercises and coordination between Finland, Sweden and Norway seeks more than just improving military capabilities: it seeks to send a clear political signal of cohesion, commitment and responsiveness. The bet is to avoid conflict precisely by demonstrating that any aggression would have a high cost and a collective response. In that delicate balance, Rovaniemi has become a powerful symbol of today’s Europe: a place where the imagery of peace, childhood and Christmas now coexists with bunkers, military aircraft and strategic planning, remembering that even in the extreme north of the continent, security has ceased to be a backdrop and has become a central priority. Image | Matias CalloneRawPixel, Tom Corser, BORN In Xataka | In the midst of rearmament, Europe has realized an unimportant detail: it does not have enough bullets In Xataka | France and Germany have just approved an unprecedented rearmament against the Russian threat: one hundreds of kilometers from Earth

Scooter, Chinese and with the last name “ADV”. The Zontes 368G is destroying the Spanish market for good reason

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Spain It’s scooter country. They are cheap to maintain, they hardly use fuel and some of them did not need a driving license to buy them. And I speak in the past tense because the DGT It already requires you to take a small driving course for new drivers who want to get a 125cc motorcycle with the B license (the car license). Taking into account that for years it has been possible to drive scooters without a license and the economy of maintenance, it is more than logical that these small vehicles have occupied the top 3 sales for years. What was not so predictable is that a Chinese manufacturer, launching an A2 license scooter, has blown up the ranking of the best-selling motorcycles in Spain and has catapulted itself to the top 3, very close to the historic Japanese Yamaha. We talk about Zontes with his 368Gand take a good look at the photo, since once you recognize it you will not stop seeing it on the Spanish streets. The reason for this motorcycle. Zontes has been in Spain since 2018 and, since then, has had a very modest presence. In China, The culture of copying has nothing to do with how we perceive it in Spain: For the Asian country it is a way of recognizing that a product is well made. For years, traditional Chinese education was based on memorization, tracing and exact reproduction of classical texts. Copying was the correct way to learn, and if a student could exactly replicate their teacher’s work, it demonstrated respect and having achieved a high level of skill. So, analyzing that the best-selling A2 scooter in Spain is the Honda 350 ADVZontes decided to make his own. The anti-ADV. A motorcycle for the city, road and (some) countryside, all with an aesthetic similar to Honda’s most expensive ADV, the X-ADV. The Zontes 368G is the third best-selling motorcycle in Spain according to Anesdor, dangerously close to the Yamaha Nmax. That’s key for several reasons. It is the best-selling Chinese scooter in Spain. It is the first time that an A2 license scooter is close to surpassing a B license scooter in sales. This Zontes model has surpassed Voge, a Chinese manufacturer that seemed unbeatable in Spain. While Chinese manufacturers are betting on a fragmented distribution strategy, Zontes has bet practically everything on this model. Why is it devastating?. Zontes has touched the x pillars necessary for a motorcycle to sweep sales in Spain. The price is absurdly low. Zontes asks 5,529 euros for a 368G with almost 40 HP and fully equipped. On a technological level, it is one of the most ambitious proposals on the market: heated grips, 8-inch TFT screen with mirroring connectivity, rear camera, front camera, keyless start, electric seat opening, full LED lights. Expansion of dealer network in Spain and good response from technical service. The small print. Like practically all Chinese manufacturers (except for some high-displacement models from Voge), the toll to pay for buying an Asian motorcycle is that you have to go to the workshop quite a bit. The Voge’s maintenance is every 4,000km, compared to 12,000km for its direct rival, the Honda ADV 350. A point to keep in mind for all those drivers who drive close to 10,000km annually. 2026 is coming even stronger. Zontes has made a splash in 2025, and has even more reason to do so in 2026. They are going to increase the maintenance interval to 5,000km thanks to an oil cooler. The bike will come with a heated seat. New display. Cruise control. Suspension improvements. On the other hand, in China, it is sold at the same price as the current model, so hardly any price increase is expected. 2026 will be a key year in the motorcycle world: it is more than likely that Chinese manufacturers will take the top 1 for the first time. Zontes is not alone. Zontes has become a manufacturer capable of surpassing giants such as BWM, Kymco and Kawasaki in registrations. But just look at the top 10 units registered in Spain to understand that it is not alone. Position four is occupied by Voge, a Chinese manufacturer that has managed to place its 900 DSX as the best-selling trail in Spain. In 10th place, QJmotor is beginning to make its mark. The future of the motorcycle in Spain is inevitable: it passes through China. Image | Zontes In Xataka | Chinese motorcycles are sweeping Spain: who is who in this puzzle of brands

Wall Street has turned on the spigot of infinite money for AI. They have forgotten a small detail: the electrical network

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In that equation that the world is trying to solve with AI, there is a half that not many people have noticed: debt. Behind every AI-generated chat and video is a gigantic network of data centers, and those data centers are being financed with a mountain of borrowed money. And therein lies the problem. In what is borrowed. Debt and more debt. According to recent datathe issuance of secured debt linked to data centers in the United States is estimated to be $25.4 billion by 2025. It is 112% more than the previous year. If we add up all the complex financial instruments (known as asset-backed securities (ABS) and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBSS)), the snowball is already huge: there are almost $49 billion tied to these securities. Bonuses for everyone. Here there are not only startups asking for loans, no. The technology giants that are setting up these infrastructures – the so-called hyperscalers – are also taking advantage of this mechanism. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Oracle or Meta have rediscovered the bond market as a source of financing. Better to spend what is not mine. They all have huge amounts of money, but instead of spending their own cash, They have raised 100,000 million dollars in debt issues so far this year. The goal: buy thousands of GPUs and build data centers before the competition. What are you doing, Oracle? If there is a company that embodies the vertigo of this excessive bet, it is Oracle. The company created by Larry Ellison has committed to meeting a Pharaonic $300 billion deal with OpenAI. That has forced it to become the largest issuer of corporate debt (outside the financial sector). The numbers are scary: your total debt has grown to 111.6 billion dollarswhile its cash has dropped by 10,000 million. Citi estimates they’ll need to borrow another $20 billion to $30 billion every year (every year!) for the next three years just to keep building. excessive ambition. There are also examples of startups that are exploiting this facet. One of the clearest is the one from CoreWeavea company famous for renting computing capacity for AI. The company has secured credit lines of $2.5 billion backed by leading investment banks such as JPMorgan. The market message seems clear: “if you’re going to build for AI, here’s the money.” How to get a 30-year mortgage. Analysts of all kinds have been keeping the fly behind their ears for some time, and one of the latest Moody’s reports is a good example. Concrete buildings are usually financed with terms of 20 or 30 years, but the technology inside (such as AI chips) changes radically every 3 or 4 years. Does it make sense to go into debt three decades from now for a technology that evolves so quickly? cheap money. Investors are also agreeing to charge minimal interest, just 1% above what the safe US public debt pays, when they assume that risk. It’s a worrying classic sign of euphoria. There is so much money wanting to enter the sector that those who lend it have lowered their guard and demand very little return for their risk. They firmly believe in the promises of AI while increasingly more analysts warnhorrified, that we are facing an “irrational exuberance.” Having money is no longer enough. All this is already scary, but the real bottleneck for expansion is not even capital or chips, but the electrical grid. As Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, pointed out, there is no power for so many chips. The situation is so worrying that a Deloitte study indicated in a study that there are a seven-year waiting line to connect some data center projects to the electrical grid. And if companies want to obtain financing, they need have guaranteed electricity supply for your data centers. If there is no plug, there is no loan. Big Tech looks for electrons. At OpenAI they already warned of the problem months ago when talking about the “electron gap” describing electrons (energy) as the new oil. Almost all the major companies in the industry are making a move. Google has signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to be delivered 1.5 TWh of electricity over the next 15 years, and Meta did something similar with Treaty Oak Clean Energy to get 385 MW of its solar plants in Louisiana. The bubble before the big question. All of this further increases the fear that the AI ​​bubble will end up bursting in a big way. Meanwhile, the big unknown is whether the demand for artificial intelligence will be capable of paying the immense electrical and financial bill that it is signing today in 5 or 10 years. The credit party continues. In Xataka | While Silicon Valley seeks electricity, China subsidizes it: this is how it wants to win the AI ​​war

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