Mobile Tech & Gadgets

whether donating millions of euros is beneficial or not

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Amancio Ortega is the eleventh greatest fortune in the world and, unquestionably, the richest man in Spain thanks to its two lucrative empires: Inditex and Pontegadea. However, in addition to his millionaire business profits, Amancio Ortega has also become popular for your donations. The millionaire injected 765.4 million into the foundation that bears his nameand donations valued at hundreds of millions of euros were channeled from it. This philanthropy was the center of a debate in which the enormous contribution to the well-being of the beneficiaries was put on the table, but also the fiscal compensations and an exercise of public image washing. A big jump in contributions. Amancio Ortega made an exceptional contribution to the Amancio Ortega Foundation. According to collected Digital Economythe businessman injected 765.4 million euros in 2025 to finance the entity’s activities until 2028. It is an amount much higher than that contributed in recent years, and marks a turning point in the size of the economic “cushion” with which the foundation works, which in your figures declared an investment in projects of 207.6 million euros in 2024. This money does not automatically translate into spending in a single year, but it does allow for the foundation’s involvement in larger programs and for a longer period of time. On its website, the foundation itself explains which has 541.8 million euros committed for the period 2025-2029. Where have those donations gone? An important part of these donations has been channeled towards healthcare, especially in the form of high-tech medical equipment and investments linked to public hospitals. A clear example is the National Hospital for Paraplegics of Toledo, which has received a donation of 11.24 million euros from the Leonese businessman’s foundation to execute up to ten projects related to facilities and works within the center itself. Without a doubt, the most ambitious project of Amancio Ortega’s foundation is the financing of ten proton therapy devices with a tender of 271 million euros started in 2021 and which will have valid until 2029. This latest technology equipment will be implemented in seven autonomous communities and allows for less invasive treatment of certain types of cancer, especially in cases of childhood cancer and difficult to access. In addition, the millionaire’s foundation financed the construction of seven new nursing homes in Galicia. For the moment they have built and delivered five of them to the Xunta de Galicia, and the objective is to complete the remaining ones in 2026. Direct aid in disasters. In 2025, one of the most notable donations was the one linked to the municipalities affected by DANA. It was an aid of 100 million euros, managed through 40 town councils, with the aim of supporting affected families and businesses. Here the mechanism was different from that used in the medical and socio-health projects. The urgency of the situation meant that, instead of signing an investment agreement with the administrations, the foundation delivered the funds to the different affected municipalities so that they could manage it by purchasing machinery for cleaning or to cover the most urgent needs of its population. Tax benefits, the darkest side. The other side of the debate focuses on the elephant in the room: donations to foundations have tax incentives, and this case is no exception. No matter how noble the motives behind these donations are, the shadow of interest in reducing your tax bill is evident, although also legal. In simple terms: whoever makes a donation can deduct part of that contribution from their taxes, with differences depending on whether they are an individual (IRPF) or a company (Corporate Tax). More than 97% of the capital of the Amancio Ortega Foundation comes from the contributions of its founder who, in turn, receives his income from the Inditex dividends and the benefits of Pontegadea. According to estimates of Publiconly with the financing of the proton therapy equipment, its benefactor obtained a tax benefit of between 108 and 123 million euros, since the legislation allows for tax relief between 35% and 40% of contributions. As Carlos Cruzado, president of the Gestha union of Treasury technicians, pointed out, “the tax benefit is still a public expense.” The real debate: philanthropy or paying taxes. In some ways, making such a significant donation means forcing the State to spend public money (in the form of uncollected taxes) on the investment. let an individual decide and that may not be strategic. On the one hand, there is the direct impact: hundreds of millions are put on the table available for social and health projects that might otherwise take longer to arrive. On the other hand, there is the fact that the project where the money is invested It is decided by a private donor, with his or her priorities and interests, not based on criteria of common interest. For society as a whole, was it more necessary to invest in this latest technology equipment or to hire more medical personnel for primary care? Should large donations be regulated differently to suit the general good, or should the donor’s discretion prevail? These are questions to which Spanish legislation has not yet provided an answer. In Xataka | Warren Buffett and Bill Gates recovered the philanthropy of Henry Ford and Rockefeller. A Trump law has put an end to it Image | GTRES, Unsplash (National Cancer Institute)

The panic of technology companies about running out of chips has broken the RAM market. Manufacturers have said enough

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The RAM market is completely broken. In November of last year we talked about a 300% increasewas the result of the perfect storm caused by AI and data centers. Faced with brutal shortages, large companies are trying to get hold of as much memory as possible, which further destabilizes the market. Now manufacturers are taking matters into their own hands. No hoarders, thank you. In an extensive report published by Nikkei Asiatalk about the big three DRAM manufacturers (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix) implementing stricter rules for their customers in order to prevent them from hoarding memory. The measures are aimed at ensuring that demand is real, that is, that the chips are not going to end up collecting dust in a warehouse “just in case.” Manufacturers are asking for details about who the chips are for, the quantities and what they will be used for. OpenAI’s dirty deal. We go back to October 1, 2025. OpenAI signed an agreement with Samsung and SK Hynix to a potential demand for 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. The figure is equivalent to 40% of all world production, absurd, but what is striking is the “potential.” As they point out multiple users on Xare securing a critical product for data centers that have not yet been built, with money they do not have. Some analysts called this agreement “The dirty DRAM deal”whose hidden objective seemed to point to a rather dirty move: to create a moat by preventing its competitors from accessing critical technology. Open orders. The AI ​​race is not going to stop because chips rise in price and big technology companies have done what they had to do: everything possible to get chips. At the end of last year, Reuters He said that some companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta had even approached Micron with open orders, that is, they were willing to accept all the memory they could supply, without a price cap. A full-fledged preventive hoarding. Compulsive shopping. AI companies are not the only ones that have tried to secure their chips, PC manufacturers such as Asus, MSI, Dell or HP also began to buy RAM compulsively at the end of 2025 for accumulate inventory before what was coming. Manufacturers are aware of overorders and that is why they are now demanding data on the end customer. The winners. While everyone is fighting to get their chips, Samsung is getting rich. It is not only that has tripled its profitsFurthermore, it is the technological more has appreciated in 2025ahead of Alphabet and TSMC. For its part, SK Hynix has doubled its profitsmainly due to the boom in demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), of which it is a key supplier. In Xataka | There is a lack of RAM memories and Micron is going to spend 1.8 billion dollars to produce more. but not for you Image | Unsplashedited

The Canary Islands and Galicia have set off the Navy’s alarm bells. Russia’s ghost fleet has arrived in Spain with warships

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Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and, above all, after the invasion large-scale ukrainian In 2022, Russia has been perfecting a form of confrontation that avoids direct clashes and moves in the shadows of international law: hybrid war. Sabotage, energy pressure, disinformation and opaque commercial fleets have become tools as strategic as tanks or missiles, and among them the called “ghost fleet”. Now everything indicates that they have found a new route: Spain. The “fleet” arrives from the south. At the end of January 2026, a Russian tanker sanctioned by the European Union was left adrift off the coast of Almería and was escorted by Spanish Maritime Rescue to a port in Morocco without being detained. He did it despite transporting more than 425,000 barrels of refined products of Russian origin. The episode, starring a ship integrated the ghost fleet (old ships, with frequent changes of name and flag and opaque structures of ownership) showed how Spain has become a key point of passage and incident management of a system designed to circumvent Western sanctions. Something happens. In the heart of the western Mediterranean, the Russian hybrid war was beginning to materialize not with missiles, but with timely breakdowns, gray areas of maritime law and routes connecting Russian ports with North Africa under the attentive, but limited, action of the European authorities. Morocco as a hinge, the Canary Islands as an entrance. A few days later, the arrival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria of a oil tanker from Tangier set off alarms about a possible indirect entry of Russian fuel into Spain, using Morocco as an intermediate platform. Maritime security experts stressed that it was not an illegal operation in itself, but it was an unusual route which fits with the patterns of the ghost fleet, given that Morocco lacks sufficient refining capacity and has become a common destination for oil tankers linked to Russia. The Severomorsk Destroyer in 2023 The crux. The key, they insisted, is in the loading documentation, because the origin of the product remains Russian even if there are intermediate stops. In this context, the Canary Islands appear as a vulnerable link: a lightly guarded Exclusive Economic Zone, located in the transit axis of opaque oil tankers, which reinforces the idea that Spain offers the perfect combination of geography, infrastructure and control loopholes for this new phase of the Russian economic war. Silent pressure. Finally, and in parallel to these commercial and logistical movements, the most classic dimension of Russian naval power has ended up becoming visible in Spanish waters, forcing the Navy Spanish to intensify its surveillance operations. Within a week, Spanish units have followed the transit of several Russian vessels (including the destroyer Severomorsk and a mixed military-merchant convoy) from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic, with monitoring relays off the Galician coast and constant coordination with the command centers. Hybrid war. These missions, framed in the permanent surveillance of waters of national interest, show that the phenomenon is by no means isolated: while the ghost fleet operates on the economic and logistical level, the Russian naval presence reinforces the strategic pressure about key runners such as the Alboran Sea, Gibraltar and the Atlantic coast. Spain, the perfect route. The sum of these episodes draws a coherent pattern: the russia hybrid war has left the Baltic and the North Sea to settle in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic, and Spain has become one of your most effective routes. It seems clear that all those breakdowns managed without detention, indirect discharges via Morocco, fuels of dubious traceability entering through the Canary Islands and Russian military ships crossing runners strategic are part of the same logic of attrition, ambiguity and saturation that we had already seen in other parts of Europe. And as in those cases, it is not a frontal attack, but rather a constant pressure that exploits the gray areas of trade, energy and maritime security, now placing Spain at the center of a board where war is not declared, it is navigated. Image | US Navy, Mil.ru In Xataka | Russia’s ghost fleet has changed its business model. Oil has given way to a much bigger target: Europe In Xataka | For years Europe has wondered how to stop the Russian ghost fleet. Ukraine just showed you the way: with AI

The Auto+ Plan comes with less money, more demands and a key question to resolve

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Announced for January 1, it was finally in February 2026 when the Auto+ Planthe new aid system for electric cars with which the Government tries to promote the sale of cars with a Zero Emissions label, whether electric or plug-in hybrids. The new aid system comes with important new features, both in the amount that can be obtained and in the way that aid is delivered. Now, in addition, where the car will be made will be taken into account in order to qualify for the maximum possible deduction. This is all that needs to be taken into account. This is what the new aid for electric cars is like After a month of uncertainty, the Government has approved new aid for electric cars that relieves the MOVES III Plan and solves some of the problems that have been dragging on for years. The program has an amount of 400 million euros so, for now, it will only be available until this fund runs out. In it, as we will see, vehicles manufactured in Europe and those with the lowest price are rewarded. And to receive the maximum discounts it will be necessary to overcome different key points. What must be clear is that from the Ministry of Industry and Tourism has not been clarified exactly when the aid will be delivered to the client. The promise was that the discount would be applied at the time of purchase, eliminating the waits of up to 18 months who have come to live with the MOVES III Plan. However, this seems to be up in the air. And in its explanations, the Ministry points out that the aid “will be carried out in coordination with the Autonomous Communities and that “dealers, points of sale and renting companies will be able to help process aid requests” but nothing is specified about what will be delivered at that time. It must be taken into account that The concessionaires already indicated that they were not willing to advance the aid money. First of all, the basic points that must be clear are the following: The aid takes into account all purchases made from January 1, 2026 so those who have purchased an electric car in the first month of the year will be able to have access to them. Aid is only provided for purchases of Zero-emission vehicles. Aid is only provided to passenger cars (M1) whose maximum amount before the application of VAT is 45,000 euros. N1 vehicles (vehicles intended for the transport of goods that do not exceed 3,500 kg) have no purchase limit to receive aid L3e, L4e and L5e vehicles (mopeds) may not exceed 10,000 euros before taxes to receive aid. L6e and L7e vehicles (quadricycles) have no purchase limit to receive aid. The maximum aid for a car will be 4,500 euros. The brand will have to offer a minimum discount of 1,000 euros. It is not clear when the aid will be delivered to the client or how long it will take for the client to receive it. Once this is understood, the next thing to understand is that the maximum amount of aid is only received if a series of conditions are met. requirements. Thus, depending on the car purchased, percentages of the maximum amount will be covered and, therefore, only by meeting all the requirements will we be able to receive the maximum money delivered by the State. Category Maximum aid amount Vehicle type Percentage received based on price Manufacturing Tourism (M1) 4,500 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (2,250 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (1,125 euros) Maximum of 45,000 euros before taxes: Up to 35,000 euros: 25% of the maximum aid amount (1,125 euros) Between 35,001 and 45,000 euros: 15% of the maximum amount of aid (675 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (675 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (450 euros euros) Vehicle (N1) 5,000 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (2,500 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (1,250 euros) No maximum limit: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (1,250 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (750 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (500 euros) Moped (L3e, L4e and L5e) 1,100 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (550 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (275 euros) Maximum of 10,000 euros before taxes: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (275 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (165 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (110 euros) Quadricycle (L6e and L7e) 1,500 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (750 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (375 euros) No maximum limit: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (375 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (225 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (150 euros) Therefore, now to be aware … Read more

What are they and until when are they?

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Let’s tell you what they are the two new free Movistar Plus+ channels that the platform plans to add to its grill. These channels are going to be available for a very limited time, and we are going to tell you what their content is and until when they are available. But before we start, by free we mean that join the service at no additional costbut at all times you will have to pay the price of the Movistar Plus+ subscription to be able to see them, just like the others. They will also be added at no additional cost to Movistar customers who have contracted television. What channels are they and how long do they broadcast? Next, we are going to tell you what are these two pop-up channels that we can enjoy during the month of February, and that will be totally dedicated to cinema. In each of them we will also tell you how long they will be available. The Goyas by M+ This is a channel that will broadcast the big favorites for the 2026 Goya awards. In it you will be able to watch movies like Sirât, Maspalomas, Sorda, Los Tigreseither Pilgrimagebut also other winners from previous editionsas The Infiltrada, The 47 either The blue star from 2025, and from previous ones such as Thesis, Oh, Carmela!, Belle Epoqueetc. This channel will be available from February 12 to March 3and you can find it on dial 15 of the platform. Therefore, if you like Spanish cinema, this is a temporary channel to take into account. The Oscars for M+ This channel will broadcast the Oscar awards ceremony in the early morning of March 15 to 16. Also will broadcast a selection of films nominated for 2026 as The sinners, A simple accident either Siratand winners from previous years such as The English Patient, Gandhi or The Substanceamong others. This channel will be available from February 19 to March 22and you can find it on dial 18, where we currently have the channel ‘War Cinema on M+’. Simply, during these dates the current channel will be replaced by the new one. The best streaming platforms 2026 | Comparison of Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, Movistar Plus+, Filmin, Apple TV, SkyShowtime and Rakuten TV: catalog, functions and prices

Carrefour has this huge 98-inch Samsung TV at an outlet price with which you won’t miss going to the movies

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Nowadays, large TVs have prevailed. It is now rare to see living rooms with 32 or 43-inch televisions (which have been relegated to the bedroom or kitchen). If you have plenty of space in the living room and have thought about buying a large TV, now in Carrefour They have a very interesting offer. You can buy this Samsung TU98DU9005KXXC by 1,699 euros. In addition, you have the possibility of getting 200 euros refund with your purchase. And, if this were not enough, you get a coupon of 254.85 euros for future purchases at the supermarket. If you want, you can finance it in 10 installments of 169.90 euros. LED TV 98″ (248.92 cm) Samsung TU98DU9005K The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A gigantic TV with good features As we have already indicated, the most striking thing about this TV from the Korean firm is its huge 98 inch screen. This is LED type and offers 4K Ultra HD resolution and has a refresh rate of 100 Hz. In the image section it is compatible with HDR10+ and when it comes to audio, its speakers offer a 20W RMS power. Although it is true that for this large TV, this power may be insufficient, it is always something that you can improve by connecting a sound bar. The operating system under which it works is tizen (Samsung’s own) and has the mode Multi Viewwhich is very useful if you are watching a show and want to zap while there are ads. Finally, we can also highlight its connectivity section, since it has a port ethernettwo USB 3.2, optical digital audio output, three HDMI 1.4, Bluetooth and WiFi. Some accessories that may interest you for this TV Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (Latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Samsung Sound Bar HW-Q600F/ZF 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 | Webedia and Samsung In Xataka | Best home theater projectors. Which one to buy and five recommended models from 299 to 18,000 euros In Xataka | Mega-guide to set up a home theater: projector, screen, sound system and more

They have become human garbage cans

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Japan has spent decades elevating cleanliness to an almost competitive. It is not trivial, since even organize official championships garbage collection on the street, where teams compete to see who leaves the most impeccable environment. In a country where there are initiatives that turn civility into sport, the relationship with waste is not a minor detail, but a profound expression of how public space and individual responsibility are understood. And yet, the arrival of hordes of tourists has revealed a paradox. A clean country without trash cans. Yes, Japan has been surprising the world for decades with a paradox that baffles anyone who visits it for the first time: impeccable streets, sparkling stations and, at the same time, almost no garbage can in sight. This absence is not a system failure, but a direct consequence of a culture who avoids eating while walking, prioritizes taking waste home and individually assumes the responsibility of not littering public spaces. For local people, buy something in a konbini or in a vending machine already implies having a mental plan to manage the packaging, a routine so internalized that it makes trash cans on the street unnecessary. Garbage cans, but human. The problem appears when this cultural ecosystem collides with mass tourism. With dozens of million visitors a yearJapan has been filled with travelers who eat on the go, buy viral drinks and “Instagrammable” snacks and, when they finish, discover that there is nowhere to throw anything away. The result is an image as absurd as it is revealing: hordes of tourists turned into human trash canswalking kilometers with glasses, wrappers and bottles in their pockets, backpacks or improvised bags. The official surveys they confirm it: For visitors, the lack of trash cans is already the main logistical problem of the trip, above the language or the crowds. Local rules, foreign habits. The friction is not only due to the physical absence of cubes, but to a profound difference in habits. In Japan, eating while walking is frowned upon and, in some cities, it is outright prohibited. “Takeaway” food is effectively taken home or to work. Tourists, on the other hand, consume on the street and expect to find an infrastructure similar to that of their countries of origin. When there is not one, the system suffers: scarce trash cans that overflow, waste abandoned in discreet corners and a growing tension between traditional Japanese courtesy and the reality of tourism that does not always know how (or can) adapt. Safety, costs and trauma. Added to this equation is a less visible but decisive factor: security. After the sarin gas attack in the Aum Shinrikyo sect in the Tokyo subway in 1995, many trash cans were removed for fear that they were used to hide explosives, a logic that also explains why the few that exist usually have transparent bags. Added to this are the maintenance costs and strict municipal regulations on public space. The result has been an urban landscape deliberately devoid of cubeseven when the social context that supported it has changed radically. Cities that are beginning to give way. In any case, it counted the wall street journal in a report that the continued pressure of tourism is forcing some cities to rethink dogma. In especially saturated places, such as central Tokyo neighborhoods or busy historic parks, calls have begun to appear. “smart” binssometimes with messages in English, sensors or compaction systems. Other initiatives border on the surreal, especially for the “foreigner” without any context, such as students who they walk with garbage cans behind their backs to collect waste in exchange for donations or advertising. That said, these are more of creative patches to a deeper culture clash: Japan hasn’t really changed its idea of ​​cleanliness, but the world has arrived en masse and without warning, and now millions of visitors travel around the country carrying their garbage on them, discovering that in the most tidy place on the planet… the bucket is them. Image | PexelsCorpse Reviver In Xataka | Sushi was a sleeping giant of the fast food industry: in the US it has already begun to eat hamburgers In Xataka | Japan has been mired in a demographic debacle for years. Now it suffers a new crisis: that of coming of age

There is a Spaniard at the top of Silicon Valley. His name is Enrique Lores and he has just become CEO of PayPal

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The Spanish manager Enrique Lores has become the new CEO of PayPal. The company has announced it in his digital press room indicating that he will take office on March 1. This is a unique appointment that consolidates Lores’ career and places him in that select group of CEOs of large technology companies. And that is precisely its mission: to make PayPal really great again. At PayPal they knew him well. In the announcement, PayPal officials highlight that Lores had already been on the board of directors for five years, which makes it clear that the appointment is not entirely a surprise. The Spanish manager replaces Alex Chriss in the position, and for the adaptation stage the company’s current CFO, Jamie Miller, will act as interim CEO. The reason. From PayPal they explain that the signing comes from an evaluation of the business and how the company is in relation to its competition. “While some progress has been made in several areas over the past two years, the pace of change and execution has not lived up to the Board’s expectations. The Board is confident that the appointment of Lores, an executive with more than three decades of experience in technology and commerce, will provide the leadership necessary to lead PayPal into its next stage.” A life at HP. Lores had been CEO of HP Inc. for more than six years, where he led a series of strategic projects. During his tenure the firm has gone beyond PC and printers to expand its services and subscriptions business, in addition to starting the commitment to integration of AI in various business areas in the signature. He was also the main leader of the split between HP and HPE. Lores has spent much of his professional life at HP, where he achieved a leading role as vice president of the imaging and printing division for EMEA in 2001. Since then he has not stopped rising positions, but his time at HP ends now. There he will be replaced as CEO by Bruce Broussard, a member of the board since 2021. Remembering the ‘PayPal mafia’. The story of the founding and early years of PayPal is fascinating and an example of disruption. Among its founders are Elon Musk and Peter Thielbut in that team there were people who have ended up being the germ of a good part of the “internet 2.0”. He famous ‘PayPal Mafia’ phenomenon tells how after the purchase by eBay several members of the original team left the company to create their own projects. And among those projects are YouTube, LinkedIn or Yelp. PayPal continued to grow, without a doubt, but for today’s Internet what happened to it before the eBay purchase was more relevant than what happened after. difficult times. After separating from eBay in July 2015, PayPal carried out some strategic operations such as (the controversy) Honey in 2020. The pandemic caused e-commerce to skyrocket, which benefited it, and in October 2020 the company took a historic turn by allowing the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies. The end of confinement and the rise in rates caused a stagnation and then a fall in its assets, and competition from Apple Pay or Shopify eroded its market share in the traditional payment button market. An increasingly fragmented market. Apple and Google have managed to impose their payment solutions thanks to their competitive advantage, but PayPal has also been overtaken by Strupe, which won over developers with a cleaner and more flexible API. In Spain, for example, the use of Bizum has cannibalized that of PayPal (the same with Mercado Pago in Latin America) for payments between individuals, and PayPal’s commission structure is complex and does not help to earn money and recover the relevance of the past. Quite a challenge for Enrique Lores. Thus, the Spanish manager faces a truly formidable challenge. PayPal is still a big tech company, but its current market capitalization (39,830 million dollars), even though it is greater than that of HP (17,750) is very far from the true “Big Tech”. In fact it is the company number 620 by market capitalization according to CompaniesMarketCap. It will be interesting to see what measures Lores takes to boost the business of one of Silicon Valley’s legendary companies. In Xataka | The highest paid Spanish manager in the world does not work in a large technology company: he sells “sugar water”

A global trucker crisis is on the horizon. China’s solution: autonomous truck caravans

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The global freight transport market is facing a labor crisis. This is what the data says, pointing to a shortage of goods in Europe, North America and China. But also in Australia or Argentina. In search of solutions, Chinese companies are already proposing a way out: autonomous truck caravans. Shortage. 75% of the goods They are transported by road. 85% of the transport of perishable products opt for the same type of route. Although the transport of goods by train increases, the truck continues to be the alternative that best combines flexibility with contained costs and high efficiency for most companies. But these contained costs aim to disappear. According to the International Road Transport Organization (IRU) there is a global shortage of 3.6 million truck drivers. It is more or less 7% of the total places that are active right now. And the prospects are even worse. Road to retirement. The sector has a problem: retirement. A significant number of truck drivers are very close to slamming the door on their cabins. In Europe alone it is estimated that, in this year 2026, there will be a gap between supply and demand of one million truck drivers. And the problem is that the increase in online commerce will only aggravate this situation. By 2030, they believe that there will be a lack of 11% of the places necessary to cover the volume of work that would be necessary to effectively transport all the goods that will be put on the road. This situation is, according to IRUespecially serious in China where they estimate that before the end of the decade 19% of the truck drivers who are currently working will have retired. Let them go alone. With these perspectives on the table, Pony AIa company specialized in artificial intelligence that has your own autonomous car service in China and that has reached a agreement with Stellantis to advance joint developments for Europe, has announced that it has an autonomous truck solution to advance in a caravan. The idea is that the trucks in advance in a 1+4 convoy. Thus, the first of the vehicles is driven by a human and the four remaining autonomous trucks travel completely autonomously, guided by the first but applying level 4 autonomy. That is, trucks can circulate without anyone at the wheel. 2026. The project has a date: this year. Pony AI announced a few weeks ago a collaboration agreement with Sany, a vehicle production company for industrial work or the transportation of goods that will provide the hardware. The digital brain is provided by Pony AI. Together they believe they can have these self-driving truck caravans ready this year. If they are mass produced, they would be the first in the world to manufacture 5G, completely autonomous and electric trucks, They boast from Sany. According to their accounts, it is a business that will reduce the cost per kilometer by 29% and that can boost the operating margin of companies by 195%. First tests. In BBC They report that China was already experimenting with autonomous trucks last year. “Of course, I was a little scared the first time I drove an autonomous truck. But, after spending a lot of time observing and testing these vehicles, I think they are actually quite good and safe,” said one of the truck drivers who have gotten behind the wheel in these tests to take control if necessary. In the video You can see how the trucks circulated alone between Beijing and Tianjin, a route of more than 100 kilometers. It explains that the driver takes control in the first stages of the journey and must be seated to take the wheel at specific times. However, most of the trip is made without making any decisions and with four trucks behind him. Experience. Sany is not inexperienced in this sector either. The company, in addition to electric trucks for Pony AI, has also worked with industrial use vehicles such as trucks to transport minerals. In this videoFor example, a mine is shown in which an operator controls an excavator remotely. With it, it fills trucks with the extracted materials and these, once full, move completely autonomously to transport these minerals and make room for a new vehicle that has already made the same journey previously. A way of working that is also being studied Huawei. Photo | Pony AI In Xataka | Spain and Europe have a problem: they move 85% of their products in trucks and they are missing 3 million truck drivers

Silver is completely out of control, so the solar panel industry has decided something: go independent

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Solar energy, promised as the cheapest and most abundant source of electricity in history, has hit a geological and financial roadblock of critical proportions. The photovoltaic industry is suffering what the Financial Times has baptized like a Silver Squeeze (silver strangulation), a suffocating pressure derived from the dizzying rise in the price of this metal. Manufacturers, who have been fighting for years against slim margins, are now “feeling the heat” of a raw material that has become unaffordable, forcing them into a frenetic technological race to eliminate it from their products. This is not a simple market rally. What we are witnessing is a “perfect storm” where real physical scarcity threatens to slow down the energy transition. According to Bloombergthe rise in silver has hit some solar panel manufacturers that were already burdened by losses after years of brutal competition. After five consecutive years of deficit, silver is no longer just a safe haven asset to become the bottleneck of the green economy. The figures are dizzying. According to the Financial Timesthe price of silver has risen 300% in the last year, breaking the psychological barrier of $100 and currently standing at $112 per ounce. This increase is fueled by three fires: geopolitical fear of possible US military intervention, the voracity of the industry and the massive entry of retail investors, for whom silver is “the poor man’s gold.” This speculative appetite has skyrocketed prices by 60% since the beginning of 2026 alone. The magnitude of the increase in prices is such that from investment portals such as Investing News have reported record prices of $93.77 in mid-January, but market reality has exceeded forecasts in just weeks. But there are geopolitical actors pulling the strings behind this scenario. China, the largest global refiner, has imposed strict controls to export by 2026-2027, shielding its strategic resources for its own renewable energy and Artificial Intelligence industry. Added to this is that India and Russia are aggressively buying physical silver, draining inventories in London and Asia and causing real shortages in Western markets. Financial drain and existential threat The impact on the cost structure of a solar panel has been devastating. According to data from BloombergNEFsilver has gone from representing 3.4% of the cost of a module in 2023, to 14% last year, to an unsustainable 29% today. Silver has dethroned polysilicon and become the most expensive component in manufacturing. For the giants of the sector, this is raining in the wet. Titans like JinkoSolar, Longi and Trina Solar They are posting quarterly losses consecutive in the midst of a “vicious price war.” Factories operate at just 50% of their capacity and, in many cases, sell modules below production cost. Jenny Chase analyst cited by Financial Timessummarizes the situation without hot towels: “It is very painful for solar module manufacturers, who are already having a terrible time and are expected to report losses by 2025.” The problem is that companies have their hands tied in passing on these costs. As explained in PV Magazinedue to excess capacity and weak demand, it is “almost impossible” to pass on the entire increase in the price of silver to the end customer. Although Chinese manufacturers have recently tried to raise prices between 1.4% and 3.8%, these increases are minuscule compared to the 180% or 300% increase in raw material prices. The long-term consequence is what experts call “demand destruction.” If prices remain at these levels, silver use in the PV industry could fall by 20% this year, not only due to efficiency, but because the industry simply cannot afford it. The great substitution Faced with financial asphyxiation, the industry has accelerated what they call “thrifting”, a race against time to replace silver with cheaper metals. The favorite candidate is copper. According to Investing Newscopper is trading 22,000% cheaper than silver and is much more abundant, making it the great hope for saving profit margins. Faced with suffocation, the industry has accelerated the thrifting (material savings) to replace silver with copper, which is 22,000% cheaper. The large Chinese manufacturers already they have made a move. Longi Green Energy will begin mass production of cells using base metals (such as copper and aluminum) in the second quarter of this year. Trina Solar is developing copper contacts to reduce its dependence, and Aiko Solar has already begun producing completely silver-free cells. The Chinese industry, which is more intensive in the use of silver than the European one, lead this forced transition. However, the change is not easy. As they warn in PV Magazine warns that not all solar technologies are equally suited: while heterojunction (HJT) and back contact (BC) cells facilitate the use of copper, the current dominant technology (TOPCon) requires high temperature processes that make copper vulnerable to oxidation. Here lies the greatest risk of this flight forward. Copper oxidizes and degrades faster than silver. Bloomberg alert about danger of launching copper panels on the market without sufficient longevity tests. Customers demand 20-year warranties; If new panels fail within 10 years due to copper corrosion, manufacturers could face massive liabilities that would put them out of business. As one precious metals expert points out: “Going too far too fast can be risky.” A future of scarcity and recycling The pressure on silver doesn’t just come from the sun. At this point we introduce in the equation Artificial Intelligence. The data centers necessary for AI consume enormous amounts of energy, which triggers demand for solar installations and, therefore, money. It is a vicious circle where technology devours physical resources. Furthermore, the electric vehicle (EV) enters like another big predator: An electric car consumes up to 50 grams of silver, almost twice as much as a combustion car. It is estimated that demand from the automotive sector could triple by 2030. In this context of shortages, some companies are taking desperate measures. He Financial Times reveals that Samsung Construction and Trading has skipped the middlemen and signed a two-year direct agreement with a mining company to secure its supply. … Read more

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