Mobile Tech & Gadgets

More than 400 cameras will monitor L6 of the Madrid Metro so that it circulates autonomously

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Line 6 of the Madrid Metro prepares to operate without drivers in 2027. This means that its infrastructure must resolve a series of technical aspects so that the metro can circulate in complete safety. What was previously monitored by a driver must now be done in an automated manner, and here there are a series of technologies that come into play that are worth highlighting. Rethink security from scratch. When a train has a driver, there are a pair of human eyes in the cabin that detect smoke, obstacles, people on the track or any anomaly in real time. Eliminating this figure does not mean reducing surveillance, but rather it must be technologically multiplied. The Circular, the busiest line on the network with nearly 400,000 passengers daily, needs a system that does not leave any blind spots. What does the system consist of? Madrid Metro plans to install more than 400 cameras along the 23.5 kilometers of route and in its 28 stations, with an investment of around four million euros, according to collect the middle 20 Minutes. The network will cover the entire infrastructure in real time: tunnels, ventilation shafts, emergency exits, pumping areas and platforms. As the media reports, in the underground sections between stations, the devices will be placed at very short distances from each other so as not to leave gaps unattended. dset fire before seeing it. Of all these cameras, about 60 will be equipped with specific smoke and fire detection technology, capable of sending early warnings to the control center before a fire spreads. Just like share In the medium, these devices will alternate with conventional video surveillance devices to guarantee total coverage. Security reinforced with technology. At the most sensitive points of the line (the Ciudad Universitaria and Arganzuela-Planetario depots, the Laguna depot and the stations with correspondence to other lines) perimeter fences several meters high, physical barriers and infrared curtains will be installed, technology usually reserved for industrial facilities or airports. All reinforced with controlled access through doors and control points monitored by video. What about the platforms and accessibility. From 20 Minutes they assure that the doors leading down to the tracks, located at the ends of each platform, will have new intercoms connected directly to the line controllers. Its function will be twofold: to authorize access for Metro staff when necessary for maintenance tasks, and to allow people with reduced mobility to request that the train wait longer before starting. It will be the controller who, from the command post, keeps the platform doors open for as long as necessary. Where is L6 right now. The installation of the platform doors is still underway and is forcing the closing to be brought forward from the line at 11:00 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday (two and a half hours before the usual time). Everything indicates that the restriction will remain in place until the end of the year if there are no changes. Meanwhile, the 40 new trains, manufactured by CAF, which have cost the Community of Madrid around 450 million euros, are advancing in production. When will it be ready. If the calendar is met, 2027 will be the year in which the Circular circulates alone for the first time in its more than 50 years of history. This would make Madrid one of the few cities that offer fully automated metro lines, along with Copenhagen or Lille. Cover image | Metro Madrid In Xataka | In its expansion of the Cercanías, Madrid is considering something unusual in Spain: launching a new line to Villaviciosa

construction profitability

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The construction sector is mired in an apparent contradiction in Spain. Although it puts homes on the market a much slower pace to which new homes are created, although the development companies have been warning for years against a serious residential deficit and although the value of the square meter does not stop climbing, fooling around Already with the values ​​prior to the great brick crisis, today brick is not a business especially attractive in Spain. At least if we look at its profitability. What has happened? That something doesn’t fit in the construction sector. The indicators of the cost per m2 they don’t stop increasingreal estate agencies warn that the apartments last just a few days in the market before finding a tenant or buyer and the developers warn of a growing housing deficit. And yet, despite all of the above, several analysis centers insist that construction in Spain has a serious profitability problem. It’s not just that your current indicators are far below of those that managed the sector two decades ago, before the brick crisis that sank the market, is that its values ​​are lower than those of other neighboring EU countries. In fact, despite the fact that the price of residential m2 continues to become more expensive, in reality brick is a business much less sexy than that offered by other sectors, such as air transport or information services. What does the data say? There are several sources that help us complete the ‘photography’ of the sector, as I remembered a few days ago The World. One of the most interesting is left by the University of the Hespérides, which in a recent report issues a warning to sailors: if new housing is barely being started in Spain despite the constant escalation of prices, it is due, in part, to the fact that “construction continues to be unprofitable.” Or at least not as much as other industries. After studying the sector, assessing the profitability of assets and the cost of financing liabilities, Hespérides technicians came to the conclusion that in 2024 the profitability of construction stood at -0.1% compared to the 2.7% average of all economic activities in Spain. In fact, it detected 68 economic activities more profitable than erecting buildings. Is it the only indicator? The truth is that no. A few weeks ago BBVA Research published another report about the real estate sector pointed in a similar direction: “The profitability of Spanish companies is lower than the European average in the main activities of the economy, although the differences are particularly pressing in construction.” Although in other sectors, such as hospitality, transportation or manufacturing, the ROE (return on equitythe profitability ratio most used by analysts) Spanish is lower than that of companies from countries such as Germany, France and Italy, this gap is especially pronounced when we talk about brick. “In 2024 the ROE of building construction was 4.1%, about 12.5 percentage points (pp) less than that registered by the sector in the historical average of France and Germany,” explains BBVA Research. Added to this is that in 2024 the profit margin of this activity in Spain was 1.3 pp lower than in 2000-2003. “Investment does not increase, largely because it is not profitable,” they warned in November Miguel Cardoso and Félix Lores, from the analysis center. And what is the reason? There are several. However, there is one that analysts frequently point out: the times that are managed in the sector, which lengthens promotions, slows down turnover and forces construction companies to bear the cost of high-cost land that only pays off in the long term. “Although margins have recovered, companies take years to build, maintaining assets (land) that do not generate income on their balance sheet, the report states signed by Cardoso and Lores. “They have to finance their purchase with their own resources, which puts the sector at a disadvantage compared to others.” Does it influence that much? Both experts warn that the procedures to be able to build on land are “long, expensive and often uncertain”, which has a direct impact on the financial costs borne by companies. These complications also make certain promotions less attractive to investors and financial institutions that can turn on the credit tap. “The consequence is an accumulation of land on the balance sheets of companies that do not generate value. These are idle assets that immobilize resources and reduce debt capacity,” they add. The National Construction Confederation (CNC) calculates that taxes, fees and urban planning charges usually represent about 30% of the sales price in new homes. This represents a handicap for both those who want to buy and those who sell and must decide the price and distribution of costs. How does that affect the sector? The analysis by Daniel Fernández, professor at the University of the Hespérides, speaks directly of an “artificial scarcity of land” due to restrictions at the urban planning level, which directly contributes to the increase in land prices and, ultimately, to construction costs. According to their calculations, in Spain only 2.1% of the land is available for short-term construction. 1.3% are in the medium term and 0.9% in the long term. The report also warns of the effect that the regulatory changes in recent years have had, especially since the revision of the Technical Code in 2020. Are there more factors? Yes. It’s not just that companies are slow to take advantage of the land. If the profitability of the sector in Spain is below that of other European countries, it is because their companies, in a certain way, are also different. Cardoso and Lords remember “the reduced size and atomization of the Spanish productive fabric”, which explains why they also have more difficulties when it comes to supporting large immobilized assets. In short: companies are smaller, so they have less muscle and resilience. Its characteristics also directly affect the ability to financial leveragethat is, going into debt to invest. According to their calculations (based on 2023 … Read more

They have a metamaterial that evolves and moves on its own

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The metamaterials They are exciting. By combining physics, chemistry and engineering, as well as making small variations in the composition or structure of a material, we can completely change its properties. They can be created from light armor, but more resistant that one steel sheet of several centimeters thick to other materials that come to life and change shape at will. And that is precisely what they have done at the University of Amsterdam. “Learn” and “leren” in English and German In short. The center has published an article in Nature called “Metamaterials that learn to change shape” in which they show how worm-shaped materials blur the border between objects and living systems. Each one of them is joined to the next by a motorized hinge that has a microcontroller. Thus, it measures parameters such as rotation, previous movements in a kind of memory and can send information to neighboring hinges. Depending on the information they send, the others adjust their rigidity and position, allowing each segment to “learn” new shapes without the need for a computer to control everything. The key here is “learn.” Training. The shapes and postures they achieve are not the result of chance, but rather the work of the researchers sending impulses so that the segments are organized in the desired configuration. Through different stages of this training, the microcontrollers update and optimize their orders until the chain “understands” that it must adopt a certain posture when a certain stimulus is sent. They can forget old forms, retain recent ones, and, as we say, learn new ones, as well as alternate between those forms. And the interesting thing about all this is that they can develop the ability to grasp objects or move. The researchers themselves refer to this with the term “evolution,” noting that “once the system begins to learn, the possibilities of when it will stop learning feel almost limitless. Future. That hasn’t come out of nowhere. Researchers from the Institute of Physics point out that the current research is based on previous findings in which achievement that objects would roll, crawl and move autonomously over different terrains. The difference is that they did it for the sake of it, while the new metamaterials can learn and memorize behaviors. The future idea is to make that behavior depend on learning time instead of changes in a static way. The team points out which, for example, seek to “allow metamaterials to learn different gaits of locomotion, such as crawling or rolling, depending on environmental stimuli. We also plan to investigate so-called stochastic scenarios, where learning occurs with noise and uncertainty. In such cases, the system would adapt probabilistically rather than by determinism, improving robustness and flexibility in complex environments.” Beyond the laboratory. After all the team’s explanation, perhaps the most complicated thing is to imagine the scenario in which this can be applied. One that they mention is soft robots, which are those that change the rigidity and shape of conventional robots for others with an adaptive structure that may have applications in the medical or aerospace industry. Also on devices programmable that are modulated in real time and “reprogrammed” depending on the situation. But, really, the possibilities of metamaterials feel infinite, as the Institute of Physics pointed out. Playing with these structural particularities of the materials, they can be used as shielding, as isolationin building structures located in areas of high seismic activity so that redirect the energy they receivewhen creating lenses for advanced photonics, in sensors or as active camouflage around a vehicle. Images | Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam In Xataka | In our search for new metamaterials we have reached delirium: one capable of counting up to ten

The price of meat is through the roof. An industry has a golden opportunity: artificial meat

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It is becoming more and more expensive to buy meat in the supermarket. In the midst of widespread inflation, the meat section has stood out and its products are among those that have increased the most. Among beef producers, the trend has been rising for years. According to Eurostat datathe price of live calves rises or falls between 2013 and 2019. But starting this year the rise is continuous. In Spain, for example, 100 kilos of live animal go from costing 226.25 euros in 2019 to having a price of 369 euros in 2023. Another reference: the average price in the EU The price at which producers sold male beef in January 2025 was 570 euros per 100 kilos. A year later, last January, the cost had jumped to 717.11 euros per 100 kilos, an increase of 25.5%. This rise in prices, especially of beef, coincides with a few years in which the artificial meat has progressed. The techniques to obtain a similar texture and achieve flavors and aromas have improved. Production methods have been polished and some companies have gained economies of scale. As a result, your product would have become cheaper. It is the case of Novameat. Giuseppe Sconti, its founder and CEO, says that his company is now capable of producing artificial meat at a much lower price than a few years before. Born in Barcelona in 2018, the startup uses yellow pea protein for its product and has launched its own factory. “We buy a primary ingredient and transform it to have a block of textured protein, which large producers can then mix with minced meat or hamburgers,” he explains. It is no longer about sausages or a hamburger made with plant-based meat. It is an approach that does not aim to create a final product for sale to the public. That’s easier gain scale in production, as long as there are clients to sell it to later, of course. Sconti adds another factor to the decrease in costs. “When we buy our base ingredient in large quantities we can get it at a lower price. In addition, we have diversified the places from which we can get the protein. Now we can get it from Europe, but also from America.” The Novameat facilities. Cheaper raw materials also help. Justo Pedroche Jiménez, senior scientist at the Fat Institute, belonging to the CSIC, has been working with vegetable protein for two decades in research aimed at the food sector. He claims that the diversity of plant protein has increased. “Nowadays we work with a lot of plant raw materials.” He says that before, soy was mainly used as an alternative to animal protein, but now his team is researching lentils, chickpeaslupins, broad beans, even chia and quinoa, among others. “And the more companies there are that work on this, the more competition there is and the more different products on the market, all of this, in the end, leads to lower prices,” he adds. At the exit of the bubble But artificial meat has its own ghosts. It experienced a peak, it became almost a fashion, associated with veganism and healthy habits, and then some of the best-known brands in the sector fell sharply. In response to an email sent by Xataka, Jaime Martín, partner and CEO of the consulting firm Lantern, specialized in the food sector, is skeptical about the phenomenon of meat based on vegetable protein. For him it was a bubble and it is a sector that is devastated. Although he points out that the prices of this type of product are going down in some countries. “It becomes cheaper in countries where there is already a relevant size of consumers, such as Holland or Germany, and a determined commitment by the private label to promote the category.” The two big names in artificial meat, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, chain several years of decline. The losses accumulate, so much so that the first collapsed on the stock market in a spectacular way, while the second saw its valuation shrink in an equally bloody way. There have been bankruptcies, such as that of the British Meatless Farm, which went into bankruptcy more than two years ago. Perhaps the most symbolic thing was that in 2024 McDonald’s, which had promoted a hamburger made with this type of alternative meat, discontinued its sale. There was no place in his letter for McPlant. For Pedroche, positive conclusions can be drawn from everything that has happened. “These companies made a risky bet on a product, perhaps a little sophisticated, for a very specific population niche, but I think that knowledge of vegetables has been created. Now it has stabilized. It is not decreasing but rather there are more and more people who risk, let’s say, trying this type of products that are closely linked to health,” reflects the CSIC researcher. Vegetable protein meatballs. “There has been a bubble that has burst. The question is whether the protein diversification that had already begun will continue. The alternative protein, as it had been defined, in finished products, had created a lot of hype,” says Sconti, referring to the well-known brands that sold packaged products, such as hamburgers and sausages. He talks about them as a commercial proposal, perhaps the most striking in the entire artificial meat sector, but not the only one. “I am optimistic. I think that protein diversification is not going to end. It is going to be like the Internet, when the dotcom bubble burst and then there was consolidation. And now the Internet is much bigger than in the year 2000.” An example of this consolidation would be the movements of the Brazilian JBS, the world’s largest producer of traditional meat. In 2021 acquired the Dutch company specialized in alternative meat Vivera, and last year bought The Vegetarian Butcherthe alternative protein division of Unilever. He has merged both to boost its presence in the European market. The outlook for the sector is encouraging. according to … Read more

Long before Real Madrid, the Roman Empire had already invented VIP boxes. And they ended in disaster

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In the first century, the emperor Nero ordered that some shows will include giant awnings to protect the most privileged attendees from the sun, while the rest of the public endured the heat in the upper stands. That seemingly trivial difference reflected the extent to which the experience of attending an event was already marked for money and status long before modern stadiums existed. Show business in Ancient Rome. Long before modern stadiums like the Bernabéu turned sport into a crazy revenue machine, the Roman Empire had already understood the economic potential of gathering crowds and charging for access. At that time, amphitheaters were not only leisure spaces, but political and commercial tools where prestige and money mixed openly. In fact, businessmen like Atilio They saw the games as a direct opportunity for profit, betting on filling venues at all costs and maximizing every available seat. In that context, the logic of squeezing capacity (with privileged areas for the elites and crowded stands for the rest) not only existed, but was central part of the model. Raised to make quick money. In this context, it is born the Fidenae project with a clear idea: build a lot, quickly and cheaply to start earning money as soon as possible. Attilius, a freedman with entrepreneurial ambition, decided to build a huge wooden amphitheater on the outskirts of Rome, reducing costs in the most critical elements. The structure was supported on unstable ground and was assembled with poor joints, while more seats than planned were added to increase revenue. The result was a building that appeared grand from the outside, but was actually designed more to maximize profits. that to ensure safety of those who were going to occupy it. Spectacle turned into tragedy. What happened? That the inauguration attracted tens of thousands of people who came with the expectation of witnessing gladiatorial combats after a period in which these spectacles had been rather rare. That amphitheater was filled to the limitthere was no room for a pin, with the public distributed by social classes and areas, replicating a hierarchy that also had its economic reflection. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what seemed like a festive day he happened to enter sadly in the Guinness Book of a total sporting catastrophe when the structure began to give way and collapsed simultaneously inwards and outwards. It was not just an accident, since the magnitude of the collapse trapped both those who were inside and those who were trapped. were in the surroundingsleaving a balance of victims that, according to sources, ranged between tens of thousands of dead and injured. The worst sports disaster in history. From then until now, because of its scalethe collapse or collapse of Fidenae was not only a local tragedy, but the biggest sports disaster that has ever been documented, surpassing even many modern episodes in number of victims. The figures, although imprecise at the time, point to a catastrophe comparable to major battles in terms of human losses (they were counted about 50,000 deadsome lost their lives instantly, while others were buried under the rubble), something totally exceptional for an entertainment event. The speed of the collapse, the absence of evacuation measures and the fragility of the construction made any reaction impossible, turning the amphitheater into a mousetrap, a death trap in a matter of seconds. What should have been a profitable business ended up being the most extreme example of how the search for profit can multiply risk to catastrophic limits. From greed to the first rules. There is no doubt, the impact of that disaster shook the Roman Empire and forced an institutional reaction that marked a before and after in the construction regulation. The Senate persecuted the person responsible, Attilius, and sent him into exile, but, more importantly, established rules that They demanded economic solvency to those who wanted to organize shows and forced them to build on safe land. Those measures can be considered one of the first attempts to regulate structural safety in public spaces, born directly from a tragedy caused by negligence. Ultimately, the episode left a lesson that is still very valid: when business prevails over security, the show not only cannot be guaranteed, it can end up becoming in his own catastrophe. Image | Wikimedia C. In Xataka | In 1995, South Korea suffered one of the great architectural disasters of the century. The culprit: the air conditioning In Xataka | If you’re hot at home, remember that Disney made an auditorium with a huge mistake: turning a neighborhood into an unbearable oven

call it productivity and brag about the system

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three years ago I wrote here that spending years trying productivity apps, running like a headless chicken from Todoist to Things and from Craft to Notion, had been a rather unproductive search. I maintain it, but at that moment I had not seen version 2.0 of the problem yet. The one that no longer has to do with apps. There is a scene that is repeated in the spaces where we addicts to productivity (or the false sense of productivity) go. YouTube channels, newslettersX accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers: someone shows their “system”. It can be a Notion very well structured with relational databases, or a Obsidian with interconnected knowledge graphs. The morning routine with a weekly, monthly and quarterly review block. The labels, the priorities with their little flags, the active and latent projects, the someday / maybe. Everything documented, everything perfect. And when you see that you think “this person doesn’t have time to do anything.” It is not a joke but an observation. The most sophisticated productivity system is, in most cases, the most reliable proof that its owner has stopped producing.. I’m guilty too. Because building and maintaining that system requires exactly the kind of sustained attention, cognitive energy, and hours on screen that the system is supposed to free up to do important things. Here’s the catch GTDhe second brain and the entire philosophy of personal productivity have tended unintentionally, or perhaps wanting to: They have made managing work look like work. And looking like work, it gives the satisfaction of work done. Dopamine from task completion without having completed any actual task. Rearranging Obsidian notes for two hours feels like work. It is not. The phenomenon has a technical name that no one uses because it sounds too honest: structured procrastination. Doing things that are legitimate and even useful, but that are not the right thing to do. In its most innocent version, it is tidying up your desk before you start writing. In its 2026 version, it’s spending the afternoon building the perfect idea capture flow instead of having none. AI has multiplied this tenfold. Now the system can be more complex, more automated, more impressive. You can have one agent that classifies your notes, another that summarizes your readings, another that generates the weekly report of everything you have captured. He second brain It has become something like a brain of its own, with its own processes, its own maintenance needs, its own technical debt. And you, meanwhile, feeding it. In the end this shows us an uncomfortable truth: that most of us prefer preparing to do things rather than doing them. The perfect system is a permanent promise of future performance that indefinitely postpones the demands of the present. There is always a reason not to start yet: the system is not ready, a field is missing in the database, the capture flow needs to be revised. Let’s see if there is a better icon for this page. This is not new, of course. Seneca wrote 2,000 years ago that busyness and living are different things. But before procrastination had a bad conscience. You knew you were avoiding something. Now you can avoid it with impeccable productivity, with a label system and weekly review, without anyone, starting with yourself, being able to point the finger at you. Are you working. It is seen. I have a Notion to prove it. Real work, the one that matters, the one that costs, has a characteristic that productivity systems cannot simulate: produces something that did not exist before. Not a neater database or a more refined capture flow. Something that, when finished, justifies the time you have not dedicated to organizing yourself. That something is getting rarer and rarer. And our systems, increasingly more perfect and aesthetic. In Xataka | I’ve tried the Plaud NotePin S: the wearable AI recorder that’s not for everyone, but it’s perfect for some Featured image | Isaac Smith

when Istanbul moved 45,000 tons from its old airport in less than 45 hours

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Modern aviation is not only measured in knots or altitudes, but also in the ability of airports to process huge flows of people or cargo on a continuous basis. But there is an unwanted scenario that could occur: that the airport is not enough. When it collapses, it dies of success and serious logistical measures have to be taken. This is what happened in Istanbul: the need to expand the old Atatürk airport encountered an insurmountable barrier in the form of urban geography. For great evils, great remedies: they had to move the entire airport while international aviation and the country’s logistics continued their course. The event is known as “The Great Move“and constitutes the largest move in civil aviation. In less than 45 hours the center of gravity of air transport in the region moved 42 kilometers north, to the new Istanbul Airport (IST), with all that this entails. The move. In aviation, this operational transfer program is known as ORAT (Operational Readiness and Airport Transfer) and it goes without saying that this move was not spontaneous, but rather the opposite: it took two years of meticulous preparation in which they trained 33,000 airport staff and carried out two large-scale drills to detect potential problems. It all started immediately after the opening of the new airport in October 2018 and the final phase (that move), was executed in a continuous 45-hour window between April 5 and 6, 2019 to move more than 10,000 pieces of equipment with a total weight of 47,300 tons. In fact, it was even better: they did it in much less time. Why is it important. If a move has its ins and outs per se, for an airport the problems and the need to execute it without errors multiply as long as it is a living infrastructure with interdependent systems such as fuel, air traffic control, security, IT, passengers and luggage. Disconnecting, transporting and reconnecting everything without collapsing the air traffic of one of the busiest cities in the world is a high-flying engineering challenge. “The Great Move” showed that a world-class hub is possible without a prolonged dual transition, minimizing the operational risk of managing two airports simultaneously. Finally, the movement consolidated Istanbul as a great connection point between Europe and Asia, rivaling others in the Middle East such as Doha or Dubai. Without this move, Turkish Airlines’ growth would likely have been stagnant due to the physical limitations of the old airport. Context. In 2017, Atatürk Airport was the fifth busiest in Europe, behind Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Without going any further, in 2018 served to almost 70 million passengers, making it the tenth busiest on the planet. But it was limited: it was surrounded by the city on three sides and by the Sea of ​​Marmara on the fourth, so expansion was physically impossible. The secondary airport of Sabiha Gökçen It had also reached its maximum capacity. The lack of space was so critical that it prevented the Airbus A380 from operating, making Atatürk the only major airport in Europe and the Middle East unable to receive such aircraft. So in 2013 they made the decision. The flight that brought down the curtain on Atatürk was Turkish Airlines TK54: it took off on April 6, 2019 at 02:44 to Singapore. In figures. Although there are slight variations in sources directly involved such as Turkish Airlines or the documentary he recorded of the process by the airport operator with the collaboration of National Geographic, are minor and do not detract from the colossal nature of the operation: A planned duration of 45 hours (which they reduced to 33 according to the IGA and less than 30 according to Turkish Airlines) More than 10,000 pieces of equipment moved between airports, with a total weight of 47,300 tons. Equivalent to 33 football fields. 686 semi-trailers used for transportation, according to the CEO of Turkish Airlines. 1,800 people were directly involved in the process. They estimated the distance traveled by the trucks in 45 hours to be 400,000 kilometers, that is, going around the Earth about 10 times. How they did it. It took two years of meticulous preparation in which they trained 33,000 airport staff and conducted two large-scale drills to detect potential problems. Planning required more than 100 meetings and workshops and there were three logistics companies involved. For execution, they developed a logistical transfer plan with details of the movement of each vehicle in 15-minute windows. The route was established through a corridor between the two airports, using the new highway connection between both facilities and each vehicle was checked twice: once at the departure gate and once in a separate control area. The whole process was monitored in real time with GPRS to detect any incident. At 02:59 on April 6, 2019, the IATA code changes were made: Atatürk’s IST code was renamed ISL and the new airport inherited it. Between 02:00 and 14:00 that day, both airports were closed to commercial flights, a 12-hour period that constituted the critical core of the entire operation. The new airport. Istanbul Airport had an estimated budget of 22 billion euros, becoming at that time the second most expensive airport ever built, as told Reuters. Designed with a single terminal under a single roof of 1.4 million square meters, initially allowing 90 million passengers annually. The master plan contemplates expansions up to 200 million, with independent runways that allow simultaneous landings and takeoffs, eliminating waiting in the air. In 2025, the airport rondo 85 million passengers, making it the second busiest in Europe after Heathrow and the seventh in the world. In Xataka | The unfinished dream of the Roman Empire: a 125-kilometer train to link Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus In Xataka | One of the largest and strangest airports in the world is not going to be in Dubai or the UAE: it is going to be in Ethiopia Cover | Ercan Karakaş and Kulttuurinavigaattori

The best offers on technology and entertainment from MediaMarkt, today April 19

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MediaMarkt is currently celebrating a couple of campaigns with a large number of offers: Saving April and Climate Special. Both are available throughout the weekend and there is plenty to choose from, so let’s go over the five best deals we have found. Kindle Paperwhite by 129 euros when registering in the store, ideal if you are looking to read in black and white and want a good seven-inch screen. nintendo switch 2 by 479 euros By selecting the pack below in the store, it includes both the console and ‘Mario Kart World’ and a keychain. Google Pixel 10 by 599 eurosan excellent high-end mobile phone that is ideal if you are looking for a good quality-price ratio and a mobile phone with a good photography section. Pocketbook Verse Pro by 99 eurosa perfect eReader for those who want to turn pages by pressing buttons and not just with the touch screen. Philips Amigo by 99 eurosa ceiling fan that incorporates an LED light. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Paperwhite One of MediaMarkt’s best offers has fallen into the Kindle Paperwhitethe model with the best quality-price ratio on Amazon, especially now that it costs 129 euros as long as we log in to the store (otherwise the discount does not appear). This eReader stands out mainly for its format, since it has narrower frames than what we usually find in this type of device, Its screen is seven inchesit is light enough so that it can be used with one hand and its battery is one of the largest on Kindle, since according to Amazon it offers a battery life of up to 12 weeks. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links nintendo switch 2 Right now you can buy the nintendo switch 2 at its official price, but in MediaMarkt, just below there is a pack that, for 10 euros more (479 euros in total), you can take the console along with the ‘Mario Kart World’ and a keychain. The interesting thing is that the official pack that includes the console and the game is no longer available in the store, so it is a good way to buy both things taking advantage of a good discount. Furthermore, unlike the official pack, this other pack that MediaMarkt has put together includes the video game in physical format. Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World (physical format) + keychain The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 There are many discounts that we have seen in the Google Pixel 10 since its launch, and today we can find one of the best offers that MediaMarkt has launched. By 599 euroswe have this Pixel 10 that stands out above all for its 6.3 inch sizefor its excellent performance and because it has a very interesting photography section. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Pocketbook Verse Pro Many eReaders, especially brands like Kindle or Kobo, only allow you to turn pages through the touch screen. If you also want a very practical button panel so you can do it comfortably and without dirtying the screen so much, the Pocketbook Verse Pro Right now it is one of the best purchasing options. Because? Basically because MediaMarkt has it for 99 euros instead of 156 euros. The Pocketbook Verse Pro is an eReader that incorporates a six inch screen. At the bottom it includes a series of buttons that allow, among other things, to turn the pages or move through the menus. It is also a fairly compact and lightweight model, so you can take it wherever you want and use it with just one hand. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Philips Amigo Now that the weather is starting to get nice, it is a good time to buy a ceiling fan and thus get ahead of the summer heat. MediaMarkt right now has on offer the Philips Amigo by 99 eurosa model that includes LED light, has a function for summer and another for winter and includes a remote control to control the speed, light or operating modes. 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. Image | MediaMarkt and Compradicción (header), Amazon, Nintendo, Google, Pocketbook, Philips In Xataka | The best mobile phones (2026), we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best ceiling fans. Recommendations to get it right and five models from 80 euros

invent the remote control before television

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Televisions change, technologies change, but there are interactions that last despite the passage of years, decades and even centuries. An example of this is the remote controller, which has historically allowed us to interact with devices from a distance, although what we currently know is very different from the first concept of remote control. Although televisions did not become more common in the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of the remote controller appeared much earlier. Specifically, in 1901. And a fact that you may not know is that one of the pioneers of the remote control was a Spaniard, the engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo. The controller anticipated the televisions The history of the remote control dates back, as we said, to the first years of the last century. In 1903, the inventor, mathematician and engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-1936) conceived, built and patented the first remote control in history. He called it Telekino, and as one might think It is far from the controls for televisions and other devices we see now. Miniaturization was not a reality until much later and the Telekino took up an entire table. Telekino in Abra. Image: Torresquevedo.org Of course, the Telekino was not created with the idea of ​​controlling televisions remotely, which in reality did not become a reality almost until the incorporation of the cathode ray tube (with the push from Telefunken and other manufacturers). The idea was to control airships without anyone being in danger in the tests, but finally he tried it with boats as they recalled in the written edition of The Country in 2007, when the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized the invention by including it in its official list of milestones in the history of engineering. It was the first time that a Spanish creation became part of this list, in which we find inventions by Benjamin Franklin, Alessandro Volta and Guglielmo Marconi among others. Telekino, as you may have deduced, comes from TV (from ancient Greek, “far”, meaning “at a distance”, “remotely”) and kinein (also from the Greek, “movement”), by the way. IEEE Recognition Plaque. Image: YouTube We already talked about Telekino in Xataka precisely because of this historical recognition, also to remember that at the time it was not highly praised. In fact, Torres Quevedo himself would abandon the project as he did not receive sufficient support. The valuable legacy of Torres Quevedo One of the prototypes of the Telekino is located in the Torres-Quevedo Museum, in the Higher Technical School of Civil, Canal and Port Engineers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. And thanks to a short (virtual) visit to that museum for the centenary of one of the Spanish engineer’s inventions we can discover more of them, also very relevant. Torres Quevedo is credited with nothing more and nothing less than the first Spanish airship, as well as the first ferry suitable for transporting people (or in other words, an open cable car for people). The invention was patented in 1887, and it would not be until 30 years later when it materialized, being launched on Mount Ulía in San Sebastián in 1907. Compensation also came in the form of international export, since the system reached neither more nor less than to Niagara Falls. Thus, the call Spanish Aerocar It continues to operate today in the well-known region and celebrated its centenary in 2016, having completed more than 10 million transports without recording incidents. Torres Quevedo was also a precursor of modern computing with his Ajedrecista, considered the first chess computer game, and the electromechanical arithmometer, a calculator accompanied by a typewriter, a precursor to digital calculators. In Xataka | In 1925, procrastination was already a problem and someone found the definitive solution: the isolation helmet. In Xataka | We have been fascinated for years by the geniuses who come up with revolutionary innovations out of thin air. It’s always been smoke This article was originally published on Xataka a few years ago, and we have recovered it from the archive.

Gijón is already studying to install it

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In a matter of a few years, electric scooters They have ended up becoming an everyday element of the urban landscape in Spain. The problem is that road signs and regulations around this new type of mobility have taken longer to catch up. Since last year they have had their own signage, and town councils are already beginning to use it. What is happening in Gijón. Just like share the media El Comercio, the Gijón City Council has requested signs of the R-118 model to install them in different parts of the city. This was announced in the municipal plenary session by the Councilor for Traffic, Mobility and Public Transport, Pelayo Barcia. The sign, which prohibits access to personal mobility vehicles (VMP, which includes electric scooters, hoverboards and similar), does not yet have a definitive location. And the City Council has a pending meeting with the Traffic and Citizen Security service to decide on which specific streets it will be installed. The debate on the prohibition of this type of vehicles on certain streets came after an initiative by Vox to create a specific municipal ordinance for these vehicles, a proposal that was rejected. The councilor considered that there is already sufficient regulation: VMPs cannot circulate on sidewalks, they only allow one occupant, they must stop at a pedestrian crossing, and their maximum speed is 25 km/h. Chaff pointed out Furthermore, since January an internal instruction from the Local Police has been in force to act on these vehicles, and that the municipality has acquired a dynamometer to detect scooters manipulated to exceed that limit. In the first quarter, nearly 200 complaints have already been filed since it came into force mandatory insurance. Why does this signal exist and when did it arrive? The R-118 has been in the making for years. Since 2022, the DGT had been announcing the need to update the signage catalogwhich had not undergone substantial changes since 2003. The specific signal for VMP was one of the novelties that appeared in the drafts, although for years its entry into force was delayed due to the lack of legal support. And without modification of the General Traffic Regulations, there was no possible signal. The change came in June 2025. Royal Decree 465/2025published in the BOE on June 17, updated road signage and incorporated new signs, including a specific prohibition on electric scooters. The sign came into force on July 1 of last year, with the obligation to remove the repealed signs before July 1, 2026. It was the first major reform of the sign catalog in more than two decades. What exactly is R-118 and what does it prohibit. Visually, the R-118 follows the classic logic of prohibition signs: a circle with a red border and the silhouette of an electric scooter in the center, allowing its meaning to be understood at a glance. Although it is not only specific to scooters: it basically affects all personal mobility vehicles with motor propulsion. It can normally be found, for example, at the entrance to secondary roads or high-speed roads such as highways and highways, but also (as in the case of Gijón) in urban streets where the presence of these vehicles generates conflicts with pedestrians or other users. Failure to comply can have consequences, as skipping the sign carries a fine of 200 euros. Decision of the municipalities. The placement of these signs corresponds to each municipality, so their implementation will be progressive and adapted to the needs of each city. There is no nationwide deployment, so it is not unusual for there to be cities that have not incorporated it into their streets. Each council decides when and where to install them depending on the traffic in their area. Although the signal has existed legally for almost a year, there really aren’t too many cities that have used it yet. However, there are some municipalities, including Gijón, that have already begun to act. VMP park growth. This type of vehicle has grown brutally in Spain: from half a million units in 2020 to more than five million currently. This rapid growth has generated tensions that cities have no longer been able to ignore, including conflicts with pedestrians on sidewalks, accidents, scooters abandoned in the middle of the streets, and a general perception that these vehicles circulated without clear rules. Regulation has come in layers: first state regulations, then municipal ordinances, and now specific signage. In Barcelona, ​​for example, from February 1, 2025 it is mandatory to wear a helmet and driving on sidewalks is prohibited. Madrid has been imposing progressive restrictions, including the ban on scooter rental services after repeated non-compliance. Each city is building its own framework, within the limits set by the State. What is still missing. The R-118 signal solves part of the problem (knowing where these vehicles cannot circulate) but there are important drawbacks. The councilor of Gijón pointed out that measures such as the mandatory use of helmets at the national level “are subject to a state regulatory development that has not yet occurred”, and the municipalities that have gone ahead on their own see that the fines end up being successfully appealed. The issue of homologation is also pending, since models sold before the new regulations have until 2027 to adapt or stop circulating. Cover image | Belinda Fewings and assembly with Gemini generated by AI In Xataka | If you think that the DGT is issuing more fines than in its entire history, the data proves you right

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