In reality, the workslop is sinking her

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One of the mantras most repeated by the apostles of AI automation is that AI-assisted work was going to boost productivity in companies that apply it, but the data shows that the reality is very different and depends on How is that productivity measured?. For example, the study data ‘Forrester Consulting’s Total Economic Impact 2023′ from IBM, highlight an increase in productivity based on a 30% reduction in the time it takes to manage an incident, but it does not measure the quality of that management. It is at that point where AI, more than boosting productivity, is sinking her. The effect “Workslop“. As and how do they count in Harvard Business Reviewin many companies, the mass adoption of AI tools translates into enthusiasm and apparent advances, but behind these figures lies an increasingly evident problem: the proliferation of mediocre content generated by AI, known as “workslop” or work garbage. The phenomenon occurs mainly when AI is used to produce documents, reports and materials that are very apparent at first glance, but are superficial at their core and end up generating more work in reviewing and correcting them than it would have taken a person to do it from the beginning. A recent study conducted by BetterUp Labs together with Stanford Social Media Lab reveals that 40% of US employees reported having received content “workslop” in the last month. Data indicates that 15.4% of all the content they received at work falls into this “Workslop” category. BetterUp Labs estimates put the cost of reviewing AI-generated work at $186 per employee, or about $9 million per year for a large corporation with 10,000 employees. It is useful to get rid of “paperwork”. AI is proving useful in routine tasks, such as email automation, simple summaries or basic content generation, allowing the employee release cognitive load. That is, freeing your brain from work that, although necessary, does not really represent progress in tasks or projects. The report GenAI Divide (MIT, 2025) confirms that 70% of employees prefer to use AI to compose quick communications and perform simple analyses, noting that “AI has already won the battle of easy work.” However, for complex projects and jobs that require memory, continuous adaptation and deeper analysis, 90% still prefer to turn to human professionals. The investigations from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Duke University point out that AI can serve as a starting point for developing an idea, but it fails in 70% of the cases in which tasks are asked to complete unattended. The invisible “tax” of AI. Every time an employee receives AI-generated workslop content, the process requires an additional investment of time and resources to unravel and correct any errors or inaccuracies that come with it. The aforementioned BetterUp Labs study estimates that each employee wastes an average of one hour and 56 minutes analyzing or reviewing this “junk” content. So much so that it has even given rise to the birth of a new professional niche in which professionals who previously carried out that work now charge for analyzing it and fix your mistakes. The biases of AI. The study also analyzes the social and labor impact of this type of content. His conclusion: it is as harmful as the economic impact. 53% of employees say they feel upset after receiving these texts and 38% say they are confused. According to published Forbes, approximately half of those surveyed consider their colleagues who submit workslop work to be less creative, less capable. Furthermore, 42% say they see them as less trustworthy, generating a deterioration in reputation and collaboration within the team. This social impact does not have its origin in the fact of using AI to generate documents, code or graphics, but in the fact of not having taken the trouble to check if the content generated by AI is correct before sending or using it in his work. Use AI with common sense. Researchers at MIT and BetterUp Labs agree that using AI indiscriminately, only following the mandate to adopt the technology, like some big technologies they want to do at all costsis not a good idea to increase productivity. According what was published by CIOdespite the fact that the CEO of Google beats his chest assuring that 25% of your code It is already generated with AI, that work is not free nor does it result in notable improvements in productivity of its engineers. Before they were dedicated to generating code, and now they use that time to review it or repair the errors produced by the new integrated code. Therefore, using AI on complex tasks that must then be supervised by engineers does not improve productivity, but rather displaces it at best and even can reduce it depending on the use case. In Xataka | We believed that AI was going to take our jobs. At the moment he has started whispering to your boss who he should fire Image | Unsplash (Sigmund)

Clean energy has made the electricity market cheaper. But what we pay for is no longer energy: it is stability

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Spain is a unique case in Europe: it has managed to ensure that gas and coal barely influence the wholesale price of electricity – only 19% of the hours this year, compared to 75% in 2019. according to a report by Ember. Thanks to this, the average Spanish wholesale price was 32% lower than the European one. However, something does not add up: the consumer still paying an expensive billwhy doesn’t the receipt go down? Let’s go in parts. Since 2019, Spain has added more than 40 GW of new solar and wind capacity, doubling its renewable power. In the first half of this year, 46% of the electricity generated was clean. But on April 28, 2025 came the blow of reality: the great blackout. A concatenation of electrical failures and lack of operating margin left much of the country in the dark for hours. The ENTSO-E preliminary report discarded that renewables were the direct cause, but it did reveal a structural problem: the Spanish network was not prepared for so much intermittent generation without sufficient flexibility. Since then, Red Eléctrica operates the system in “reinforced mode”activating more combined gas cycles to stabilize the voltage. According to Emberthat strategy has come at a high cost: in May, gas-based network services represented 57% of the final price of electricity, compared to the usual 14% before the blackout. The underlying problem. Spain produces more clean electricity than ever, but cannot fully take advantage of it. The lack of grid, storage and interconnections is leaving thousands of solar and wind megawatts unused. Although there is now a plan in place to reinforce those connections that act as a bottleneckthe reality is that when there is excess clean energy and it cannot be exported, it is “thrown away”. He curtailment (wasted renewable energy) has tripled since the blackout, going from 1.8% to 7.2%, according to Ember. Furthermore, the country continues to lag behind in flexibility. Regarding investment in batteries, it arrives late: Spain is placed in fourth position in the electricity market, but it is thirteenth in batteries, with only 120 MW installed. Despite to have planned a total of 16,000 MW planned for 2030. The reason for these problems is structural and can be understood with the investment made in networks of such only 30 cents For every euro allocated to renewables, half the European average. In other words, we have more sun than cables. The cost of fear. The problem is not only technical, but economic. As the analyst Javier Blas recalledoperate in reinforced modeeither since April it has cost consumers an additional billion dollars. And that is just the beginning: the approval of the new re-reinforced mode could add another 3,000 million euros and open the door to increases in fixed rates by the marketers, as the UNEF has detailed in statements to El Español. The cost of keeping the network “in tension” is transferred directly to the invoices, even if the wholesale price is low. Ember’s own report points out that the wholesale market price It only covers approximately half of the electricity bill, the so-called “energy component.” The rest – networks, tolls, taxes, stability of the system – does not decrease even if electricity becomes cheaper at source. Therefore, falling wholesale prices do not automatically translate into lower bills. The ghost of the blackout again. Six months have been enough for another feared blackout to return. Red Eléctrica warned of “sudden voltage variations” in the peninsular system, so serious that it asked the CNMC for permission to urgently modify several operating procedures. Among the measures: more room for maneuver to act before the operating day begins and stricter control of reactive voltage. An express adjustment of the country’s electrical operations to contain the ups and downs of voltage, just as my partner described. The REE itself insisted that “there is no imminent risk of a blackout,” but the truth is that no one is calm. “The grid operator has been operating in reinforced mode since April 29, activating gas plants with greater intensity and reducing solar and wind energy,” Blas pointed out. Every day that passes in these conditions adds costs that end up being passed on to customers. The ghost of the blackout is still there: less visible, but more expensive. From patches to clean flexibility. After the blackout a reform package was approved (Royal Decree-Law 7/2025) with measures to strengthen the network and promote storage. Although the decree was rejected in Congress, many of its provisions are being applied in other ways. Among them, the installation of eight synchronous compensators stands out—devices that stabilize voltage without using fossil fuels—and a portfolio of 2,600 MW of batteries, of which 340 MW already have permission. From Ember has been calculated that the compensators will involve an investment of 750 million euros, but will save 200 million a year by reducing the use of gas for network services. The objective is clear: to move from gas as a crutch to clean flexibility as the basis of the system. The Spanish paradox. Spain is Europe’s energy laboratory: the country where renewables have shown that they can reduce the wholesale price, but also where it is clearer to see how expensive it is to sustain this transition without robust networks. As explains Ember’s reportaround 50% of the Spanish electricity bill corresponds to the energy component, which has become cheaper. The rest are system costs and from there, although the megawatt-hour does not cost less, the final bill barely goes down. A major challenge. Spain has shown that it can have the cheapest electricity in Europe and, at the same time, one of the highest bills.Because the energy transition is not measured only in megawatts or solar panels, but in cables, stability and trust. The challenge now is not to produce more clean energy, but to make it arrive—and be paid for—fairly. Image | Unsplash Xataka | A ghost haunts Spain: the ghost of another massive blackout caused by network tension problems

We’ve been obsessed with strong passwords and public Wi-Fi for years. It turns out that the data sink was in the satellites

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While we worry about choose strong passwords and Don’t let the neighbor steal our WiFiit turns out that anyone can capture private data simply by pointing a dish at a satellite. It is not a government conspiracy, it is what some Californian researchers have discovered using a piece of equipment that only costs $800. What has happened? They count in Wired that several researchers from the universities of California and Maryland have been capturing communications from various satellites for three years. During this time they have collected a huge amount of private data. Among the information collected there is data on calls and messages from users of various operators, the pages visited by airplane passengers who used WiFi on board, communications between different critical infrastructures such as oil platforms or electrical companies and even police and military communications that revealed the position of their equipment. Why it is important. According to the study’s conclusions, it is estimated that around half of the signal from geostationary satellites carries sensitive information of consumers, companies and also governments. We strive to protect our WiFi networks, our online accounts or mobile devices, but the results of the research make it clear that satellites are a critical element through which data can also be leaked. A basic equipment. What is striking is that the researchers did not use super complex technology to obtain these findings. They simply placed a satellite dish on the roof of a university building and started pointing it at the satellites. They only invested $800 in the entire equipment. The data they obtained is only from the satellites that they could capture from their position in southern California, which according to their calculations is 15% of the total, so logic leads one to think that the amount of sensitive data will be much larger. In addition, it also shows that anyone could do it from another part of the world. Operators. The most significant data came from telephone providers, mainly T-Mobile, but also Telmex and AT&T México. In just nine hours of communications logging, researchers were able to collect the phone numbers of more than 2,700 T-Mobile users, as well as text messages and phone calls. After contacting T-Mobile to alert them, the company took steps to encrypt the data. AT&T also fixed this and claimed it was due to a satellite provider failing to configure some towers in a region of Mexico. Telmex has not said anything about it. Military and police data. That anyone’s data is exposed is already problematic, but that it is data from the army and security forces adds another layer of seriousness. Investigators were able to intercept communications between US military ships and the names of those ships. Since they were in Southern California, they also obtained data from Mexican authorities, including transmissions of confidential information about ongoing operations. “When we started looking at military helicopters, it wasn’t the sheer volume of data that worried us, but rather the extreme sensitivity of that data,” says Aaron Schulman, co-director of the research. Cybersecurity in space. In August of this same year, researchers found several vulnerabilities which, under certain conditions, could allow remote control of satellites. At the beginning of the Ukrainian war, Russia carried out a cyber attack against ViaSat which affected thousands of users. Cases like these highlight the need to bring the cybersecurity debate to space systems as well and not just terrestrial systems. Image | SpaceX on Pexels In Xataka | There are so many satellites orbiting the Earth that Starlink has a new concern: avoiding colliding with them

central banks are fleeing the dollar

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A few days ago we saw how gold had exceeded $4,000 per ounce for the first time in its history and, as it could not be otherwise, it has raised a general alarm in the markets. And there are not exactly a few analysts who are already pointing to $5,000 by 2026. But the real story behind this historic rally is not only that gold is expensive: is that the dollar is losing its neutrality as a world reserve currency. In emerging countries and China is where this is being noticed the most, and central banks react accordingly. A historic rise. gold accumulates a 50% increase so far in 2025, its best year since 1979. However, neither geopolitical uncertainty nor rate cuts nor dollar weakness fully explain the magnitude of the movement. Just like they explain Since Expansion, gold has continued to rise even with the truce in Gazasome recovery of the dollar and a Federal Reserve in standby mode. Something deeper is happening. Central banks lead the purchase. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, central banks They have bought gold massively and constant. In this way, some emerging countries and China diversify their reserves to depend less on the US dollar. According to Goldman Sachscentral banks explain 19% of the expected rise in gold until the end of 2026, buying an average of 80 tons in 2025 and 70 in 2026. Bank of America also matches by pointing to central banks and small investors who push the price up. Gold already competes with American Treasury bonds. The value of central banks’ gold reserves (excluding the United States) reached 3.93 trillion dollars at current prices, slightly exceeding the $3.92 trillion in US Treasury bonds held by foreign governments. Gold has gone from representing 10% of world reserves a decade ago to 24% by mid-2025. It is a structural change in the international monetary system. Preparing for a post-hegemonic dollar world. What is at stake is the global financial architecture. Central banks in emerging economies are betting on a future where the dollar is no longer the neutral currency it has been for decades. Trade tensions between the United States and China, political pressures on the independence of the Federal Reserve and record debt levels Americans feed this narrative. Individual investors join in. A wave of retail investors has recently added to institutional demand. In Japan, where gold exceeded 20,000 yen per gramdistributors such as Tanaka Precious Metals had to suspend sales due to the avalanche of orders. In Hong Kong and Türkiye, traditional gold-buying markets, families They are both buying and selling to take advantage of record prices. Gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) they caught 26 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2025 alone, a record figure. Around $5,000. Société Générale has just raised its forecast to $5,000 per ounce by the end of 2026, describing this goal as “increasingly inevitable.” Bank of America aims for the same level, while Goldman Sachs projects 4,900 dollars by December 2026. And in all the projections there is a common denominator: they assume that institutional demand from central banks will remain strong and that individual investors will continue to see gold as a refuge, especially in an environment of great uncertainty. Risk. It’s not all good news for the precious metal. a survey from Bank of America shows that 25% of fund managers consider long positions in gold as one of the most saturated bets in the market. Just like they explain From the Financial Times, historically, when gold moves more than 20% away from its 200-day moving average, as is happening now, corrections of 20% to 33% usually occur. But even with that risk, everything indicates that the world is preparing for a monetary system where the US dollar no longer dominates alone. Cover image | Jingming Pan In Xataka | In Europe we have a problem: we are becoming the Japan of the 21st century

The question now is why the car was not opened.

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A Xiaomi SU7 Ultra has caught fire after a serious accident on Tianfu Avenue in Chengdu, the largest city in western China. The accident, which took place around 3:16 AM on October 13, has ended the life of the driver, a 31-year-old man who was trapped inside the vehicle while the flames consumed it. The images of the event have once again generated an intense debate on the safety of electronic handles in electric cars, a topic that It became popular after the first Tesla to incorporate this feature and that they have adopted a good part of the vehicles in the premium segment. China is about to change this regulation. What happened. The driver, identified by authoritieshit another sedan, crossed the median of the road and the car immediately caught fire. Several drivers passing by the area stopped to try to help him. The videos show how they tried to break the windows by hitting them with their elbows and shoes, without success. They then used a fire extinguisher, but the flames and intense heat prevented them from getting closer. After the firefighters arrived, who put out the fire, only the chassis remained: they had to use hammers and electric saws to cut the doors, which could not be opened manually. Why didn’t the doors open? local police confirmed that the driver was allegedly under the influence of alcohol. However, the focus of the controversy has focused in the vehicle’s electronic handles, which allegedly remained locked throughout the fire. Although some users on social networks they speculate Since the locking system was activated after the impact, the Chengdu and Xiaomi Auto authorities have not yet issued an official statement in this regard. This type of handles, popularized by Tesla a decade ago with the Model S, they depend on electrical energy to function, and in the event of a loss of power after an accident, they can prevent the occupants from exiting. The impact on Xiaomi. Xiaomi shares in Hong Kong fell up to 9% during the day on Monday, closing with a loss of 5.71%. It was the worst day for the company since April. This is not the first fatal accident involving a vehicle from the Chinese brand: at the end of March, an SU7 that was traveling in intelligent driving mode hit an obstacleburned and killed three university students. That event led Xiaomi to announce in September the software update of its driving assistance system in almost 116,900 SU7 units, after the Chinese regulator warned that the system could fail to detect certain scenarios. A problem that goes beyond Xiaomi. The safety of electronic door handles is part of a hot debate that involves the entire electric vehicle industry. In September, the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation on Tesla for the handles of the Model Y manufactured since 2021, after it was learned that several people were injured or died when they could not open the doors when power was lost, especially after accidents. In another case earlier this month, a wrongful death lawsuit alleged that the Cybertruck’s door handle system caught a 19-year-old young man inside the burning vehicle. Also Rivian is redesigning the doors of its upcoming R2 SUV to include a more visible manual opening system following concerns from its employees. What does Chinese regulations say? The country has a public consultation phase your new standards security. These standards also include changes that are specifically aimed at the use of electronic door handles in vehicles. These changes are expected to come into effect soon, so they should put even more pressure on automakers to develop these types of levers. Cover image | Xiaomi and Weibo In Xataka | Chinese laptops are less and less imitating other people’s successes: the latest from Anbernic is identical to a Nintendo DS

vote in the Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025

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The time has come! We have just given the starting signal for the votes of the Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025. What does that mean? That during the next few days we will ask for your help and opinion to select the best products in the different categories competing this year. We start, as the headline already suggests, with the categories of “Best tablet” and “Best smartwatch.” Like every year, your votes will decide the finalists in each category. Which devices compete in the grand final depends solely and exclusively on you, our xatakeros. In addition, your votes will be added to those of the jury with a weight of one third to select the winners. These will be revealed at the grand gala on November 20, where we are waiting for you! Voting will be open until October 27 at 11:59 p.m. and, without further ado, here are the candidates. Best tablet Note: If you are browsing from a mobile phone and the form does not look good, you can vote from here. best smartwatch Note: If you are browsing from a mobile phone and the form does not look good, you can vote from here. For the voting system we use Google Forms, so in order to send your vote you need to be logged in to your Gmail (or Google) account in the browser, whether desktop or mobile, so that each reader can cast their vote. Thank you. NordVPN offers you a fast and stable connection thanks to your more than 6,300 servers in more than 110 countries. Enjoy advanced cybersecurity tools with Threat Protection Pro™, securely access your streaming platforms favorites wherever you are and enjoy the best offers on flights and hotels. Advice offered by the brand How voting works The mechanics of the Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025 are the same as in previous editions. It is divided into three phases: Public vote: Over the next few days we will be publishing articles with our categories and the candidates selected by the Xataka team so that you, our xatakeros, can vote for your favorites. Jury vote: With the finalists that the public has chosen, the Xataka jury and other technology experts will vote for those who are, in their view, the best devices. Choice of winners: The jury’s votes will be combined with those of the public to choose the winners, who will be announced on November 20. The selected candidates are devices that They have gone on sale in 2025 or will do so with a confirmed date before the end of the year. We also include those that were left out last year when they were announced after the Awards. We believe it is the best solution: Unfortunately we cannot celebrate the gala on December 31 and our idea is that the Awards can serve as support in the purchasing decision for this last part of the year. Thank you very much for participating! Image | Xataka In Xataka | Xataka NordVPN 2025 Awards: reserve November 20 for the great annual technology festival

The HP Store fall sales are here with discounts on computers and laptops for work

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Sooner or later the time comes to renew a PC, either because it has become outdated, broken or simply because we want something more powerful to work with. To do this, it is always better if we can take advantage of a good offer, since this way we can opt for better equipment and save along the way. If we are in that scenario, then surely we are interested the new fall sales from the HP Store. We have a wide selection of computers of all types with very juicy discounts. Below, we leave you a selection of the most notable ones. HP 250R G10 Laptop by 676.39 eurosa versatile team with a fairly reasonable price. HP EliteBook X Flip G1i Laptop by 2,358 eurosvery powerful laptop with a touch screen. HP Pro 400 G9 Mini PC by 627.99 eurosan economical desktop ideal for any business. HP Pro One 440 G9 All-in-One Computer by 918.39 eurosan all-in-one device with a very good configuration. HP ProoBook 4 G1q Laptop by 906.29 eurosa very interesting laptop with a Qualcomm processor. HP 250R G10 Laptop The first of the professional HP computers that we bring is this 250R G10, a fairly inexpensive device, but one that could be great for our business. It has an Intel Core 5 120U as a processor, which is accompanied by 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD. It comes with Windows 11 Pro (important now that Windows 10 support is ending) and has a 15.6-inch screen. Right now we can purchase it for 676.39 euros (its price was 933.16 euros) HP 250R G10 15″ Professional Laptop The price could vary. We earn commission from these links HP EliteBook X Flip G1i Laptop If we have a demanding job that requires us to have a powerful, current and very versatile computer, perhaps this EliteBook X Flip G1i is better for us. It is a device that stands out thanks to its 14-inch screen, which is touch. In addition, it has plenty of power and memory thanks to an Intel Core 7, 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. From more than 3,000 euros, it is now reduced to 2,358 euros. HP EliteBook X Flip G1i 14″ Professional Laptop with AI Wolf Pro Security Edition with 3-year warranty The price could vary. We earn commission from these links HP Pro 400 G9 Mini PC We also have very good options if we prefer something to leave in our permanent business. This Mini HP Pro is very interesting, since at its quite attractive price (right now it costs 627.99 euros) we must add that it has a good configuration and is very compact. It features a 13th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. Additionally, it includes a keyboard and mouse. HP Pro 400 G9 Mini Professional PC The price could vary. We earn commission from these links HP Pro One 440 G9 All-in-One Computer If we prefer an all-in-one option, this HP Pro One 440 G9 all-in-one may be perfect for us. It goes one step further than the previous one thanks to a 14th generation Intel Core i5 processor, 32 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. The 23.8-inch screen also has an integrated webcam. From 1,869.45 euros it is reduced to 918.39 euros. HP ProOne 440 G9 All-in-One PC: Wolf Pro Security Edition The price could vary. We earn commission from these links HP ProoBook 4 G1q Laptop For the last option we once again have a laptop, although this time one that has a Qualcomm processor, the company responsible for some of the most important mobile chips there are. This device has its Snapdragon X1-26-100 (which has great performance for tasks of all kinds), as well as 32 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. In addition, the 14-inch screen it has has WUXGA resolution (1,920 x 1,200 pixels). It is reduced to 906.29 euros. HP ProBook 4 G1q Professional Laptop 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 | HP Store In Xataka | Best laptops in quality price: which one to buy based on use and eight recommended models In Xataka | Best ultrabooks: which one to buy and 10 recommended light laptops from 600 to 1700 euros

how it is formed, how it differs from a normal storm and how to act in one of them

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It rains in the Levant. Deluge. Injuries, dozens of homes flooded, infrastructure unusable, rivers overflowing. Deaths. As you may have seen, there are no links in the three sentences that head this paragraph. And it is not an oversight: there are no links because, sadly, they are not necessary. Every year, for too many now, the end of summer ends with torrential rains in the east of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands. How is it possible that the same improvisation scenes are always repeated? Why are we not prepared for what, by all accounts, seems inevitable? What is a DANA and what should we know about them? Difference between DANA and cold drop POT Around 1886, a group of German meteorologists they started talking of kaltlufttropfen (‘cold air fall’). It may seem that ‘cold drop’ is a native and traditional way of calling certain types of meteorological events, but no. Our ‘cold drop’ comes directly from there: from a way to describe “cold air pockets” or stormy phenomena at altitude”. A description that is more than a century old. For this reason, there was a moment when the AEMET decided to start talking about Isolated Depressions at High Levels. The DANA concept is more current and, therefore, more accurate: it describes a cold depression at high levels, isolated from the main circulation, which generates instability by interacting with warm and humid air in lower layers. But, be careful, the change was not only due to a scientific issue. As the Agency itself recognized‘cold drop’ began to become synonymous with “catastrophic, intense and damaging rains, as well as highly dangerous meteorological situations.” And this is not always the case: we know for a fact that there are DANAs that cause absolutely nothing. It is something very similar to what he has done in recent days giving a proper name to dangerous DANAs. So for practical purposes, DANA is a more precise way than Gota Fría to talk about one of the most characteristic (and potentially dangerous) atmospheric phenomena of the Spanish autumn. How a DANA is formed The mechanism behind Isolated Depressions at High Levels is quite well known. At high levels of the atmosphere, the jet stream is disturbed, undulated, pinched. And finally, it comes off. That’s what we call an ‘isolated closed low’; that is, detached from the main flow. This low remains circulating independently and, when it interacts with areas of warmer and more humid air (for example, in the Mediterranean) it can generate vertical instability, intense convective attacks, deep clouds and torrential rains. Why DANAs are increasingly common in Spain The truth is that there is no consensus that DANAs are increasing in Spain. It is something that is being discussed; But there are indications that some factors are making the episodes more extreme. We talk about things like the Mediterranean being warmer than usual (a warmer sea contributes more water vapor to the air), the atmosphere also it’s hotter (and has more latent energy) and that the polar jet is becoming more erratic. All this means that even if the same DANAs occur as in previous years, the effects are much worse. Consequences of DANAs Manuel Pérez García and Estefania Monerri Mínguez. That’s where the problems begin. Although the effects may vary depending on intensity, duration and location, the fact that DANAs become more intense is what is making our lives difficult. And it is thatThe catalog of consequences is very extensive.. Flash floods, river flooding, dry riverbed overflows; damage to infrastructure (roads, bridges, urban drainage) and agricultural crops; very numerous human risks: trapped people, power outages, evacuations; and a high economic impact: reconstruction, insurance, losses in tourism or agriculture. DANAs and climate change As I said, there is no clear consensus about the appearance of more DANAs than normal. The IPCC reports, for example, do not state any of this; but yes the favorable conditions for extreme phenomena they increase. In fact, in the Mediterranean regions, warming scenarios foresee an increase in precipitation very intense in isolated events. In other words: as I have been arguing, the climate change It does not create more DANAs, but it makes them more dangerous and difficult to predict. DANAs in other parts of the world In the rest of the world, what we call ‘DANA’ is often called ‘cut-off lows’ and, indeed, they are very common in many parts of the world. This type of phenomenon is also observed in the USA, Australia and South America. However, it is something especially relevant in our country because our climate, the extremely warm sea and such abrupt relief They make isolated casualties our daily bread. Precautions before the arrival of a DANA That makes more relevant than ever the fact that be prepared. In that sense, there are a handful of: Consult official alerts: AEMET, public administrations and Civil Protection. Avoid driving on secondary roads, dry riverbeds and flood-prone tunnels. Do not cross watercourses. Seal or check drains, roofs and sewers to avoid backups. In houses, lift belongings from the floor if water is expected to enter. Take refuge in high areas. Have prepared a basic ‘survival’ kit: flashlight, radio, chargers, water, important documents. In short, the best defense against a DANA is accurate information, preparation and prudence. Image | The Tampa Bay Estuary Program In Xataka | What is cold drop, why it seems more intense than ever and why it is not correct to call it that

After imposing a peace agreement in Gaza, the US is heading to Ukraine to do the same. And that has two nuclear problems

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United States, in omnipresent figure of its president Donald Trump, seems willing to finish once and for all the invasion of Ukraine. It happens that trying to reproduce the same diplomatic “success” that is exhibited after the agreement in Gaza runs into two problems nuclear: on the one hand, the attempt to impose an agreement on Russia calls into question the sovereignty and legitimacy of the process and pushes Moscow to react. On the other hand, perhaps more dangerous, the pressure campaign that is articulated around the threat with long range missiles drastically increases the risk of an escalation that is difficult to control. From ambiguity to challenge. For a long time, Trump’s foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine moved between deference and confusiona mix of praise for Putin, vague warnings and broken promises to kyiv. But in recent weeks, something has changed. trump has radically changed his speech, going from suggesting that Ukraine should accept territorial losses to presenting himself as the man capable of ending the war. What started as a rhetorical gesture before the UN has become a political process that seeks to consolidate the role of the United States as arbiter of the conflict, with a mix of military pressure, transactional diplomacy and calculated threat. Change and breakup. Trump, who had historically shown a almost personal indulgence towards Putin, surprised his allies and his critics with a speech in which rated Russia “paper tiger” and stated that Ukraine can recover all your territory with the support of Europe and NATO. This change, announced after his meeting with Zelensky and Macron, marks an abandonment of his traditional strategy of avoiding direct confrontations with Moscow. However, behind the turn there does not seem to be an articulated policy yet, but rather a combination of gestures: hints of sanctions, threats of retaliation and an explicit desire to reintroduce the idea of force as an instrument of negotiation. What was once indifference toward kyiv has become an instrumental interest, mixing rivalry with Putin and a desire to demonstrate international leadership. Tomahawks and ultimatums. The most visible symbol of this transformation is the word that has become recurrent in the communications from Washington: Tomahawk. Trump has openly threatened to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles if Putin does not agree to reopen peace negotiations, an ultimatum which has put the Kremlin on alert. Moscow has responded calling the measure a “qualitatively new escalation” and warning that it could not distinguish whether the missiles carry nuclear warheads or not. For Trump, however, the announcement meets a double function: reinforces your image as a negotiator who commands respect and pressures Putin to prevent him from prolonging a war he can no longer win. Zelensky, for his part, sees the possibility of obtaining Tomahawks as not only a military instrument. but psychological: the threat of its use would be enough to push Russia to the negotiation table. The mere fact of discussing its delivery represents a break with the caution of the Biden erain which Washington rejected outright any action that could be considered direct aggression. From Gaza to Ukraine: export a model. The partial success of ceasefire in Gaza has offered Trump a narrative of diplomatic victory that he is now trying to convey on the European front. After freeing the Israeli hostages and achieving a temporary cessation of hostilities, the American president declared that his next objective was to “focus on Russia” and end the war in Ukraine. What is apparently a humanitarian movement also responds to a repositioning strategy global: demonstrate that Washington can impose order in both the Middle East and Europe without needing to deploy large military contingents. Trump has presented this new stage under a classic concept that has republished with pragmatism: “peace through strength.” It is the same logic that he seeks to apply with Putin (that is, not from conciliation, but from a credible threat). Ukraine, which for months feigned faith in some sterile negotiations to ingratiate himself with the White House, now perceives a window of opportunity: to replace the dialogue tables with the delivery of advanced weapons that change the balance of the battlefield. A military agreement. The visit of a Ukrainian delegation to Washington, led by Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, has sealed the new phase. The negotiators arrived with a list of valued acquisitions in 90,000 million of dollars, including Patriot anti-aircraft systemslong-range missiles and drone co-production agreements. Zelensky has learned to speak Trump’s language: that of transactions. It is no longer about asking for help out of solidarity, but rather offer “mega deals” that benefit both parties, presenting Ukraine as a profitable partner for the US military industry. The White House, in turn, has implicitly accepted that the talks with Moscow they are sold outand that only a substantial increase in military pressure will be able to force Putin to negotiate from weakness. The new strategic calculation. If you like, the Kremlin also crosses a point operational fatigue. Its territorial advances have become more marginal, and Zelensky himself has taken it upon himself to remember this in Washington with maps and figures: in a thousand days of war, Russia has barely conquered less than one percent of additional Ukrainian territory from 2022. The narrative of inevitable victory fades, and Trump seems to have understood. His speech on networks, in which stated that Ukraine is “in a position to recover his entire country in its original form,” was interpreted as confirmation of that change in perception. In other words: it is no longer about keeping a conflict frozen, but about precipitating its outcome through technological superiority and Russian economic collapse. The paradox. Paradoxically, the trump turn does not imply a return to the liberal idealism that defined US foreign policy for decades, but rather a pragmatism that mixes interests, spectacle and coercion. Washington does not seek to rebuild Ukraine, but rather to close a war that has stopped serving its image of power. From that perspective, the American president does not seem … Read more

Windows 10 is as of today an insecure operating system. One that is installed on 4 out of every 10 computers in the world

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Today is the last day that Windows 10 will be officially supported by Microsoft. This means that this operating system will no longer receive security updates, and therefore the computers governed by said version will be exposed to security vulnerabilities that are discovered from now on. Windows 10 is too popular. The problem with this operating system going unsupported is that it is still enormously popular. It is true that Windows 11 has already managed to surpass it in share, but not by much. According to data from Statcounter GlobalStatsIn September 2025, Windows 11 has a 48.94% market share in Windows computers globally, while Windows 10 has a 40.5% share. Four out of ten Windows-based computers will use an insecure operating system. Five, without taking into account that one in ten continue to use even older versions: Windows 7 is installed on 9.61% of Windows computers, for example. Windows 11 is the version of Windows with the largest market share, but not by much. It overtook Windows 10 just a few months ago, and today Windows 10’s share is around 40%. Source: Statcounter GlobalStats. Remembering Wannacry. On May 12, 2017, we woke up to the news of a massive cyber attack that we first believed was had affected Telefónica and that it was actually global. The ransomware responsible for the attack, called WannaCryput companies in check from all over the world. The attack took advantage of a vulnerability called EternalBlue present in several old versions of Windows, including Windows XP, which at that time had a reduced market share (5%) but was relevant: it was still relatively used in companies that were exposed. The attack forced Microsoft to release a specific patch for this operating system, and showed how serious it can be rely on an insecure operating system. Payment lifeguard… To mitigate the problem that millions of users will now face, Microsoft offers two paths. One of them is the paying officer. The company has launched calls extended security updates (ESU, for its acronym in English). Although some requirements must be met (such as using Windows 10 22H2), many users can enroll in this program to continue receiving critical security updates. That, according to Microsoft, will allow time “while they make the transition to Windows 11”, which is the ideal solution for all Windows 10 users. This option is designed for business users but be careful, because said program – which in fact will have a total extension of three years – it’s not cheap: It costs $61 per device for the first year, $122 for the second, and $244 for the third. And entering the program later does not reduce the cost. …and free lifeguard. But Microsoft will also offer one more year of free security updates in Europe and the USA. In fact, in Europe, being able to activate that one-year extension of support for Windows 10 is relatively simple: just log in with a Microsoft account to access that option. It is best that you move to Windows 11. But obviously the best solution to avoid problems is to update your computer to Windows 11. It is possible to perform this update for free on Windows 10 computers according to Microsoft’s FAQ. Normally Microsoft requires that the PC or laptop meet certain requirements, but even in those cases it is possible to “skip” those obligations and install a modified Windows 11 with a little trick. Or give Linux a chance. There are other solutions, of course. One of them is to maintain the current equipment, but install some Linux distribution on it. Although that may put some users off, these distributions have been making it really easy for users to do the same things they do on their Windows computers for some time now. Including video gamessomething that Steam’s Proton platform has made possible. There is joy in the sale of PCs. In the third quarter of 2025, 9.4% more PCs were sold worldwide than in the same period of 2024. Source: IDC. The end of Windows 10 is a joy for PC manufacturers. Especially because this is the perfect excuse to change teams, especially in the business segment. Old PCs with Windows 10 are a huge security risk for these companies, which are especially forced to update their equipment or renew their IT fleet. That is also true for many users who take advantage of this circumstance, and that is causing a boost in sales. We are already seeing it: an analysis from the consulting firm IDC shows how in the third quarter of 2025, 9.4% more PCs were distributed than in the same period of 2024. Image | Clint Patterson In Xataka | If you have an old PC, there is an effective alternative to Windows 11 requirements and bloatware: this is how Flyoobe works

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