Barcelona

Barcelona has unseated Geneva or Vienna as a home for the ultra -ups

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Barcelona is consolidated among the most attractive cities in Europe For great fortunes Thanks to its balance between high -end services and urban quality of life. Beyond Tourist attraction From the city, or its temperate climate, the city appears in different international rankings as one of the favorite enclaves for those known as UHNWI (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals) or people with a equity available to invest of more than 30 million dollars. Barcelona in the world elite of wealth. The report ‘Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report 2025’ prepared by the Swiss private bank Julius Baerit positions Barcelona as the seventh favorite European city for the ultra -ups. This ranking, which evaluates the prices and qualities of goods and services for people of high purchasing power, concludes that Barcelona appears in front of cities such as Amsterdam, Geneva or Vienna in the European classification, although it remains behind London, Monaco, Zurich, Milan, Frankfurt and Paris. Within the same report, the global position is analyzed, where the list places Barcelona in the fifteenth position, behind cities such as Sydney, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dubai, New York or Miami. In this section, the ranking is headed by Singapore, closely followed by Hong Kong and London. The position of Barcelona shows the importance that the Catalan capital is achieving for the great fortunes and an attractive destination for investments and luxury tourism In southern Europe. The attractiveness of Barcelona. The bank’s entity’s report indicates various reasons why Barcelona stands out as a destination for the ultra -ups against other European capitals. Among them, curiously, the efficiency of the public bicycle system, health care, gyms offer, access to toe technology and competitive prices in jewelry and Luxury hotel suites. This combination of healthy urban life and access to exclusive products and services with moderate costs is very attractive for the great fortunes and expatriates of high purchasing power. Internationally, the city also stands out in the collection of foreign investment, especially in the high -end real estate sector. Between 2015 and 2024, Barcelona has received more than 5.5 billion euros of international investors In the technological sectorplacing itself as the fifth startup ecosystem of the European Union. “The city generates confidence in the international sphere,” declared to NBPÀngels Santigosa, head of the Department of Studies of the Management of Economy, Resources and Economic Promotion of the Barcelona City Council. Caro even for millionaires. However, the Swiss entity that has prepared the report considers that Barcelona still has a margin of improvement in certain areas. The authors indicate as a negative aspect the high cost of flights in Business class to the city, the price of legal services and that of some specialized medical interventions, especially that of ophthalmological operations. It also penalizes Barcelona for the price and difficulties to buy luxury housing. The growing demand for luxury properties And the end of the Benefits of the “Golden Visa” have forced local administrations to harden the high -end real estate investment policies and the real estate operations of foreign capital. Spain is fashionable among millionaires. The rise of Barcelona and Madrid as preferred destinations for ultra -ups is evident in the increase in operations of Purchase of Luxury Housingespecially in the wealthiest neighborhoods of those cities, which are living as Millionaires of Latin America and Miami fix their “Pied-à-Terre” in Madrid or Barcelona as a headquarters on this side of the Atlantic. The Pedralbes neighborhood in Barcelona and that of Salamanca in Madrid have established themselves as epicenters From this new investment waveevidencing the status of the Catalan capital as one of the protagonists of residential luxury and the international mobility of great fortunes in 2025. In Xataka | How much money you need to be among the richest 1% in Spain Image | Unspash (Alexey Komissarov, RU DUR)

A Barcelona company wanted to try the four -day week. He ended up firebaging an employee for having two jobs

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Sometimes life shows us paradoxical situations in which a manager who seeks the well -being of his employees with the four -day work weekends by saying goodbye to them for Compagate two simultaneous jobs. To give a more twist to this story than has published GenbetaIt is worth mentioning that the company’s CEO lavished on its social networks the advantages of having a “Side Hustle” or secondary employment. Preparing for four days. Patrick Syng is co -founder and commercial director of Metrickal, a remote hiring company based in Barcelona. The entrepreneur wanted to prove to implement the four -day week for your employeesso I needed to know What their employees used time of her day to optimize her. Something essential to make the leap to this type of day, which It does not mean doing the five -day job in fourbut optimize the day to take less to complete the tasks. The first step to do it was to ask all employees to install in their work teams the Desktime softwarea time monitoring program that monitors what programs he uses and for how long each employee. In this way, it could raise changes and Optimize processes To implement the four -day week. Low performance and tasks that do not correspond to it. When analyzing Desktime’s data, the businessman discovered that, an employee with whom he had already had several meetings for low performance, he was performing tasks with applications that did not correspond to his position in Metrickal. The employee, which I worked 100% remotelyit had not delivered the tasks in the deadlines and several clients had complained about their work. “While showing some signs of improvement, its general performance did not change much. This meant an important burden for the rest of the team, which had to cover its shifts and deal with the breeding deadlines,” assured Patrick Synge a Business Insider. “I had the feeling that I was doing something apart, but since there was no evidence, I didn’t want to draw precipitates.” The employee forgot the software. In the analysis of data collected by monitoring softwarethe manager discovered that the employee spent more than half of his day working for an American company, whose trail had remained in the software reports. “It seems that he forgot the tracking software, since once it is downloaded, it does not require any manual ignition and off. Probably, I would have fired it anyway, but the tracked data were the blunt test that was missing.” However, what truly irritated Synge was the lack of respect of the employee towards his companions who had to, for its little performancethey had to adopt part of their tasks. “It was not fair or respectful of the team, and that is something that I cannot tolerate, its actions were simply selfish,” said the manager. Two jobs, but which one is the main one? It’s not nor the first casenor is it probably the last one, of employees who They combine two or more jobs at the same time in your remote workday. The problem is that employee performance had fallen And he was not fulfilling his first job. “As an entrepreneur, I have to think about my business and my customers. I can’t afford to lose customers because someone wants to earn extra money,” said the manager. In fact, there is the circumstance that Patrick Syng is A firm defender of what is called “Side Hustle” or secondary works, offering them as an option to capture external vendors for their products. A whole paradox in which Patrick assumed that it was the main job of that employee, but never considered that, perhaps, it was secondary employment. Spain more and more multi -team. While it is true that in Spain this phenomenon of simultaneous jobs is not as widespread as in other countries, a Study conducted by Infojobs It indicates that 15% of employees in Spain have at least two jobs (who do not have to be simultaneous, but combined). 40% of these multi -employed employees do so To complement the low wages In departures or for hours, while 32% do so for providing additional income to their main salary. In Xataka | Not everything is 38.5 hours a week: the formulas for a waiter or temporary to benefit from the reduction of day Image | Unspash (Faizur Rehman), Pexels (Alexey Komissarov) *An earlier version of this article was published in July 2024

For years they leaked murders and violations for Facebook in Barcelona. Now they claim 4 million to the goal for psychological damage

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Goal had a moderation center in Barcelona that was responsible for monitoring its contents. Had. Telus Digital, the subcontracting company, closed its facilities in April. Now, twenty -nine of their then content moderators They have filed a criminal complaint against Meta and its Barcelona subcontractor for the mental damage suffered after years filtering external material. Why is it important. It is the first criminal accusation admitted in Europe against the technological giant for the sequels caused by the moderation of content. Workers claim 150,000 euros of compensation each. Almost 4.5 million euros in total. The facts. For years, these employees had to visualize murders, decapitations, rapes, child pornography, live suicides and terrorism for eight -hour days. His rest time was set in five minutes per hour while processing up to 800 videos a day. The consequences they expose were tranquatic stress transport, panic attacks, suicidal ideas, nightmares and phobias. An employee has been in psychological treatment for six years and has temporary disability since 2022. Between bambalins. The complaint ensures that Mal CCC Barcelona Digital Services, then absorbed by Canadian Telic Digital. The American matrix set schedules, productivity and quality demands, requiring 98% success in moderation decisions. The best performance workers were “promoted” to high priority tail, where the most disturbing content arrived. Yes, but. Companies knew that many employees would lead to “serious psychic pathologies” but did not implement protection measures. During the hiring process they deliberately hid the nature of work, limiting themselves to verifying knowledge of languages. The day -to -day detail arrived later. The context. In 2023 it was uncovered that between 20% and 25% of Télus template was decline, many for psychological reasons. Meta definitely closed the Barcelona center a few weeks ago, dismissing the entire squad after dispense with moderation servicesthat now remain in the hands of the users themselves, as in X. The complaint accumulates to another filed in 2024 by a worker, already admitted by the Court of Instruction 29 of Barcelona. In the United States, Goal paid 52 million dollars to more than 11,000 moderators in 2020an average of $ 4,700 per person. In Xataka | Four AI companies are monopolizing the intellectual future of humanity. They are not good news Outstanding image | Greg Bulla in Unspash

The National Police has arrested Major Cibernarco in Europe in Barcelona. And he has left a video message for cybercriminals

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A 30 -year -old German citizen coordinated from Barcelona the largest drug market in the Dark Web European Archetyp Market has been functioning as an online narcotic supermarket for more than five years. Now has been arrested by the National Police. Why is it important. This platform had achieved what few illegal markets achieve: scale, longevity and reputation. It has reached 612,000 registered users and 3,200 active vendors. It had become a key piece of European drug trafficking. The figures: The business volume has reached 250 million euros in transactions. The store has marketed 17,000 lots of narcotics, from heroin and fentanyl to cannabis and synthetic drugs. Payments were made exclusively in Moneroa cryptocurrency specially valued by its anonymity guarantee. In 2018 we count on Xataka How easy we found to access this type of marketswhere in addition to drugs we could find weapons or guns. In detail. The administrator, known as “Roger” and with multiple digital alias, directed a complex structure. The servers were located in the Netherlands. He operated from Catalonia. His profile fit with the new drug trafficker: technologically sophisticated, businessly efficient, mediately active. Message that appears in the domains intervened in this operation. Image: Eurojust. Between bambalins. Operation Deep Sentinel involved 300 agents from six European countries. The German authorities first identified the suspect, but needed international cooperation to dismantle the entire network. Technical complexity required specialists in Dark Web and cryptocurrency analysis. Archetyp had filled the void left by other dismantled markets such as Dream Market and Silk Road. His longevity contrasted with the typical short life of these platforms, usually closed in months by the authorities. In the video of the operation, published by the National Police, you can see the multiple currencies that the detainee was handled at his home: Deepen. The operation included important seizures: high -end vehicles, luxury watches, 7.8 million euros in cryptocurrencies and several computer devices. The authorities confiscated complete digital infrastructure. Security forces have left A notice and a video message in the intervened domainswarning that the anonymity of the Dark Web It is not impregnable. In Xataka | One week on the Deep Web. This is what I found Outstanding image | National Police

Enroll an old car as a historical to circulate in Madrid or Barcelona seems like a great idea. He does not always work

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If you are thinking of entering Madrid with a vehicle without sticker, we have bad news: Since January 1, 2024 You can’t move through the capital unless you are a neighbor. And, it remains to be seen, if you can do next year because the intention was to prevent it this year but the City Council ended back. Nor can you do it in Barcelona at any time. Specifically, a vehicle without environmental label cannot circulate through the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona (AMB) Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. In order to do so, you must ask for an authorization with, at least 24 hours in advance and may not do so more than 24 days a year. Although there are more low -emission areas in Spain (ZBE) and, in fact, we should have restrictions on all municipalities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. The truth is that only Madrid and Barcelona apply Hard restrictions. The rest of Spanish cities barely restrict access to a small part of them. In parallel, a door was opened to those who have a car without sticker. “What if I do historical?” The reason must be sought in the new Historical Vehicle Regulation, which allows these vehicles circulating through the ZBE … although there are important nuances to take into account. A historical vehicle for my zbe … more or less When the new one was taken a few months ago Historical Vehicle Regulations It was specified that there would be no City Council or any other institution that could prevent the movement of these cars. In fact, the following was specified: “The new regulation urges the municipalities to, in the exercise of their powers for the regulation of urban roads and for the restriction of circulation to certain vehicles in these roads for environmental reasons, establish formulas in their municipal ordinances that allow circulation to those owners who make a sporadic or non -common use of their historical vehicles.” However, aware of the implications that this could have, the following was also specified: “The use of historical vehicles will be occasional and in no case as a means of daily transport to minimize their environmental impact, and the use of historical vehicles to make public transport of travelers or merchandise and for agricultural activities or works and services is generally prohibited.” For the government, that “occasional use” has a number: 96 days a year. But with this figure an obvious question also arises: how are you controlled these 96 days a year? No one knows it and the regulation itself does not collect it. Thus, there are those who have had an idea. If I can use the historical car 96 days a year It means that I can circulate eight days every month with the vehicle. It is possible that, if we do not go to the city center every day because, for example, we telework, those eight days a month are more than enough to cover our tickets to Madrid or Barcelona. In fact, if we discount the month of vacation, we almost added one more day to each month. Taking into account that, right now, cars without label They add up to 25 years in the case of gasoline, you don’t have to go much further back to have a historical vehicle. Of course, you must meet the following requirement, as specified in Motorpasion: “To have been manufactured or enrolled for the first time 30 years ago, having stopped producing its specific type and being in its original state, without having undergone any fundamental change in its main characteristics or components. As a novelty, it is also required that they are in a correct state of maintenance and conservation.” That is, whoever wants to access the city center can be made with a car that has been enrolled before 1995. A second generation Seat Ibiza, for example, but it cannot have been subjected to fundamental changes or replace its main components. That said, can we circulate with him through the great Spanish Zbe? Well, in Madrid, technically, we can because the Municipal Mobility Ordinance that includes all the information related to Madrid 360 invites us to circulate with such a vehicle. Of course, you have to take some things into account: We cannot park in regulated parking areas since no label without label can do it. If we access more than 96 times a year (access controls it) we can be playing a fine since when it comes to registering it as a historical one, a responsible statement in which we promise not to move the car more than 96 days a year. The fine for not complying is 200 euros (100 euros with soon payment) which is reflected in the Traffic law, motor vehicle circulation and road safetyin its article 76 Z3. In Barcelona, ​​the matter is more confusing. At the moment, nothing has been approved that allows the entry of historical vehicles in the ZBE of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona in the restricted schedule only to cars without stickers. It is known that has been working on it But nothing has been completed. The problem is that, as with the obligation to have a ZBE in all municipalities of more than 50,000 inhabitants, the new regulation urges the municipalities to specify in their mobility ordinances the passage to these vehicles through their restricted areas but does not establish a term or punishment If this is not carried out. When lifting Zbe’s own we have already lived what happens when this happens. A good part of the municipalities of more than 50,000 inhabitants have not carried out these changes and an important part has barely restricted access to a few streets or, like Seville, to areas of very little affectation by traffic. Photo | In Xataka | DGT tags: what sticker corresponds to me and what advantages or restrictions I will find

Some researchers have calculated mathematically which are the most tourist cities in the world. Bad news, Barcelona

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Each summer Barcelona usually Be news in the foreign press for its attractiveness as a tourist destination. After all, its mixture of Mediterranean climate, beach, culture, architecture and gastronomy attract every year to hundreds of thousands of travelers from other parts of the world. However in July 2024 The Ciudad Condal monopolized holders in the media of the entire planet for a rather different reason: fed up with saturation, a group of neighbors dedicated himself to shooting visitors with water guns next to posters in which messages such as “Tourists Go Home” were read. That was a sample (The nth) The impact of the sector in the Catalan capital, a phenomenon that has now been black on white in A study which identifies Barcelona as the city most pressured by tourism. Tourist density. That is the parameter that has analyzed Nomad Esim in A report published a few days ago, a study in which he is dedicated to examining how Overurism It is affecting some of the most popular destinations in the world. To do this, it has basically valued two parameters: the size of the cities and the number of foreign visitors who receive each year, which allows it to calculate their “density” of travelers. With the results it has elaborated A 40 -cities ranking Headed by Porto, Cancun and Barcelona, ​​which leads the list. Why’s that? Nomad technicians have estimated that Barcelona receives about 20.37 million tourists who are forced to be distributed by an urban area of 101 square kilometerswith what the concentration of visitors per km2 amounts to 201.722. There is no other city on the list that approaches him. The second in the ranking, Cancun, has 147,887 tourists per km2 and in Porto do not even reach 144,000. The fourth place is occupied by New York, with 137,712, which Dubrovnik (112,500), Florence (107,843), Kyoto (98,651) and Lisbon (88,000). Mallorca occupies the 37th position, with 5,137, and Paris the 29th (16,820). Issue of density and size. That data does not mean that Barcelona is the one that receives the most tourists. Not much less. New York, Kyoto, Los Angeles, Paris, Las Vegas or London (to quote only some examples) receive more visitors than the city, according to the information that Nomad Esim manages, but its largest urban extension explains that the tourist massification is not so high. The data of the report They must also be taken as what they are: a report, with their biases and limitations. His estimate of tourists does not coincide for example with the global data that the city handled in the late 2024 (15.5 million). In 2023 the observatori of tourism spoke of 15.6 million of visitors, balance that rose to 25.9 million if the region was taken into account, not just the city. The report It is interesting in any case because it provides clues about other destinations and connects with a feeling that has been breathed for years in Barcelona: The discomfort from the neighbors for the tourist. The pressure on residents. In his report, Nomad has done something else: calculating the “pressure” that tourism exerts on the local population of each of the destinations. To do this he crossed the flow of tourists from each city and its census. The most bulky data is taken in that case Orlando, with 241 tourists for each resident. They are followed by Santorini (220), Queenstow (116), Mykonos (105) and Cozumel (94). Barcelona occupies the 24th place of the international list, with an average of 13 visitors per local, a result slightly lower than that of Mallorca (20). If both metrics are mixed, the surface, total register of neighbors and influx of tourists, the first in the list is Cancun, followed by Orlando, Dubrovnik, Kyoto, Florence and witches. Barcelona is in tenth place and Mallorca in the 32nd. Of the imforms to the streets. The study is interesting because it gives a measure of the pressure that great destinations support, including Barcelona or Mallorca, a phenomenon that has caused resident mobilizations that claim a more sustainable tourist model. The Protest with guns Water was surely the most media, but not the only one: in Barcelona (as in other locations) the neighbors have taken to the streets to show their rejection of massification or demand a greater access to housing, a market conditioned for tourist pressure. The risk: die of success. Saturation supposes something else: a threat to the quality and future of its own destination. The “No List 2025” of Fodor´s, one of the most solera guides among the Anglo -Saxon travelers already has proposed To their readers who “reconside” spend their vacation in three emblematic destinations in Spain that face the risk of dying of success or are directly saturated. Which is it? Canary Islands, Mallorca … and Barcelona, ​​who share a list with international destinations such as Bali, Venice, Lisbon, Koh Samui (Thailand) or Agrigento (Sicily). It is not that they have asked for charm, but about the consequences that tourist success is having in the functioning of cities. Image | Sung Shin In Xataka | The tourism paradox in Spain: if you have not reserved your vacation in the Canary Islands, it is possible that the same thing costs to go to the Caribbean

There is already a detainee for using the Meta Ray-Ban to record without consent. Recorded hundreds of women in Barcelona without finding out

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A young man has been arrested in Barcelona After recording hundreds of women with smart glasses without their knowledge. What he did with those recordings: use them in their “seduction” courses that sold for 3,000 euros. Why is it important. It is the first known case in Spain where Ray-Ban Meta They are used to commit crimes against intimacy. The victims did not know that a camera that they did not detect recorded conversations about personal information that later disseminated and monetized. The facts. The detainee approached foreign tourists in Barcelona, ​​held apparently casual conversations and recorded them with glasses that had an integrated camera. Without noticing it, and in fact hiding it. The videos were later published in Tiktok and Instagram as a claim for their “seduction techniques” courses. In figures: 329 videos analyzed by the police. 239 Conversations with intimate data of women. 700,000 visualizations reached the video of the complainant. 3,000 euros cost the full course (plus 45 euros per month of subscription) The technical problem. The Ray-Ban Meta (329 euros) emit a white light when recording, but it is easy to hide them with small tricks. The majority of victims did not detect being recorded, according to police investigation. Smart glasses pose a privacy dilemma that we had not had to face so far, although it already anticipated a decade ago with The Google Glass opening the way. Ray-Ban Meta are much more concealed. Let’s not talk compared to a mobile. Yes, but. Goal designed a safeguard: the indicator light. The problem arises when malicious users deliberately avoid them to record without consent and then make malicious use, or at least to monetize or spread them. Goal is preparing more AI functions for these glasses that will identify places or people in real time. Some users have achieved it on their own. This arrest promises to be the first of many conflicts that are yet to come between body technology and privacy. Outstanding image | Goal In Xataka | Technology are getting excited about smart glasses. I have serious doubts about your success

Barcelona began to excavate to build a parking. Ended up discovering a medieval ship of 10 my and uncertain origin

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His intention was to build a new parking, but the team in charge of the works of the Ciutadella del Coneixementin Barcelona, ​​has ended up doing something very different: finding an archaeological finding that has already captured the interest of the historians of the Catalan capital. And it’s normal. What technicians have located under the ground of the city, to five meters Under the sea level, it is neither more nor less than a medieval long -won over 10 meters long and three wide. The first studies estimate that the boat dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, but questions are left to answer. What happened? That the Barcelona subsoil has just given a surprise (and a joy) to historians. Another one. A few weeks ago, during the construction works of the future Parking of the BSM in the Ciutadella del Coneixement, archaeologists located the remains of a ship that, according to the first estimates, would date from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. It is not the first once the work on the site of the old Mercat del Peix brought to light remains of historical interest, but as Recognize The Archeology Service of the Barcelona City Council is “exceptional”. Good proof is that the town hall has launched A statement (and a wide image gallery) to value the wreck and team of archaeologists in charge of documenting the remains has spoken with the means to clear some doubts. What have you discovered? The “partial remains Of a sunk ship “, a boat that ended up wafraling or abandoned and priori (already waiting for her to advance her study), experts have dated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To be more precise, during their investigation, archaeologists have found a structure formed by thirty notebooks and part of the wooden pieces that covered the exterior of the fuselage. In total the pec ten meters long for just over three wide. “The tables are nailed in the notebooks with circular section timber, a kind of wooden nails that served to join the parts. Two longitudinal pieces set with iron nails are also preserved,” details The City Council Archeology Service. In the world’s surroundings, very fertile sand and alms have also been located that include “organic remains” of interest, such as hazelnut seeds or even pineapple remains. Do we know anything else? In addition to date it around the fifteenth and sixteenth, experts They point that the construction style of the ship was common in the Mediterranean medieval and extended throughout Europe from the mid -XV. They are however Some questions for responding, as its exact origin or what function I played. To clear some of those unknowns archaeologists are also investigating the remains of seeds and alms that surround the wreck. What will happen to him? The City Council He has stressed The importance of the finding because it is “a unique source of knowledge” on navigation and naval construction techniques that were used in the Barcelona of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, not everything is in his favor. The remains are found in a “very fragile state of conservation”, which forces experts to be cautious. To prevent the soaked from drying and degraded by being exposed to the weather, the technicians have partially kept it with the sand that has been used for centuries. The objective of the Archeology Service of Barcelona and the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia is now to document the remains and “guarantee the conservation” of the wreck, which has already been baptized as ‘Citadel I’. “The first actions have included three -dimensional documentation works, the marking of the pieces, the sampling and the preparation of the transfer in containers full of water that ensure the temporary conservation of the remains,” The Consistory requires. The materials will be transferred to “specialized facilities” so that they can treat them with water and hydrosoluble wax, a substance with which the structure is to be reinforced. What tells us about Barcelona? The wreck is not interesting only for the boat itself and what can be told about medieval navigation or naval. Another key is what can tell us about the development of Barcelona. After all, the remains appeared in the old Mercat del Peix, at a depth of more than five meters under sea level. Archaeologists have already They slid that its location can be related to the transformation of the maritime front. “The finding, which from a technical point of view is known as melter, is part of a historical context of transformation of the maritime front. From 1439, with the construction of the first artificial tenazes, the dynamics of the coastline was altered and the sand bar known as the task, which had protected the city for centuries” Clarify The City Council. In 2008 it was already located A similar ship near the station of France. Images | Barcelona’s Decrease In Xataka | We finally know what sailors ate at the high seas in the 16th century. Thanks to the CSIC and a sunk galeon

Barcelona erased a Google bus line so that tourists do not satura. Tourists have told him “good attempt”

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Barcelona’s metropolitan transport service has discovered something that The real estate market of the city knows from A long time ago: Tourist pressure is not always easy to combine with residents day to day. In a desperate attempt to end the saturation of bus 116, a route used by neighbors, but also by thousands of tourists who used it to visit Park Güell, a year ago the City Council got that the line disappeared from the recommended itineraries of Google Maps. And it worked. Without visibility in networks, demand seemed to relax. The problem is that at least part of the tourists who previously crowded bus 116 It seems to have an impact on other routes with which they can also reach Park Güell. Neighbors who use them to go to work or school are already warning that saturation affects their day to day. Delete a map bus. Sounds drastic, but that’s what he did last year The Barcelona City Council: it made bus 116 disappear from the map for the millions of tourists that visit the city every year. Or what is the same, that it ceases to appear in the recommended itineraries of Google Maps. The reason: although 116 is a small neighborhood bus, with capacity for about 20 people, its route passes very close to Park Güellan icon from Barcelona that receives per year More than four million of visitors. The combination of scarce capacity and high demand caused 116 to be often saturated to the astonishment of tourists and anger of residents, who need the bus to go to work, university or make the purchase. The City Council proved to increase the frequencies and reinforce the number of buses that covered the route, but it served. In the end he opted for another trick: “Invisible it” in Google Maps. And did it serve? More or less. The influx of tourists fell clearly. So much, that I recognized it The bus driver itself: “It has been to disappear from Google and change radically.” Even the neighbors, skeptics at the beginning with that strategy, verified the change. The problem is that the tourist pressure on the urban transport service does not seem to have been solved. Rather, it has been redistributed towards other alternative lines. Or that is at least what is pretending The data who has just published eldiario.es. Pending of 24 and V19. His information, based on the passenger balances of Transports Metropolitans of Barcelona (TMB), shows that while the influx of travelers fell on bus 116 was increased on other routes that can also be used to reach Park Güell, as 24 and V19. The percentages are of course eloquent. While between 2023 and 2024 the title “Hello Barcelona” (the payment for visitors) scored A 86% drop In bus 116, on line 24 the validations of that ticket increased by 32%. With regard to V19, in 2024 it transported more than six million people, 10% more than in 2023, with more than 19,000 validations on working days. Precisely to avoid saturation and improve the TMB service reinforced several sections on weekends. Has the problem moved? TMB Discard That there has been a passenger transfer, although there are neighbors who complain about that: that the pressure that was previously suffocated by bus 116 has moved to lines like 24. “Many times I have not been able to climb because when there are so many tourists they don’t even open the doors,” he acknowledged A few days ago To Eldiario.es a Barcelona student who takes the bus daily to go to college. “In the morning it is already full. Sometimes I arrive late because, with so many people, I can not get on the bus,” says another neighbor of La Salut on the itinerary 24. There are those who clarify that the problem actually comes from behind. A complex equation. Beyond the possible transfer of tourists who until last year resorted to 116 to visit Park Güell, at play other factors enter, such as the increase in the general demand for urban transport or tourism. Atm data show that in 2024 the use of public transport in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona grew by 7%. The year was also good for tourism, with 15.5 million of visitors. The data is practically identical to that of 2023 (he scored a very slight fall of 0.7%), but came accompanied by a remarkable rebound of 8.7% in spending per person. The great threat. The saturation on his day of bus 116 and the pressure in other lines used by tourists to visit Park Güell, such as 24 or V19, is a double departure. First for the impact on the service and for the residents of the city. Second, because that pressure has an impact on the attractiveness of Barcelona as a destination. Eldiario.es spoke A few days ago With a family of Bulgarian travelers who recognized their surprise after getting on 24 in Plaza de Catalunya: “It is very filled, what a burden.” If in spite they resorted to the service, they explained, it was for their “comfort” to get to Park Güell. The massification of points such as Mallorca, the Canary Islands or Barcelona itself has led to the popular Fodor´s travel guide To quote them In its “no list 2025”, a kind of OLD in which his experts cite destinations that risk dying of success. Images | Stay Grouted (Flickr) and M.peinado (Flickr) In Xataka | If the question is whether tourist floors take the price of rentals, we already have the answer: more than 30%

In the era of hybrid work there is a new unicorn of business management: the Barcelona factorial startup

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In 2020 and in full pandemic a technological startup of Barcelona called Factorial He lived his particular turning point. The company had an attractive and versatile online platform for human resources management, and the confinement gave a unique opportunity to make potential clients known: it offered its platform for free until confinement passed, and that made many known and realized how well that platform could work while the teleworking became strength. His CEO, Jordi Romero, explained So how many of the new clients who registered in factorial maintained their management in local files or at most “in a dropbox folderbut nothing more. “In April the firm achieved an investment of 16 million dollars of CRV, but that was a stressful round. Just before the pandemic came the company had” an agreement between knights (with CRV), so to speak, “Romero commented,” but the money had to be transferred yet. “ The decision to offer its platform for free was a success, and many companies verified the benefits of that comfortable online management that allowed everything very well organized and accessible in a simple way. At that time that round was the largest that was seen in Spain, and it happened at a time when the labor market was in a certainly strange situation. Factorial took advantage of something that no other company in the sector had previously taken advantage of: His platform was perfect for companies that or did not have HR professionals for being too small, or that if they had them were overcome by the workload or by having to make those tasks with others of management. The factorial solution precisely solved the problem, and that marked a before and after for her and her clients. New and important investment rounds After that round starring CRV, 18 months later factorial became one of the protagonists of the Spanish technological sector. In September 2021 the general investment firm Catalyst bet 80 million dollars for her and confirmed her remarkable projection. This bet was a success: the factorial growth has made it one of the most promising technological startups in our country. A year later, factorial lifted another 120 million dollars in a round with the majority participation of Atomico, but also of GIC, Tiger Global, CRV, K-Found and Creandum. That made it a de facto “unicorn”: its valuation was already 1,000 million dollars, twice what was a year earlier with the previous round. The company, which then had 7,000 clients in Europe and in Latin America – where those first years had its great focus— has not stopped growing And he has had a especially notable 2024. His number of customers is now 13,000 SMEs, and has just given another great news: General Catalyst, which as we said already invested 80 million dollars in it, has expanded that investment at $ 120 million, so that the total bet It becomes 200 million dollars. It is striking that this extension of the investment is carried out without diluting the capital of its shareholders. Jordi Romero, CEO of Factorial (on the left in the image with Bernat Farrero, another of the co -founders) explained how that is “something uncommon in hypercrection companies that, in addition, are financially sustainable.” Pau Ramón, the third co -founder and exco from the company, abandonment Factorial in 2023 for personal reasons. The funds, as those responsible for Factorial point out, will go to the expansion of the firm in Germany – where it is growing especially fast – France and Italy. Not only that: they will allow this firm to give the final impulse in a transition in which they have been working for years: to go from being a human resources software to a large business management platform. SANNED ACCOUNTS AND OWN RISK CAPITAL FUND They hope to reach about 20,000 clients before the end of the year, Romero said In the countryand its forecast is to exceed 100 million dollars of recurring income this year. As indicated in that article, 2024 has been the first year in which the company has grown up without consuming its own resourcessomething especially important to consolidate the profitability of the company. Bernat Farrero, Pau Ramón (now outside the company) and Jordi Romero, co -founders of the company. Source: Factorial. The firm had at the end of 2024 with 90 million dollars of cash reserves, something striking because it shows the financial solidity of a company that is capable of growing without practically boxing of cash. The investment round seemed almost unnecessary, but according to Romero that allows factorial to “continue its expansion without compromising its financial stability or diluting the capital of its shareholders,” as we mentioned earlier. The company has no immediate plans to go over – “We are not in a hurry,” Romero explains – and does not seem interested in inorganic growth inking or buying other companies. What they do, explained those responsible In araIt is to bill 1,000 million euros in five years. And although the exit to the parquet is for now an unknown, what those entrepreneurs have done has been, as they pointed out In the avant -garde, Create a risk capital fund of 15 million euros with which they want to finance emerging companies. It’s called Itnig Capital, and He has already invested One million euros in nine Spanish companies. The “Startup factory” of Factorial seems to have started with good foot, and is helping that new firms created by former factorial employees take their first steps, as pointed out expanding A few months ago. Growing, but with comparatively low wages During all this factorial time it has evolved. Its creators began working on a human resources platform to manage both employees and various administrative tasks, but in recent times they have become a “Comprehensive Business Management Platform“That allows the management of projects, training and control of expenses. Romero, Farrero and Ramón shared the same frustration when creating factorial: that in many companies there was little technology that helped to climb … Read more

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