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In Aragon, farms are starting to do something with their slurry ponds: cover them with solar panels

June 3, 2026 by usatoday24

only in Aragon there is more than 4,000 farms of pigs, farms from which every year thousands and thousands of tons of meat that later is marketed in the rest of the world. In the pigsties where the cattle are raised, however, something else is generated: an enormous amount of slurry that represents a real challenge environmental. At the end of the day, these wastes end up stored in ponds that emit harmful gasessuch as methane, ammonia or nitrous oxide. In Aragon they have had an idea: cover them with solar panels. From farms and slurry. Spain is one of the big producers of pork in the European Union, something that is possible thanks to a vast network made up of thousands of farms. The problem is that not only cattle come out of them. The industry generates millions of tons of slurry, a manure that can be used as fertilizerbut whose management poses some challenges. Although the composition varies depending on its source, farm manure generally generates greenhouse gases and pollutants, including methane and ammonia. It is not a minor issue if we take into account that some calculations They estimate that the Spanish pig sector produces just over 60 million tons of slurry each year. A challenge, an opportunity. Manure management takes time under the magnifying glass of the environmentalists and is regulated in the lawwhich includes measures such as cover at least part of the ponds or the use of systems that reduce their emissions. With this backdrop, a few years ago a consortium formed by the Aragonese firm Intergia Energía Sostenible and two other entities became a question: What if necessity were made a virtue and the space occupied by the slurry ponds was used to generate energy? What if, at the same time that manure deposits are covered to reduce their emissions, photovoltaics could be expanded? A “win-win”. The result was a project developed between 2020 and 2023 which, with the support of the European EAFRD fund and the Government of Aragon, dedicated itself to investigating this path. His idea was very simple: cover the slurry ponds with floating solar panels to achieve a win-win manual. Polluting emissions remain at the levels established by regulations and, at the same time, the farms improve the performance of their ponds, converting them into sources of solar energy production. Instead of covering rooftops or acres of fields with solar panels, they are deployed directly over manure deposits. Rethinking floating systems. From Intergia they explain that the project developed between 2020 and 2023 let some interesting lessons. For example, the ammonia in slurry ends up oxidizing and degrading some elements of photovoltaic installations. Specifically, certain parts of the module fastening system and wiring. Now the company wanted to go one step further and open the way. “While floating photovoltaics are already widely used in bodies of water, such as irrigation ponds or lakes, their use in other liquid bodies is in the study phase,” claims. Hence, the firm (along with other allies, such as the University of Zaragoza) is promoted Fotopura project that wants to help the pork sector reduce its emissions while generating energy. One project, two bets. To move in this direction, the company has set up two facilities pilot with which he hopes to learn more about the potential of photovoltaic panels to cover slurry ponds. In fact, both are designed to “maximize” reducing polluting emissions and resisting ammonia corrosion, although they differ in a key aspect: one of them uses standard commercial parts, designed for floating photovoltaics; the other has been designed specifically for ponds in which livestock manure is stored. A Zamora farm. That is the place where Fotopur has assembled its first prototype. In November They installed their photovoltaic cover on an 880 m2 slurry pond located on a breeding farm in Calzada de Tera, Zamora. To be more precise, Intergia deployed a 13.5 x 25 m floating platform with 56 panels and a peak power of 33.04 kWp. In total, the entire installation covers 90% of the pond and those responsible hope that it will help cover up to 22% of the farm’s electricity bill. The interesting thing is its components. The company used a commercial floating photovoltaic system used in water ponds. That is, it was not created specifically for slurry ponds. What Intergia and the rest of Fotopur’s partners have done is apply small changes. For example, to avoid corrosion, they replaced the steel parts that came from the factory with aluminum and stainless steel parts. To reduce friction they also incorporated a plastic sheet. …And a Zaragoza farm. He another prototype It was assembled weeks later at a bait farm in Tauste, in Zaragoza, and unlike the Castilla y León version, it was designed specifically for use in slurry ponds. For example, its creators devised a system that “minimizes the air-slurry contact surface between the floating elements and that will facilitate the support of the photovoltaic panels.” Another of the tasks they have had to face is “design a specific structure”formed by a matrix of anodized aluminum beams anchored to the platform and with brackets that allow the panels to have an inclination of 15º. In total they house 16 panels with a power of 9.44 kWp. The screws are made of aluminum and stainless steel to prevent corrosion. If its authors’ plans are fulfilled, the floating platform will “effectively” cover 10% of the pond’s surface and its photovoltaic production will reach 15.2 Mwh/year, enough to cover up to 53% of the farm’s electrical demand. That plus, claims Intergiawill allow the Aragonese exploitation to reduce its fuel consumption, “expensive and polluting.” And now what? With its prototypes Fotopur aims to continue advancing on the path that was already opened in 2020, solve the problems that were identified then and demonstrate the advantages of covering the slurry ponds with solar panels. Now, once the Zamora and Zaragoza facilities have been set up, the experts will dedicate themselves to controlling … Read more

cover them with garbage bags

May 30, 2026 by usatoday24

Several American cities have resorted to a solution that may seem rudimentary, but which works wonders to curb surveillance of their own license plate cameras: cover them with black garbage bags. The last to do so was Daytonin Ohio, a city that is beginning to regret having installed them. What has happened? Dayton has covered its Flock cameras, automatic license plate readers installed throughout the city, with trash bags. The reason, according to account deputy municipal director Joe Parlette in a plenary session, is that the city council is not entirely clear if the cameras are still recording or if it can remove them directly. So, while it finds out, it has chosen to cover them as a provisional measure. The media 404Media, which has followed the case, confirmed with several neighbors that cameras covered with a garbage bag can be seen throughout the city. They don’t know what to do. The picture may seem comical, but the truth is that city councils do not know how to disconnect a surveillance infrastructure that they themselves have installed. The cameras are owned by Flock Safety, a private company, and the contracts signed with the municipalities are so convoluted that the cities are not clear if they can turn them off, remove them or even stop recording without violating the agreement. Covering them with plastic is literally the only thing they feel they can do on their own. The trigger. In Dayton everything exploded when it was discovered that the data from its cameras had ended up in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security and ICEthe US immigration agency, through the national Flock network. The city assures that it was not its intention and that a specific agent did not activate the protections that he himself had helped design; All you have to do is press a button to prevent data from being shared. The police chief, Kamran Afzal, assured that “disappointing” was an understatement and that the word he would use would be “disgusting”, as he declared at a press conference. collection through the middle. The police ended up suspending the use of these readers “indefinitely” on May 1. It is not an isolated case. Evanston, Illinois, did exactly the same thing late last year. After terminating its contract and getting Flock to remove the cameras, the city reported that the company replaced them without permission and sent it a legal notice. While waiting for them to be removed again, he covered them with bags. A municipal spokesperson explained to 404Media that the cameras are from Flock and only the company itself could remove them, so they covered them while they waited. In Menominee (Wisconsin), the mayor even stated that the cameras had been activated without the approval of the entire municipal council. The other version. flock defend that any city can turn off its cameras whenever it wants, although it clarifies that the legal conditions of each contract may prevent it from being canceled without justified reasons. The company attributes much of the rejection to misinformation circulating on the internet and maintains that surveillance works, citing an uptick in car thefts in Richmond, California, during the period in which its cameras were turned off. Regarding Dayton, he has made it clear that he wants to continue working with the city. And now what. The question is whether Dayton will actually remove the cameras or if the program will remain in limbo. For neighborhood groups like DeFlock Dayton, covering the cameras is just an intermediate step. Melissa Bertolo, member of the platform, counted to the media that their demand is not to cover them but to remove them, because as long as they remain standing they could continue to capture data. Cover image | Sydney Dawes In Xataka | Concern over mass video surveillance has created a new product: anti-facial recognition glasses

Campo de Montiel has rare earths to cover 33% of European demand, according to a mining company. The Board has said “no, thank you”

March 28, 2026 by usatoday24

Oil may be the resource that makes most of the headlines today, but the rare earthare “the cover” of the technology industry: they are decisive practically in any sector and also set the geopolitical agenda at a time of tariffs and vetoes. And if there is a country that cuts cod into rare earths (spoiler: They are neither earth nor are they rarebut 17 metals) that is China: there is no one to cough or in reserves neither in production. There was a time when The United States dominated this sectorbut that time passed away. And Europe? Well, at the moment rare earths are not produced, but we are working on it: has stepped on the accelerator at the Per Geijer superminein Kiruna (Sweden), where you could get 18% of what you need. Meanwhile, in a place in La Mancha whose name I don’t want to remember, there is who points that could obtain 2,100 tons per year of lanthanides, enough to cover 33% of European needs. There is only one little problem: the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha has said that they are not interested. And they are not alone. Campo de Montiel is a (potential) mine. Back in 2013 the Spanish company Quantum Mining put under his magnifying glass the region of Campo de Montiel, in Ciudad Real. Next to Torrenueva is that promising site that is the object of your desires: Matamulas. According to their analysis, it is full of monazite (along with bastnasite, the main rare earth ore) gray. But really loaded: the company assures that in Campo de Montiel more than 2,100 tons could be produced per year. Is that a lot or a little? According to the company, it is approximately a third of European consumption needs, although Eurostat figure in 12,900 annual tons imported by 2024, which would leave the percentage around 16% (the company does not publicly detail with what reference it calculates that third). The firm lands it with applications such as the construction of 350,000 electric cars or 10,000 wind turbines. Quantum Mining Production Estimates “We’re not interested.” A month ago Quantum Minería tried again and you already have an answer of the autonomous government: Mercedes Gómez, the Minister of Sustainable Development, explains that they are not interested in holding a competition so that tastings can be carried out at the Matamulas site. Not again: in 2013 the Board granted the mining company (and two other companies) exploitation permits, which was rejected in 2017. In 2024 came back to request permits, this time framed within the Neodimio project, again encountering a no. The EU also left them outside of their strategic projects. What Quantum wants to do. The mining plan It involves temporarily removing a half-meter layer of vegetation (mainly cereal) so that, once the process is finished, it can be reused in the restoration. Afterwards, backhoes extract two meters deep to reach the gray monazite. That material is taken to a concentration plant to be screened using physical processes, without chemical additives, so that the soil can be returned to its site later. Then the land is leveled and the crop is replaced. These works are carried out hectare by hectare, so that it does not interrupt the agricultural processes in the surroundings. According to the company, when the land is restored it can be cultivated “even in better conditions than the original ones.” Why not. Given the insistent interest of Quantum, the citizen platform ‘Yes to the Living Land‘ and other citizen activism movements once again opposed, in addition to one of the wineries in the region. A decade ago Ecologists in Action detailed that the environmental impact of this operation on the 27,500 hectares included in the project would be severe. One of the bottlenecks is water: for this operation they estimate that between 310,000 and 500,000 cubic meters of water would be needed annually during the estimated ten years of exploitation (washing and processing are two processes that consume a lot of water). In that area the water pressure is high, with droughts, reservoirs in states of emergency, overexploited aquifers and intense grassroots agricultural activity as icing on the cake. In addition, in the region there are two Special Protection Areas for Birds and it is the habitat of the lynx. In Xataka | The world’s rare earth reserves, laid out in this graph showing the brutal dominance of a single country In Xataka | Europe seeks its sovereignty in rare earths and knows how to achieve it the fast way: with a supermine in Sweden Cover | ダモリ and Karen Paredes Carabantes

The metro has been splitting Rivas in two for decades. The city council has a plan to cover it up and has already presented it to Madrid

March 17, 2026 by usatoday24

The Rivas Vaciamadrid City Council has registered before the General Directorate of Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid its project to cover 2.5 kilometers of Metro Line 9B. This is a project that aims to transform part of the town’s urban layout, and the deadline for issuing its technical report has already opened. We tell you all the details. What exactly is this about? Just like they count From the town hall itself, the project consists of burying or covering the section of road that runs above ground through Rivas Vaciamadrid between the Cerro del Telégrafo Sports Center and the Rivas Futura station. They are 2.5 kilometers long and 30 meters wide which, if covered, would stop acting as a physical barrier that divides the municipality in two. On the surface, it is planned to extend the Linear Park, creating a corridor with green spaces for public use. The project also includes the construction of a fourth Metro station in Rivas, located on José Saramago street. Deadlines. The City Council had a technical meeting on February 27 with the General Directorate of Infrastructure, where it presented the solution. A week later, on March 4, it was officially registered, and now the Community of Madrid has three months to decide whether to move forward at a technical level. According to collect El Diario, the council has expressly requested “agility” from the regional administration. Tpolitical background. The fourth season brings them. And it is that according to Diario de Rivas, the Community of Madrid has already pointed out on more than one occasion that this infrastructure “is not justified on a technical level.” The City Council, for its part, insists that the project “is the result of months of rigorous and reliable technical work and that it meets the necessary requirements to move forward towards its execution.” The General Directorate of Infrastructure, for now, has limited itself to confirming that there was a meeting. What the data say. The City Council supports its position to move forward with the project through a survey in which they say that 78% of Rivas residents recognize the importance of this project. The organization frames it within its Rivas 2030 Urban Agenda, where it appears as one of its most notable projects to reconfigure its urban model. What happens now? The ball is in the court of the Community of Madrid. Before the end of June, the technical response from the General Directorate of Infrastructure should arrive. This report will determine if the project can move forward as planned, if it needs modifications or if the proposal (especially the new station) encounters obstacles from the regional administration. The Town Hall has expressed his confidence that the Community “facilitates the progress of an action long awaited by the citizens of Rivas”, but it seems that we will have to wait to find out if it finally materializes as the city council wants. Cover image | Google Maps In Xataka | BYD is already studying entering Formula 1, according to Bloomberg. And it is not a whim, it is a necessary step

insurance doesn’t cover it

March 11, 2026 by usatoday24

In almost all Western armies there is a little-known paradox: private insurers rarely cover the most obvious risk of the military profession. For decades, protection systems for soldiers have combined commercial policies with special state regimes, because combat (due to its unpredictable nature and enormous potential cost) is often left out of conventional insurance almost everywhere in the world. Controversy at the heart of the military profession. The beginning of 2026 has unleashed a strong controversy around collective life and accident insurance for personnel of the Armed Forces and the Civil Guard in Spain. The reason is a clause that excludes deaths or disabilities derived directly from acts of war, which has caused outrage between military associations and families of soldiers deployed on missions abroad. The discussion has gained special strength in an international context increasingly unstablewith Spanish troops present in sensitive regions like Lebanon or the eastern flank of Europe, where the possibility of serious incidents is not theoretical but real. The small print. The controversy revolves around the technical concept of “risk of war”a common exclusion in the private insurance sector. Standard life and accident policies are designed to cover death or disability due to accident or illness, but they usually leave out events derived from armed conflictsconsidered extraordinary risks that are difficult to insure commercially. In the case of group insurance contracted for 2026, the clause establishes that private compensation will not be activated if death or disability is direct consequence of war declared or armed hostilities, which means that coverage is limited to ordinary service situations or non-war accidents. What happens when a soldier dies in combat. As They counted in MoncloaAlthough the exclusion has generated public alarm, the protection system for military personnel is not based solely on private insurance. In Spain (as in most NATO countries) coverage against combat or war actions is not articulated through commercial policies, but rather through compensation state pensions, extraordinary pensions and specific regimes for acts of service. This means that, if a soldier dies in combat or in a military operation, the main compensation comes of the public system of benefits and not of the group insurance contracted with an insurer. The role of private insurance. Group insurance managed by 2026 by insurance company MetLife It functions as an additional layer of protection designed to cover common service risks: accidents, non-war deaths or permanent disabilities. These types of policies are used in many armies to complement the public system, but rarely include explicit coverage of war because the actuarial cost would be extremely high. In practice, insurance acts as additional compensation for certain circumstances, while combat risks are integrated into the state compensation system. A model repeated in NATO. The truth is that the Spanish scheme is not an exception within Western military alliances. The United States, for example, covers its soldiers through federal programs such as the Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurancefinanced and supported by the State. In the case of the United Kingdom, the Armed Forces Compensation Schemean administrative compensation regime. For their part, France and Germany resort to systems of military pensions and compensation legal. Be that as it may, in all these models the logic is similar: war is not insured as a commercial risk, but is compensated through public legislation. The debate and controversy. Even so, the controversy has opened a deeper debate on the economic protection of military personnel and their families. Professional associations maintain that the war exclusion in private policy leaves a symbolic and financial void which can affect the perception of security of deployed personnel. In short, and although from the Ministry of Defense it is insisted in which no soldier is left unprotected thanks to the system of extraordinary pensions and compensation for acts of service, the truth is that the episode has highlighted a structural tension: the difficulty of fitting into the insurance market a risk that precisely defines the essence of the military profession. Image | Navy, Air and Space Army Ministry of Defense Spain In Xataka | The same day that the US threatened Spain and said it did not need the Rota base, the US invested 13 million in expanding the Rota base In Xataka | The great paradox of Spain is 7,000 million euros: nobody wants to take up weapons, but they are making money by selling them

In 1987 a death was filmed so savage that people had to cover themselves. The trick to achieve it turned RoboCop into a cult work

January 24, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1987, the film director Paul Verhoeven gave a twist to action science fiction with RoboCop. In reality, that was a cocktail very much to the director’s liking where there was satire, cyberpunk and police thriller. The difference was that he did not limit himself to telling the fall and rebirth of a hero: he decided to win over the viewer with emotional hammer blows, with a death. so cruel and excessive that it was impossible to look at without feeling uncomfortable. The scene that changed everything. Alex Murphy, the protagonist, appears up to that point as a good cop thrown into a corrupt world, but the film doesn’t have time to build him up calmly, so it does it by the most brutal way: literally, it tear apart in front of the viewer so that, when he returns converted into a machine, he understands that what has been lost is not only flesh, but humanity. Verhoeven explained it with an almost religious and at the same time tremendously cynical idea: “if you want to resurrect Murphy as an all-powerful RoboCop, first you have to crucify him.” And that crucifixion, instead of being symbolic or elegant, is filmed like a physical nightmaredirty and painful, one designed so that the viewer cannot avoid the impact. The slaughter as a narrative. The sequence It is constructed like a public execution, with the criminals laughing in the background, and that is possibly the key to its violence: it is not just that it unlockis that along the way they humiliate him, turn him into a broken toy, and torture him as if the gang were enjoying the show. The scene is escalating until it seems impossiblewith the protagonist trying to understand what is happening to him while his body stops obeying him, and the band acting like real madmen. There is the moral trick of the director of RoboCop: The villains were absolutely grotesque, yes, but the film removes any sympathetic veneer from them and turns them into a total social menace. Thus, when the final shot arrives that puts an end to the execution, the viewer is no longer watching the typical “80s action” film, he is seeing the point of no return that makes the entire film, from that minute on, a story. of loss and revenge. The old school of effects. It is impossible to talk about this classic without mentioning what makes it unique. The how was filmed: no less than under the orders of the legendary Rob Bottin with an artisanal obsession that today seems unthinkable based on meticulously designed prostheses, molds, fake parts and physical tricks. In order for the mutilation to work without putting the actor at risk, a a fake hand From a real mold, it was reconstructed in fiberglass and divided into sections so that it could be “popped” with compressed air and stage blood without the need for explosives near the face. It wasn’t just an effect, it was a device home engineering: internal blood tubes, pressure control, parts that could be assembled and disassembled, and a repeatable explosion pattern to always nail the same result. “Death” was also filmed with a staging designed to hide the real and sell the fakewith raised floors, holes through which to put the real arm under the stage, and a member of the team moving from below a false arm attached with Velcro as if it were a living limb. The underground trick. Plus: Murphy’s death is supported by a secret choreography that the viewer never saw: operators out of shot, hidden mechanisms and an absurd number of hands working to make a second of screen seem like an organic nightmare. Not only that: a foam arm in disguise with a police uniform, a metal structure to hold it, hinges at the “elbow” and even a support anchored to the false floor so that everything could resist the violence of the effect. While the actor was dying and staggering above, below there was a team of professionals pumping blood by hand and adjusting compressed air. Even the shots that “break up” the armor were reinforced with simple but brilliant physical details, such as small charges of talcum powder to simulate fragmentation, a very cheap solution that, in camera, added texture and turned the scene into something tactile, with dust, impacts and material that seems to fall off the body. The Peter Weller doll. Another stroke of genius came with the moment of the auction: for a final shot that in the released version lasts a sigh, a Murphy’s full torsoa sophisticated doll with a latex face made from a mold of the actor, an internal fiberglass skull and mechanisms to move the neck, jaw and body. It was not a static mannequin, it was a creature manipulated by cablescapable of opening his mouth in a silent scream, leaning, trembling and reacting to the shot as if there was still life inside. The execution was designed so that the back of the head “jumped out” with a controlled explosionwith pieces pre-cut to break in a specific way and with the interior prepared with blood and soft fragments, so that the horror felt mechanical but compelling. In addition, the “sweat” detail was added with water sprayas if the doll was breathing for the last time, and a motor with vibration so that the body seems to tremble with fear, an almost obscene trick due to its human nature that returns to artifice. Censorship as an enemy. The most incredible thing is that, even so, what was seen in the rooms was a cropped version. RoboCop’s violence clashed head-on with the rating system of the time, and the film was given an X rating several times, forcing reedit, cut and sacrifice material until a commercially viable qualification is achieved. Paradoxically, the cut that helped save it was one that its own creators considered “shabby” or too obvious, the moment in which Murphy’s arm flies off pulled by a … Read more

Cover letters were a treasure for recruiters, until AI turned them into wet paper

November 5, 2025 by usatoday24

AI promised to speed up the processes of staff recruitmentbut after a period of intensive use of AI by both companies and candidates, it has been shown that It’s more broken than ever. Further proof of this degradation are cover letters which, although before the arrival of AI models were a clear differentiating factor, are currently worthless, as a study by Princeton University and Dartmouth College has shown. Cover letters made a difference. The study ‘Making Talk Cheap: generative AI and Labor Market Signaling‘ carried out by Princeton researchers analyzed more than 2.7 million proposals on the Freelancer.com platform before and after the implementation of the LLM text generation models to create these cover letters. Their conclusion is that, before using AI, attach a well-written and to show interest and knowledge of the position and the company to which one was applying, considerably increased the hiring options because the recruiters perceived that this was a very capable candidate. Now they are wet paper. However, as the use of AI tools to generate these cover letters has spread, the appreciation of quality has improved so that candidates in the top 20% of writing skills were 19% less likely to be hired, while those in the lowest 20% increased their chances by 14%. In other words, employers stopped associating a well-written letter with a competent candidate. This has meant that the differentiating factor that a well-written cover letter previously provided has disappeared, reducing the curve of possibilities between the best-trained candidates and those who are not so well-trained. Letters submitted before the LLM models had a better chance of being hired than those post-LLM AI makes hiring more difficult. The effect observed in cover letters has been extended to other areas of personnel selection, since AI distorts real capabilities of the candidates. It is true that its use increases the perception of quality of the candidates, but as the average quality of the group increased, companies began to trust less in the information provided by the applications. He study ‘Does AI devalue communication? Theory and evidence of entrepreneurship and contracting at a global level’ carried out by researchers at Columbia University and Yeshiva, found a similar pattern in selection and entrepreneurship processes: access to AI reduced the accuracy with which recruiters identified the best profiles to fill a given vacancy by between 4% and 9%. If everything is good, nothing is good. For decades, a letter well tailored to the offer served as proof of interest and commitment on the part of candidates. In labor economics, this is known as “signalling”: the candidate conveys their effort through the quality of the text. Generative models have thrown that signal to the ground. The meta-analysis ‘The role of artificial intelligence in personnel selection’ concluded that the automation of selection processes with AI is eroding the traditional signals of merit that were transmitted through cover letters, emails or applications received by the hiring and human resources departments. In that sense, while it is true that AI has democratized competition in the job search, it has also made genuine talent less visible. Who is behind the algorithm? The current degradation of those “clues” that allowed recruiters to locate the best talent, forces us to look for new ways to evaluate candidates. As and as they pointed From the technological employment platform Manfred, the use of AI has multiplied the number of applications, but the perceived quality has not improved at the same pace. For this reason, many companies are choosing to implement more practical tests and face-to-face interviews in their selection processes. That is, eliminate from the equation the presence of AI for the last stage of the selection process. The unknown of this practice is knowing how much talent has succumbed to AI resume filtering prior to that first face-to-face interview. In Xataka | Jeff Bezos assures that there is a type of employee who can never be replaced by an AI: inventors Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

Cover letters were a treasure for recruiters, until AI turned them into wet paper

November 5, 2025 by usatoday24

Madrid Metro has spent millions on advanced machines to cover them like shacks

October 24, 2025 by usatoday24

It was February 14, 2024 when the Community of Madrid confirmed the last investment with which he was going to get married had been committed: 145 ticket vending machines to access the Madrid underground. The deployment came in large numbers. The almost one hundred and a half devices are part of the second phase of the Metro Technological Improvement Planan investment that also includes, for example, the renovation of hundreds of Metro access turnstiles. The investment tries to give a new face to facilities that are beginning to become small after not having received large investments in the last 20 years. Now, line 6 is being modernized, line 11 is being expanded and the stations are receiving new equipment to adapt to the new transport titles. Click on the image to go to the original tweet Equipment that, in the case of these machines, will be deployed in 19 stations. The first ones, boasted the account of X of the Madrid Metrothey arrived this same week. The leap in quality is evident: 42-inch high-definition screens and even the possibility of opening a video call with Metro services to ask for help if any complications arise. Latest technology devices to be distributed at some of the busiest Metro stations in the capital such as those at the airport, Nuevos Ministerios, Feria de Madrid or Príncipe Pío, among others. Very advanced machines with “Metta’s 4.0 technology,”in the words of the company itself. Machines to which Metro de Madrid has had to put a plastic umbrella. And of course, they have unleashed mockery on social networks. 7.7 million euros and a piece of plastic “It’s plastic. Greetings” This has been the answer that the Madrid Metro has given X to a multitude of users who have asked why the company has put uralite umbrellas on its newest and most advanced machines. Despite describing the innovations and advantages of these machines, many users have focused on that plastic appendage that appears at the top of the machine. An appendix that, without a doubt, is reminiscent of the uralite roofs, everything must be said. Indeed, we could continue with the concise answers of how the person behind the social networks of the Madrid Metro has tried to appease the responses to the shabby difficult to explain solution that the company has used to protect its machines. Madrid Metro has defended itself reiterating that this plastic roof has been installed because the station is leaking. Some leaks that, according to the company, are not its responsibility and, therefore, for the moment the machines will be protected with this particular umbrella for as long as necessary. Meanwhile, Madrid Metro users will be able to use “the intelligent keyboard for destination selection” with “natural language recognition capacity” that the devices have. They can establish a video call with the operators if they need telematic help and they can even obtain new transportation tickets to travel. Of course, we recommend that users open the umbrella. There are leaks. Photo | Madrid Metro In Xataka | 1,500 tons in weight, 100 meters long and one objective: excavate Metro Line 11 in Carabanchel

EA is about to be bought for 50,000 million dollars. Its buyer is the new great cover of the industry

September 27, 2025 by usatoday24

Electronic Arts is about to change hands in exchange for 50,000 million dollars (approximately 42,731 million euros to change). If the agreement is confirmed, the company behind exits such as FIFA or the Sims would star One of the greatest acquisitions in history of the sector, with a blow of effect that would transcend beyond video games. On the other side of the table and with the open portfolio, an investment group led by the Capital Manager Silver Lake Partners, which by the way too You have interest in buying the Tiktok part which operates in the United States, and the sovereign background of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia already has a part of the industry. Now he wants to lead her Of the rumor, which sounds strongly in the last hours, The Street Journal is echoed. With a market capitalization figure of EA is 48,000 million dollars, so the purchase offer is slightly above. After the publication of the rumor, the consequences have not been expected: EA shares have risen 15% and they already mark historical maximums. The operation would be quite advanced according to the medium and became official through an announcement in early October. So everything It seems imminent. The size of the movement is not so much the impressive figure itself, but The specific electronic arts weight within the industry of the video game. Thus Botepronto, EA is an institution in the sports genre. Thus, it has franchises such as EA Sports FC, Madden either NHL And he does not stay there, since he also has such iconic titles as THE SIMS, Battlefield either Need for Speed. This megaadquisition remembers, saving distances, to the purchase of Blizzard Activision by Xbox for 68.7 billion dollars. Of course, in that case there was a long process of procedures and look at a possible Microsoft monopoly. In this case and to materialize the agreement, Saudi Arabia would become one of the protagonists of the industry. Battlefield 6 In this sense, The country of East half would control brands and sagas of reference that report to the company millions of income each year and that are also played by millions of people. On the other hand, it would be necessary to see how the studies associated with the different projects, their competitors and also how the cultural influence of the Arab country would react. The one of Saudi Arabia with the video game industry is not a surprise: After years investing in signatures such as Nintendo either Capcom with the aim of diversifying its economy. Of course, one thing is not to put the eggs in the same basket and another to lead a market that moves more money than cinema and music together. We are waiting for upcoming movements and/ or the official announcement. In Xataka | Thus the switch 2 behaves after a month of use: the Nintendo console surprises more for what it maintains that for what it changes In Xataka | I’ve been without touching a football video game for 20 years. I have tried the ‘EA Sports FC 25’ and this has been my experience Cover | Photo of Maxim Abramov in Unspash and EA Sports

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