decade

The cosmos has sent us a series of blue flashes for more than a decade. We now have a clue as to what they really are.

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For more than a decade, the cosmos has been sending us mysterious flashes of ultra-bright blue light that appear out of nowhere and disappear in a matter of days. This phenomenon has a strange little name, but they are known as ‘luminous fast blue optical transients’ (LFBOTs), and have baffled astronomers since its discovery. Now, thanks to the analysis of one that has become the brightest ever detected, scientists believe they have solved the enigma: they are black holes devouring companion stars, and the process is extremely violent. The discovery. The team led by researchers from the University of California at Berkeley analyzed a LFBOT discovered in 2024 and named ‘AT 2024wpp’. The phenomenon turned out to be between five and ten times more luminous than any other of its kind previously observed. Astronomers used a range of space and ground-based telescopes (including Chandra, Swift, NuSTAR, ALMA, and the Keck and Gemini observatories) to study it at multiple wavelengths, from X-ray to radio. The data revealed that the energy released by AT 2024wpp was 100 times greater than that of a normal supernova. As Natalie LeBaron, a graduate student at Berkeley and first author of one of the studies, explains, “the absolute amount of energy radiated by these bursts is so large that you can’t feed them with the collapse and explosion of a massive star, or with any other type of normal stellar explosion.” An extreme cosmic feast. The researchers they propose that these flashes are produced by what they call “extreme tidal disruption.” This process occurs when a black hole (with a mass up to 100 times that of our Sun) completely destroys its companion star in a matter of days. According to the team’s reconstructions, the black hole had been absorbing material from its companion for a long time, surrounding itself with a halo of gas. In the case studied, the scientists report that, when the star got too close and was torn apart, the new material violently collided with the pre-existing gas as it fell towards the black hole, generating the intense blue and ultraviolet light characteristic of LFBOTs. According to account Robert Sanders, a researcher at the University of Berkeley, Some of the gas was ejected in jets from the poles of the black hole at about 40% of the speed of light, producing the radio emissions that scientists later detected. Intermediate mass black holes, a separate enigma. The black hole’s inferred mass places these objects in a particularly interesting category: intermediate-mass black holes. Although experiments like LIGO Black hole mergers of more than 100 solar masses have been detected, they have never been directly observed and their formation process remains a mystery. “Theorists have proposed many ways to explain how we get these large black holes,” points out Raffaella Margutti, associate professor of astronomy and physics at Berkeley and lead author of both studies. “LFBOTs allow us to approach this question from a completely different angle. They also allow us to characterize the precise location where these things occur within their host galaxy, which adds more context to trying to understand how we ended up with this configuration: a very large black hole and a companion.” A family of phenomena with curious nicknames. The first LFBOT with sufficient data for analysis was detected in 2018 and received the official designation ‘AT 2018cow’. His name led researchers to nickname him “the Cow”, a tradition that continued with later events: the Koala, the Tasmanian Devil and the Finch. AT 2024wpp, the subject of this study, has already been informally named the Woodpecker. To date, just over a dozen of these events have been identified, all located in galaxies with active star formation at distances of hundreds of millions and billions of light years. The companion star destroyed in AT 2024wpp was more than 10 times the mass of the Sun and could have been a Wolf-Rayet starthat is, very hot and evolved objects that have already consumed much of their hydrogen. TO hunting for LFBOTs. Researchers hope that the upcoming ultraviolet space telescopes, ULTRASAT and UVEX, scheduled to launch in the coming years, will revolutionize the detection of these phenomena. “Right now we find only one LFBOT a year or so. But once we have UV telescopes in space, finding LFBOTs will become routine, like detecting gamma ray bursts today,” explains Nayana AJ, researcher at Berkeley and first author of X-ray and radio analysis. In Xataka | When nuclear energy orbited the Earth: the day a Soviet satellite with a reactor fell in Canada and sparked a crisis

Let’s say goodbye to Google Assistant a decade later. Google has begun to delete its code to leave only one option: Gemini

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It’s not official but as if it were: the end of Google Assistant or the classic Google Assistant, is scheduled. An analysis of the latest version of the Google app for Android carried out by Android Authority has revealed his almost definitive goodbye. The Mountain View company is eliminating the code that, for the moment, allows us to choose between Gemini and the old assistant. It is the chronicle of a death foretold that ends an era within the company. Where before we saw the Assistant icon and dialog window, we now have the Gemini one. Image by Iván Linares for Xataka Android failed promise. Launched in May 2016, the Google Assistant was going to be a revolution. On paper, it promised full voice control of your cell phone, car and home. In practice, like many users have experiencedits use ended up being “despairing” although the “Okay, Google” It became popular in smartphones and speakers. Your inability to understand the context or natural language and the rise of AI models, has finished burying it. The future belongs to Gemini. With the rise of generative AI, Google has bet everything on Gemini, but it has had a rather confusing rollout. For months, the American company maintained a curious mess with several duplicate names, apps and services… Bard, Assistant with Bard, Project Astra… In practice, two assistants live on the same mobile phone. In February 2024, its “transmutation” began: that was when Google launched the dedicated Gemini app (Bard was left behind) on Android, which when installed was offered as a replacement for Assistant. As we tested in its day, the new AI took over of the invocation with the famous “Hey Google” command. A more mature replacement. The problem with the Gemini assistant is that, at first, it was quite green. It was a powerful chatbot, but a not so useful assistant: it could not execute the basic tasks that the previous one could do, such as routines or orders for home automation. However, Google has spent the last year making Gemini absorb the features of its predecessor. The turning point came at the end of last year, when Gemini Live – the conversational voice mode – finally landed in Spain and in Spanish. Already approaching 2025, Gemini learned a basic function that it was missing: making calls and sending messages without having to unlock the mobile. The last big feature inherited from Assistant, the «Scheduled actions»arrived in June of this year. Google’s plan. At the same time that Gemini was learning the old Assistant tricks, Google has been dismantling the latter, removing useful functions. The objective is more than clear: Gemini is the future and will be everywhere. Now you can act like the “all-seeing” assistant thanks to Project Astra (integrated in Live mode), it is coming to Google Home speakers and its landing on Android Auto is imminent. The last step remains. And that is eliminating the escape route: Google has already consolidated the transition. Gemini is the default assistant on new mobile phones and can be installed on old ones without major impediments. The analysis of the APK of the specialized Android media only confirms that the last step is very simple: eliminate the option to go back. The king is dead, long live the king. Cover image | Composition with Google images and generated with Nano Banana by Pepu Ricca In Xataka | How to create Gemini Gems to have your personalized version of artificial intelligence

I just sent a WhatsApp audio from the Apple Watch. I only had to wait a decade

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That the Apple Watch did not have a native WhatsApp app was something incomprehensible, only comparable to the fact that The iPad didn’t have it either for fifteen years. We talk about smartwatch and the messaging app most popular in the world but, for some reason, it had not occurred to them until now. The wait is over and now I have tried WhatsApp on my Apple Watch SE. This is what it seemed to me. Testing WhatsApp on the Apple Watch First of all, the app works from Apple Watch Series 4 and with WatchOS version 10 or higher versions. If you meet the requirements, you can try it. You may not find WhatsApp on your watch, which is what happened to me, but don’t despair. All you have to do is go to the App Store from your iPhone and update WhatsApp. You will see the icon appear in the list of apps on the watch. You can see your most recent chats from your wrist By entering the app, you can see the most recent chats, although only the last twenty conversations are shown. Within the chats you can’t see the entire history either, but rather the most recent messages. The good thing is that you can see images, stickers and also allows you to react to messages. It is a very simple interface with basic functionsbut it gives us many more options when chatting. Before we could read and respond to messages only from notifications. At the moment we discarded a notice, the message disappeared and we could no longer do anything with it. Audios from the clock Until now I could read WhatsApp messages on my wrist (except for the ones that were very long), but what there was no way to do was listen to audios. The notification arrived, but it could not be reproduced and we had to go look for the cell phone. This has just changed and now, if you receive a voice message, you can play it directly on the watch. They can also be sent, although There is a “but”. Audios can be recorded, but there is a maximum The first thing I wanted to know was if it was possible to send audios and I was relieved to see that it was, but my joy was short-lived because It only lets you record ten seconds; If you are like me and usually send podcasts to your loved ones, you are going to have to continue using your mobile. Cannot speed up audio messages Ten seconds seems short to me, but it should be enough to send quick messages at specific moments. Furthermore, what is going to be more practical is the fact of being able to listen to the audios on the watch and here there seems to be no limit (I have been able to listen to audios of almost 3 minutes). However, it does not allow speed up message speedthe only thing it allows us to do is move forward or backward in 5-second jumps. The arrival of WhatsApp to the Apple Watch has been highly anticipated. So much so that even there were alternatives to be able to have more functionalities on the watch. The problem is that we have been late more than a decade in having too basic functions. I guess that’s good news. Images | Amparo Babiloni, Xataka In Xataka | Huawei Watch GT 6, analysis: without being perfect, it is the smartwatch that I am going to recommend the most this year

call the only ship that has been repairing them for more than a decade

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That an underwater cable breaks (or someone cut it) can happen anywhere. There is amazing ships dedicated to deployment and repair of this critical infrastructure in our hyperconnected world. However, when it happens in Africa there is only one ship that can answer the call at any time. Is called Leon Thevenin and has been in operation for more than forty years. The ship. As they say in Rest of WorldIn the world there are 62 cable repair ships that are always available, but in Africa there is only one. The Léon Thévenin is part of the fleet of Orange Marinea subsidiary of the French operator Orange, and for thirteen years has been in charge of all repairs from Ghana to Madagascar. It is 107 meters long and the crew that operates it is 60 people. It also features a remote submarine and a small work boat. According to the official ship record, It is capable of making repairs in extreme weather conditions, in both deep and shallow water. African cables. In this map We can see that the continent is surrounded by countless cables that provide connections to both its inhabitants and data centers and ground stations. Among the most notable is the ‘Peace Cable’ connecting Singapore to Kenyathe West African cable system and the Alphabet Equiano that go from Portugal to South Africa. The cable also stands out 2Africa which with its 45,000 kilometers is the longest in the world; It connects from the United Kingdom, goes all the way around the African continent and ends in India. And there are many more. Accidents. Cables deteriorate, they can also be damaged after storms or if a ship drops anchor and drags it. Many times the cuts are intentional, but they usually occur in other places in increased geopolitical tension like Taiwan either the baltic sea. In March 2024, much of the west and center of the continent was left without connection due to simultaneous failures in several cables. The Léon Thévenin was in charge of returning connectivity to millions of people. It has not been the only case. In recent years the ship has been having a lot of work because the Congo Canyona huge underwater canyon that extends 280 kilometers into the Atlantic, is suffering many landslides that have affected several cables. A great responsibility. It is estimated that 99% of the world’s internet traffic travels over submarine cables. If a cable breaks, it can leave millions of people without connectivity. Furthermore, in the age of AI, connectivity is even more important because it connects the infrastructure that makes it work. The price to pay for the Léon Thévenin crew is spending very little time with his family. Sometimes they rest for a month, the problem is that if a breakage occurs they are the only ones who answer the call. Image | Wikipedia In Xataka | The submarine cables belonged to the teleoperators, and now the big technology companies are controlling them

It will be one of the longest lunar eclipses of the decade

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The Romans said “Origo” to refer to the origin, so they used “orior” as a verb born. From there came “Ortus” for the birth of the sun, better known as dawn. “Ortho” in Spanish is defined as the exit of a star by the horizon. And this Sunday, With the lunar eclipsethe moon will have a beautiful ortho. A total moon eclipse. Every year there are at least two lunar eclipses, but they are not always total. This Sunday, September 7, will be one of the longest in the decade, with a totality of 82 minutes visible from most Asia. It can also be seen already started From most of Spainwith the moon very low on the horizon. But it will not be visible from America. A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth is aligned between the sun and the moon in full moon phase, and its shadow is projected on the lunar disc. The earth’s shadow has two zones: the gloom, which darkens the moon subtly, and the umbra, which blocks sunlight. In the case of a partial eclipse, the umbra looks like a bite, and in the case of a total eclipse, the full moon darkens. A blood moon. During the totality phase, The moon can become redwhat is known as blood moon. Although the umbra blocks the sunlight, the Earth’s atmosphere refracts solar light filtered towards the satellite. In this case, the blue wavelengths are dispersed by a physical phenomenon known as Rayleight dispersion, hence the red tones predominate. The blood moon this Sunday will reach its most intense point at 20:11. If you are in Spain, the moon will be totally eclipsed, reddish color. Even so, with a clear horizon, you can see the best part of the show, especially from the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coast of the Peninsula. On the other hand, visibility will be low to the west, particularly in the Canary Islands and Western Galicia, where only the partial phase of the end of the eclipse can be seen. The full schedule of the eclipse. In the peninsular hour (UTC+2), the Moon will enter a gloom (slight darkening) on ​​Sunday at 17:28. The partial phase of the eclipse (the bite) will begin to be seen at 18:27, but only in the countries where the moon is already out. The totality phase (the moon is completely inside the Umbra) will begin at 19:31 and will end at 20:53. Then the partial phase will be repeated until 21:56 and the Penumbral until 22:55. What will be seen from Spain. The visible phases will depend on whether the moon is whether or not where you are. In Madrid, the Moon will leave at 20:35, so they can be seen about 18 minutes. In general, the moon will leave the horizon totally eclipsed and dyed red from most of the country, with the exception of western Galicia and Canary Islands, where only a partial eclipse will be seen. In Barcelona: 41 minutes of totality from 20:11 In Valencia: 32 minutes of totality from 20:20 In Seville: 10 minutes of totality from 20:42 In Zaragoza: 28 minutes of totality from 20:24 In Malaga: 17 minutes of totality from 20:35 In Murcia: 30 minutes of totality from 20:22 In Palma: 44 minutes of totality from 20:08 In Las Palmas: only partial from 20:15 (UTC+1) In Bilbao: 18 minutes of totality from 20:34 In Valladolid: 12 minutes of totality from 20:39 In Vigo: only partial from 20:56 In Gijón: 7 minutes of totality from 20:45 Where you have to look. Unlike a solar eclipse, seeing a lunar eclipse is totally safe with the naked eye and with prismatic. Since in Spain it coincides with the exit of the moon, it will be best to look for a place with the horizon is clear (a beach of the coast, a viewpoint, a roof …) and wait for the satellite to rise, already eclipsed and red, for the sky. Image | Liquidcrash (Flickr, CC by-SA 2.0) In Xataka | Total Eclipse of September 2025: When is it and how you can see it in Spain

With only two electric cars, Xiaomi is getting out of the “Valley of Death.” Others cost more than a decade

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The Xiaomi Su7 has surprised the entire industry And he has led the company to do such rare things as telling its customers in a hurry that buy cars from competition. The play hides a strategy, but it is a great example of how good it goes to the company with its second car and bets on luxury, The Yu7. While they hope to make the leap to Europe in 2027, he has achieved kneel. Lost 800 million In his first year he sold cars. Great news that already pointed to what was coming later: the Break Even When losing $ 500 per car sold is good news. Xiaomi has presented the Financial Results of the Second Fiscal Quarterwith great news for your car section. The Auto Division has commercialized 81,302 vehicles in the period and lost 41 million dollars. It is a loss of $ 507 for each car sold. It is very good news for the speed at which the company is approaching profitability. The photo. In the last quarters, Xiaomi comes from losing, on average, 1,376, 905 and 507 dollars respectively, after coming from losses of 5,250 in the third quarter of 2024. That is, it now loses a tenth of what I lost until November. And it is not the only positive figure that the results bring along with sales growth: the gross margin has grown from 15.4% of the second quarter of 2024 to 26.4% of this year. This contributes to having launched the Su7 ultrawhose launch has helped the average sale price up 10% in one year. With him they wanted to eat Porsche in his field, And they got it. According to its financial results, Xiaomi is very close to starting to earn money with its car section. Why it is important. Tesla is the only pure manufacturers of electric cars that He has managed to get out of the “Death Valley” the initial period in which Startups They burn money to espuertas without hardly generating money. Brands such as Rivian, Lucid, or Ford (in their electric division) have accumulated losses exceeding 22,200, 11,000 and 10,500 million dollars respectively. That Xiaomi only loses 41 million dollars per quarter with such competitive prices speaks of the balance that has its commitment just over a year after having launched. How are they getting it. Not all companies have The support that Xiaomi has had In his car crossing. In this sense, according to Bill Russo, CEO and founder of Automobility, a determining factor of Xiaomi’s success has to do with its production agility, which has benefited widely from producing with Beijing Auto, a state company that already had a huge production scale before the arrival of Xiaomi. The company was able to access a production chain already components of high quality already available in the market thanks to investments made by the matrix and its founder for years in companies such as companies such as Momenta. Another of the keys, according to John Helveston, a professor specialized in the Chinese electric vehicles industry: it is an achievement to manufacture an electric in such a short time, but attention must be paid to evolution. “The car industry is hard and success is measured in years of resistance, not in the speed of the first launch,” he told us. Xiaomi has passed in a year of being present in 30 cities with 87 stores to be in 92 with 335 stores. Image: Xiaomi. Xiaomi had a long way carved. Yes, even being new in the electric car sector. On the one hand, although you can buy online cars, by its already extensive distribution network In China: 335 sales centers in 92 cities, and growing at a dizzying pace. It is no longer the company we met for selling extremely cheap technology. Although it maintains a part of that bet, in recent years too He has focused on the premium with the support of luxury brands such as Leica. It is much more path of of some brands when arriving in Spain. The challenge. Among such good news, Xiaomi faces a problem: long waiting times and limited calendar. This explains that in China, the Su7 be the king of resalecosting more than new and with up to 10 months of waiting. To a limited production they also faced for years fAbricante as Teslaand Xiaomi has the best example of how to grow. In 2024 he achieved sell 4 million vehicles (In front of the 350,000 that Xiaomi hopes to sell this year). Xiaomi has a plan factor growth for his future cars and be able to face international expansion. It will be a crucial moment, for example companies like Novo Nordisk knows well: the problems for Ozempic in the United States began When they could not deal with demand. Cover image | Xiaomi In Xataka | Intel is closer than ever to be chopped. A giant is interested in buying its chips factories

These dancers are one of the most disturbing traditions of La Palma and had a decade without appearing. Until now

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Incredibly strange parties there are in Spain to give and take. And in summer, with the multiplication of patron saint parties And typical of each town, they are increasing. However, those of Santa Cruz de La Palma They are not strange because of their aesthetics and development, but also because of their frequency: the dance of the dwarves is celebrated every five years … but it was not seen ten. Dwarves to accompany the Virgin. With a denomination that has already been outdated but that, obviously, is still used by tradition, the dance of the dwarves has viralized in social networks by its comic visual spectacularity. This is the most famous number of the traditional parties of the descent of the Virgen de las Nieves, which takes place in the Canarian town of Santa Cruz, in La Palma. In these parties the image of the Virgen de las Nieves moves from her sanctuary in the mountain to the city on the coast. A series of popular acts are celebrated around the act, including dance. How dwarves dance. The image of the dwarves dancers (in reality, people of average height hidden after huge Napoleonic tricorn) has become popular so much that it has become a symbol of the entire island of La Palma. The music that dance is a polka composed in 1925 by Domingo Santos Rodríguez, and that lasts more than ten minutes. Then the dance is repeated again and again, between parade and dances in different places. This year they have come to be dancing for thirteen hours without stopping. Lustral dances. The feasts of the Virgin’s descent take place every five years, but the descent and dance of the dwarves had been held for a decade, since it coincided in the previous edition with the pandemic. Therefore, this year the reunion with the 24 dwarves has been special: since it is a show especially aimed at children, to whom the dwarves scare and increase in the parade, for many of them it was the first time they saw them. This year the celebration has recovered an element that was not done since 1925: before its transformation into dwarves the dancers appear dresses as kings. It has also been the first time that two women dance as dwarves. Viral dance. The ten -year waiting generated considerable expectation in networks, which has set in figures never seen before in the celebration. In Tiktok videos were published with the label #Dwarves2025with thousands of visualizations and comments. On Instagram, only online broadcast had more than 340,000 visualizations. Canarian public television also made intensive use of social networks, which exponentially increased scope and visibility of the event this year. Disturbing dwarves. The mystical component of the dwarves and the magical element of the narrative of the act (with the kings metamorphicing in dancers) sister this holiday with those of other locations where the macabre and the mysterious also prevail. For example, the Vijanera de Silió, in which 75 symbolic and pre -Christian characters represent ancestral forces in conflict; or the pilgrimage of Santa Marta de Ribarteme, in As Neves, where people who have survived a disease parade in coffins carried by relatives, as offering to the Virgin. In the Spanish parties we have abundance of monstrous cryoatures at our parties: the Castrillo Colacho of Murcia in Burgos, for example, is a demonic character of grotesque face and yellow and red suit, and jumps on babies placed in mattresses in full street during the eighth of the Corpus. And the piornal jarmplas is a character disguised with a cornuda mask and multicolored ribbons that becomes white from collective anger, with neighbors throwing tons of turnips, in an experience between the carnivals and the terrifying. Next to this, some chotescos heads that dance polkas are a children’s game. Header | Santa Cruz de la Palma City Council – Carlos Acieg In Xataka | In 1975 a photographer launched himself to document the popular festivals of Spain. The resulting book changed everything

Vapers have lived a decade of freedom in Spain. The honeymoon ends

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Spain is about to set the ten years of ambiguity. The vopemers, which were sold in the early last decade as the “intelligent” version of tobacco, will be treated exactly the same as the lifelong marlboro. Why is it important. The New anti -tabaco law that prepares health normatively equate electronic cigarettes, Heated tobacco and vapers to conventional tobacco. The regulatory limbo is over. That liminal space is over in which it seemed acceptable to vap but not smoking. Health wants to prohibit the use of cigarettes, and also of vapes, in terraces, marques, labor vehicles, university campuses and external leisure areas. The same restrictions that conventional tobacco already had. The context. During a decade, vopes users have enjoyed a kind of undeclared privilege. Technically they did not smoke, but “vapeed.” It was steam, not smoke. A semantic difference that translated into real freedoms: vaping in places where smoking was prohibited, avoiding – not always – the social reproach looks, maintaining the perfect alibi being “leaving tobacco.” The final blow. The prohibition of flavorings marks the end of that golden age. Not only lose spaces: they lose their identity. The flavors were what most differentiated the vaping of traditional tobacco. Without mint, fruits or sweets, vapes are reduced to simple nicotine dispensers with USB-C load. Yes, but. The resistance is real. CNMC (National Commission of Markets and Competition) has challenged the prohibition of flavoringssomething unthinkable already with traditional tobacco. The classic tobacco companies have stopped fighting for years: they know they lost that war. Vapes still have faith in which they can win. Between the lines. This comparison says something deeper about how Spain manages this type of innovations. The vapes followed the classic pattern: Technological grace period. Social normalization Regulatory awakening. Total comparison. It is the same route they made (saving the health distances) VTC with the taxitourist apartments with hotels or cryptocurrencies with traditional currencies. The threat. For Vaper industry, this is more than a regulation: it is a declaration of war against its business model. Without flavoring and no differentiated spaces, what competitive advantage is left to the traditional tobacco? Technology, perhaps. But that seems insufficient to maintain the growth of an industry that grew precisely because it was not “real tobacco.” Deepen. The draft must still go through the Council of Ministers and subsequently through Congress, where you will need agreements with other political forces. Restrictions can change, but direction is irreversible: vapes have lost their special status. Outstanding image | Stephen Noble in Unspash In Xataka | The ‘vaping’ reaches adolescents and lights alarms

The reservoirs are almost 22% above the average of the last decade. There is an “but” important before celebrating

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The forecasts of meteorologists seem to indicate that spring You have your days counted: Next week we will see an increase in the temperatures and models of the State Metorology Agency, they foresee that in the middle of June the rainfall is less than what is usual for these dates. Despite this, this short spring has been intense, and that It has been reflected In the reservoirs. 77.5%reserves. The latest data indicates that the water reserve has been placed this week at 43,407 cubic hectometers (HM³), 77.5% of its capacity. As it stands out The Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, to this have contributed “abundant” rainfall in the Peninsula and especially in Lugo, where 55.8 mm have been reached. The internal basins of the Basque Country (95.2% of its capacity), the Duero (92.6%), and the western Cantabrian basins (92.2%) They are the ones closest to their theoretical maximum. In the south stands out The River Basin Odiel, red and stonesat 91.7% of its capacity. Almost 22% more than average. We have been more than a year in which the reservoirs accumulate more water than the average of the previous 10 years. The current 43,407 hm³ represent an increase of 21.79% above the average of the past decade, 35,641 hm³. It is good news, but it should be remembered that the data of the Decenal has been significantly weighed by last decade. If we go To data from five years ago, we will see that the average filling of the previous ten years (2010-2019) was 74.3% global and 71.8% if we focus on the reservoirs of consumptive use. The average of the last 10 years is now quite far, in 63.7% for the set of reservoirs, and in 58.1% if we focus on consumptive use. Unequal state. As usual, there are marked differences in the filling level of the different basins. We indicated before some of those that are closest to the full filling, all of them above 90% of their capacity. At the other end, the southern and southwest basins remain at relatively low levels, highlighting the safe basin, at 31% of its capacity. The positive reading is that even this basin has seen its level of filling in recent months. This last week, in fact, the basin has seen an increase of almost 1% compared to the previous week. The Andalusian Basins of the Mediterranean, also among the most empty, have also experienced a slight increase in their volume, until approaching the 57.6% of its capacity. The negative note is put by the Guadalete and Barbate basin, the second with the lowest average filling (at 54.88%), which has lost six Hm³ in recent days, a reduction of 0.36%. Of course, the basin shows a markedly superior filling last year by these dates (30.28%) and also slightly higher than the average of the last 10 years (53.31%). The end of spring. The state of the reservoirs allow us to face with slight optimism an uncertain and imminent summer. Meteorological forecasts They point out a drastic increase in temperatures in the next few days, and not just that. Aemet’s medium -term predictions also indicate that the trend of the coming weeks will not only point to warmer temperatures than usual by these dates, but also towards precipitations below average. This seems to imply the end of spring, at least from the meteorological point of view, and the beginning of a summer that we do not know what will hold us. In Xataka | “Thank you so much, reservoirs.net”: Spanish men are developing a peculiar obsession with swamps Image | Alina Rossoshanska / Miteco

Free remote access disappears after a decade and takes a worrying turn for its users

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Plex has announced which will increase the price of your subscriptions and make your main free function into payment service: remote reproduction of personal content. The changes will take effect on April 29, marking the end of an era for millions of users who used the platform to access their multimedia libraries from anywhere without having to pay for it. Why is it important. This decision directly affects millions of users who have built domestic ecosystems based on the premise of being able to access their personal content from any location. The changes represent a total turn in the business model of Plex. The figures. Price increase is considerable: Monthly subscription: from $ 4.99 to $ 6.99 (+40%). Annual subscription: from $ 39.99 at $ 69.99 (+75%). Vitalicia subscription: from $ 119.99 to $ 249.99 (+108%). It is easy to read between the lines what Plex intends with these different increases: to promote the monthly to increase their monthly recurring income … and dissuade the life, or at least monetize it much more aggressive. There are alternatives. For those who see a reason here to migrate from Plex: Jellyfinopen and free source, without payment or telemetry functions. Embyversatile without too much complexity, with a free version robust. Kodiveteran customization. Stremiofocused on streaming from different sources. The current situation. Until now, Plex allowed its users to configure a domestic server and remotely access its content for free. This model has been the basis of the growth of the platform for more than a decade, which has become tremendously popular. The change. As of April 29, you will have two options if you want to continue accessing your remote content: That the server owner has a plex pass. In this case, all users who give access can continue to see content remotely. Hire the new “Remote Watch Pass” for $ 1.99 per month or 19.99 a year, which allows remotely accessing servers whose owners do not have plex pass. Between the lines. Plex justifies these changes alleging “growing costs” and the need to continue developing new functions. However, the decision comes at a time when they want to position themselves as a legitimate competitor in the saturated streaming market. The company has been incorporating new social and discovery functions during the last year, in addition to launching A store to rent movies and series. These movements are subtle signs of a strategy to become a complete streaming platform, beyond its original function as a personal media manager. As compensation, Plex will eliminate the limitation of one minute reproduction in its mobile applications and it will no longer be necessary to pay a unique activation fee to eliminate this restriction. And now what? If you are a plex user, you have until April 29 to buy a life subscription at the current price of $ 119.99, before it doubles. The current monthly and annual subscribers will see their rates increase, while those who already have a life subscription will not be affected. Content streaming in the same local network will remain free, as well as access to content with advertising offered by the platform. In Xataka | Plex: 21 tricks (and some extra) to get the whole game Outstanding image | Plex, Xataka with Mockuuuups Studio

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