depends

In 2025, the salary of 6,800 Valencian civil servants depends on an Access form. Only one person knows how it works

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According to has revealed According to the Audit of personnel expenses of the Generalitat Administration prepared by the Sindicatura de Comptes, the Valencian Community is experiencing a situation that is torn between the surreal and the negligence: two computer systems on which the payrolls of almost 6,800 civil servants and public employees depend cannot exchange data. The only way to achieve this is through an application made in Microsoft Access by a single person who would also be the only one who knows how to maintain and update it. SIGNO and GESPERJU2 do not speak to each other. He SIGN program (Integrated Payroll Management System and Others) is the internal computer system of the Generalitat Valenciana used for the management, calculation and payment of payrolls of civil servants and labor personnel of the Valencian Administration, including education, health and other services, allowing procedures such as direct debits and registrations or cancellations of employees. On the other hand, the GESPERJU2 program is a platform that manages the labor files of the personnel at the service of the Justice Administration of the Valencian Community, in processes such as the management of payrolls, permits and other administrative and human resources situations of its staff of judges, magistrates and Justice officials. What is expected is that the platform that manages payroll and the one that manages whether employees are on leaveon vacation or have requested a leave of absence were connected. To the surprise of the auditors of the Sindicatura de Comptes, these two platforms cannot exchange data. An “improvised” connection. As and stood out The Economistthat the officials of the Department of Justice of the Valencian Community receive their payroll on time and without errors depends only on a “patch” in the form of an application created with Microsoft Access. That’s not the auditors’ most surprising discovery, however. The person who created this application is the only one capable of updating the salary tables and other parameters necessary so that the officials’ payrolls are processed without problems. According to the Syndicate reportthis disconnection between platforms has left the Administration in a situation of “absolute dependence on a person”, in addition to “posing a high risk of continuity of operation if this person could not use this parallel application.” We imagine that at this moment, that person will be the best protected official in the Valencian Administration. Two platforms and end up doing it by hand. Another derivative is added to this unprecedented fact. The Access application has its limitations, so some payroll incidents must be done by hand by an official, so that they are reflected correctly. As the audit report noted, “the calculation of certain payroll incidents is carried out manually (arrears, three-year terms previously consolidated in General Administration positions, salary supplements for vertical replacements or guards), which increases the possibility of errors.” As described in the report, the integration problem would not be limited to Justice. Also mentioned is the risk that, due to a lack of communication between platforms, the same person who has had their position changed or promoted, could “collect two salaries simultaneously” (in the old position and in the new one) without being detected. TALIA: the great promise. TALIA is the new personnel management application that is proposed to replace the current ones and whose first phase has already would be tendered and awarded. The promise of TALIA is that personnel information and payrolls of Administration personnel will no longer live on separate and unconnected islands. However, its deployment is planned for years to come (if deadlines are met), and the precedent of delays and cost overruns in implementations like the one suffered with NEFIS in 2019. Until then, someone in the Valencian Administration will ensure that paid for the Office license. In Xataka | Companies bet everything on returning to the office. The public administration has an ace up its sleeve: teleworking Image | Unsplash (Rafael Oliveira)

The US electrical grid depends on Chinese devices. And that worries their national security

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United States national security has always been measured on aircraft carriers, missiles and satellites. Today, however, a growing part of that security depends on something much more everyday: electricity. The grid that powers homes, hospitals, data centers and military bases is going through —despite political resistance from the Trump administration— an accelerated transformation towards renewable sources. But that transition, key to the country’s energy future, has introduced a silent vulnerability. The back door open. The expansion of solar energy has made the US electrical grid depend massively of inverters made in China, essential devices for converting solar energy into electricity usable by the grid. They are not simple pieces of hardware: they are digital systems, connected, with software, remote communication capabilities and, in many cases, manufactured by companies with direct or indirect links to Beijing. For years, this dependency was seen as an industrial or commercial problem. Today, for those responsible for national security, it has become something very different. The agency notice. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI published a joint notice in which they alleged that cyber actors sponsored by the People’s Republic of China had compromised and maintained persistent access to critical US infrastructure. The identified group, known as Volt Typhoonhad managed to infiltrate organizations in key sectors such as energy, water, transportation and communications. The objective was not to steal data or obtain financial benefits. According to the security agencies documentthe behavior detected “is not consistent with traditional espionage” and points, with “high confidence”, to a different strategy: enter critical systems, remain hidden for long periods and wait. Wait for a crisis or conflict scenario in which those same infrastructures may be interrupted or degraded. It’s exactly the scenario that FBI Director Christopher Wray has described before Congress warning that China is positioning itself to attack American civilian infrastructure as part of its strategic planning. From stealing secrets to preparing chaos. For years, cyber activities attributed to China focused on the theft of intellectual property and trade secrets. Today, according to security officialsthe objective is different: to create the ability to cause internal chaos in the United States and limit its room for maneuver in a conflict, especially in the Indo-Pacific. The systems attacked by Volt Typhoon—such as ports, regional power grids, or water utilities—have no immediate economic or political value. Precisely for this reason, experts conclude that the only reason to infiltrate them is to be able to sabotage them later. It is not necessarily about causing a national blackout. As government sources explainselective interruptions, cascading failures or highly visible incidents would be enough to generate social panic, put pressure on policy makers and condition decision-making. Towards the transition. The U.S. power grid is increasingly reliant on solar inverters and storage systems—so-called investor-based resources— which are not simple pieces of hardware. They are digital, connected systems that regulate the flow of energy, stabilize the frequency and constantly communicate with other elements of the network. According to the In Broad Daylight reportprepared by Strider Technologies, since 2015 China has exported nearly 2.68 billion kilograms of inverters to the United States, dominating two-thirds of the world market. To understand the scale of the phenomenon: 86% of electricity companies analyzed by Striderwhich represent about 12% of the installed capacity in the United States, use at least one Chinese supplier considered risky. Together, these devices are present in 5,400 megawatts of solar capacity spread across 22 states, enough electricity to keep more than a million homes powered for a year. The concern is not trivial. A Chinese manufacturer remotely disabled inverters installed in the United States and other countries amid a contract dispute, demonstrating that manufacturers retain operational control on already deployed equipment. Furthermore, research cited by The Washington Post reveal the existence of undocumented communication components in some inverters, capable of connecting to external networks without the operators’ knowledge. According to Striderthe problem is compounded because Chinese academic and military institutions have produced thousands of studies on foreign power grid vulnerabilities, many of them focused on deliberate disruption scenarios. China has come forward against the accusations. A spokesman for its embassy in Washington responded to Reuters and Washington Post rejecting that there is a security problem and denouncing what he described as a “generalization” of the concept of national security to discredit Chinese advances in energy infrastructure. Beijing has not announced technical reviews, external audits or changes to the control mechanisms of these devices. A dilemma without a simple solution. In the short term, US authorities have ordered electric companies to limit or monitor external communications from these devices. However, as officials recognizethe fragmentation of the electricity sector—with thousands of operators and unequal standards—makes a uniform response difficult. In the medium term, the dilemma is more complex. A massive recall of Chinese hardware could put energy supplies at risk at a time of strong demand growth. Maintaining it implies accepting a strategic vulnerability. In the long term, the consensus among analysts is clear: energy is no longer just an economic or climate issue, but a matter of national security. As Strider’s report concludesensuring the transition to clean energy without creating new strategic dependencies has become a defensive priority. The new dimension of national security. The US power grid does not need to be attacked tomorrow to become a pressure tool today. The vulnerability already exists, integrated in the form of everyday devices, invisible to the end user but critical to the functioning of the country. The question raised by the official documents themselves is not whether that capacity will be used, but in what context and for what purpose. Because, in the strategic competition of the 21st century, the control of energy can be as decisive as the control of territory. Image | Unsplash and freepik Xataka | The US and China are involved in a controversy over renewable devices: what we know (and, above all, what we do not know) so far

depends on something more difficult to replace

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Europe has just learned an uncomfortable lesson. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union moved at unprecedented speed to cut the umbilical cord of Russian gas. He succeeded—more or less, because It has been a story in fits and starts– with REPowerEU: new infrastructures, supplier diversification and painful but effective adjustments. The metals are coming. However, in the background, a deeper vulnerability that is difficult to reverse has been consolidated. As Richard Holtum, director of Trafigura, warned, in his column for the Financial Times“Europe has stopped being dependent on Russian gas and has become vulnerable in something even more structural: its metal supply chains.” And that, according to himself, has a very simple and very serious consequence: “Without critical metals there are no semiconductors, no renewable energy, no military equipment, no artificial intelligence.” The continent has emerged from a trap to enter a labyrinth. The labyrinth of critical metals. The root of the problem is twofold: an overwhelming dependence on foreign countries and a silent erosion of European industrial capacity to produce and transform the minerals that sustain the modern economy. Holtum sums it up with a devastating fact: Europe has not built a single new refining complex since the 1990s, and in the last decade it has closed or cut about a third of its existing ones. Meanwhile, China deployed a deliberate strategy to absorb global refining capacity, the key link in the chain. Today controls between 70% and 90% of global processing of many essential metals. The figures confirm it. A European meta-analysis, published in Springer Naturereveals that the EU does not produce any of the gallium, germanium, vanadium or rare earths that it consumes; only residual percentages of lithium (0.1%), cobalt (0.5%), nickel (1%) or natural graphite. The same study concludes that the community objective of covering 10% of its needs for critical raw materials by 2030 is simply “unrealistic” for most metals. Europe depends almost entirely on others to access the materials that make it possible to manufacture everything from batteries to advanced weapons. Added to this structural weakness is a problem of scale: demand will multiply between six and fifteen times between now and 2050 due to the electrification of transport, the massive deployment of renewables and accelerated digitalization. The Union needs more metals than ever just when it has the least capacity to produce or refine them. A strategic industry that is reeling. The impact is already visible. According to Euronewsthe European steel industry speaks openly of “survival” in the face of the flood of heavily subsidized Chinese steel and punitive American tariffs. The chemical industry, another historical pillar of the European industrial fabric, is going through even more severe deterioration: closed plants, evaporated investments and a growing consensus among analysts that “deindustrialization is no longer a risk: it is a reality.” The irony is bitter. The EU wants to electrify everything, but it does not control the minimum materials for that electrification. Wind turbines contain more than 8,000 parts, many containing critical metals; solar panels generate increasing amounts of waste whose recycling is still in its infancy; 85% of a turbine can be recycled, but almost no one does. What should be the European passport to energy autonomy becomes a bottleneck that threatens to stop factories, delay infrastructure and undermine the green transition. China, from supplier to industrial minotaur. Friction with China is no longer just commercial: it is structural. Beijing has tightened its export controls on critical metals in the last year. According to the World Economic Forum, Recent restrictions on rare earths, gallium, germanium and antimony have raised prices, forced European plants to shut down and generated a climate of permanent uncertainty for entire industries. can be explained with a recent example: To obtain import licenses, German companies must provide the Chinese government with extremely detailed information: manufacturing diagrams, photographs indicating where rare earths are located in a product, customer lists, inventory volumes, production data for the last three years and future forecasts. Meanwhile, the German government acknowledges that it does not even have that level of detail about its own companies. The paradox is evident: China knows more about the German industrial anatomy than the German state itself. That asymmetry fuels a form of surgical coercion: delaying a critical license here, slowing a key flow there, straining bilateral negotiations, pushing through rotating checks every six months. The underlying message is clear: whoever depends, obeys, or better known as “Second China Shock”. A response that arrives late. The European reaction is underway, although many recognize that it is late. According to the European CommissionBefore the end of the year, Brussels will present the new RESourceEU plan, aimed at guaranteeing supply, creating strategic reserves, strengthening agreements with third countries and boosting mining and refining within the EU. To this will be added the creation of a European Center for Critical Raw Materials, in charge of coordinating joint purchases, monitoring risks and acting as a nerve center for industrial intelligence. The Commission’s work program for 2026, under the motto “Europe’s Independence Moment”also places access to raw materials at the heart of its sovereignty strategy. Along with strengthening defense capabilities, protecting critical infrastructure and promoting innovation, Brussels admits for the first time that without stable access to essential minerals no industrial autonomy project is viable. The return of stockpiling. One of the most relevant developments is the debate on strategic reserves. According to a Financial Times reportthe EU will launch a consultation to decide which metals to store, how much to buy and how to finance it. It is a profound change: Europe has had oil reserves for decades, but has never considered storing critical minerals. However, an obvious problem arises. Some materials—such as lithium hydroxide, recalls Fastmarkets—have a useful life of just six months even when stored correctly. Others, such as certain metal oxides, require very specific humidity and temperature conditions. And in the case of metals such as gallium or germanium, buying massively would imply acquiring them from China. … Read more

Big tech companies are fleeing China like the plague. Their future depends on it

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The growing tension between China and the United States is causing a stampede among big technology companies. Apple already made a move at the beginning of the year and now Microsoft and Amazon follow. They are not the first companies that They move from China to manufacture in other Asian countriesbut this migration is different as they are trying to eliminate China from the entire supply chain down to the smallest component level. What is happening. They count in Nikkei Asia that Microsoft wants to manufacture most of its products outside of China and has set a limit of 2026. This movement would affect the production of Microsoft Surfaces and especially data centers, since it is a much more sensitive product. In fact, they have already managed to move a large part of the production of server components because it is a more sensitive product, but their goal is for at least 80% of the components to come from outside China. They also want to move some Xbox production out of China, although in this case they are not being as strict. Why is it important. This move by Microsoft consolidates the trend of big technology companies moving towards independent supply chains from China. It is not a question of patriotism, it is an attempt to ensure their survival and minimize risks derived from the increasingly tense trade warsuch as interruptions in supply and price increases. Besides, in the middle of the AI ​​raceindependence becomes even more necessary. Something has changed. As we said, this is not the first time that technology companies have tried to become independent from China. The improvement in working conditions has made it not so cheap to produce there (although have found ways to retain manufacturing), so its status as the “factory of the world” has been lost in favor of other Southeast Asian countries. However, this time it is a broad movement that covers everything from assembly to materials and components such as PCBs, connectors, cables and fibers. The challenge. Moving the assembly is the easy part, but moving the entire production to the last component is a huge challenge. The date that Microsoft has set does not seem very realistic, especially considering that we are talking about a large production volume. According to Omdiadistribute about 4 million Surfaces per year. amazon. AWS is also moving towards ‘non-Chinese’ production for its AI data centers. They were considering reducing the presence of SYE, their printed circuit board supplier, but realized that it was not so easy to replace them. They are companies with which they have a relationship for decades and offer good prices, as well as quality and great production capacity. Google. Those in Mountain View are also embarking on a similar path. According to Nikkei, they are asking their suppliers to expand server production in Thailand. At the end of 2024 we learned that They planned to invest 1 billion dollars and it seems to have paid off because they have managed to double their production capacity with four new facilities. Image | Flickredited In Xataka | The problem is not that Europe has “expropriated” Nexperia from a Chinese company: it is that it approved its sale just a year ago

Nvidia is the Canary in the mine for the world economy. It depends on whether a recession arrives or not

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Nvidia will present its results from the second fiscal quarter on Wednesday. The market Wait for income of 46,000 million dollars54% more than a year ago, with benefits per share of $ 1.01, 48% higher. Why is it important. Nvidia is no longer just one more technological company. With almost 8% of the weight of the American index S&P 500 and a market value of 4.3 billion dollars, its results move world bags. Investors hope that Wall Street ranges 0.9% after knowing the figures, more even after types of types of interest of the Federal Reserve. The context. Large technology still invests fortunes in artificial intelligence. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google represent 40% of Nvidia’s income. Their investment plans in data centers and graphic processors do not show brake signals. Goal has just launched Your Superintelligence Laboratory. Tesla bets on autonomous cars and humanoid robots. The problem is that the market already discounts perfection. The action quotes in its historical maximums and any disappointment, however small, could trigger a brutal correction. Yes, but. China is still the great unknown. The Chinese government has just recommended to local businesses that Avoid NVIDIA H20 chipspecifically designed for that market. The United States had authorized sales in exchange for keeping 15% of incomebut the commercial war threatens a market valued at 50,000 million dollars. Between the lines. Analysts are still extremely optimistic. Nine investment firms have uploaded their target prices in the last week to an average of $ 194, 9% above Friday’s closure. But the option of options Sample nervousness: investors expect a 6% movement in any direction. Sectorial rotation has already begun. Technology has been the worst stock market sector in August and interest -ranking values ​​have taken off. Small companies rise 5% in the last month. The construction companies, 10%. At stake. If Nvidia disappoints, even if it is minimally, it could trigger a massive sale in technology and confirm bubble fears in artificial intelligence. If you exceed expectations, it will revive the technological increases and remove the ghosts of the recession. As says The strategist Art Hogan: “Nvidia has the potential to be the positive catalyst.” Or, we would add to sink everything. In Xataka | The countdown begins: Nvidia is going to give your chips to the push you need to maintain their domain Outstanding image | Nvidia

To the question of whether the food loses nutrients in the freezer, the answer is depends on how let’s defrost it

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In a casual conversation, the bread issued came out. Consumption a lot bread I make at homeand there are times that I have to freeze it. It is a practice that seems normal to me and in the bakery themselves give me bags for the freezer, but my friends do not think the same because “Defrosting bread is not the same“Hence the question about how freezing affects the food we consume, and the truth is that it is a rich issue and with many nuances. And almost more important than freezing, it is defrosting. There things can get dangerous to our health. Crystal. Humanity takes thousands of years using what it has at its disposal to better conserve food. The brine is a tacticbut in areas with ice and snow, They buried the food so that it did not rot. And then, the miracle arrived: the freezer. We underestimate it because we have it at home, but it is a fundamental tool, and what happens when we put a food in the freezer is that the low temperature freezes the water present in said food. And here is the mother of the lamb: not all foods freeze the same because, the more water they have, the more complex it will be a good defrost, the more its structure is altered and it is what can lead to us to think that the freezer is not so positive and that it alters the nutrients. But as we said, there are nuances. It depends on what we freeze. What happens is that internal water form crystals When frozen. The more water, the more crystals they form and, if the freezing is slow, those crystals can break the cell walls of the food. When we defrost it, the crystals get rid of and it is what can cause food to be softer or perceive like water. Vegetables and fruits suffer more than meat Because the amount of water they have inside is greater, but as we said, there are nuances because there are rich starchy vegetables whose molecular structure is maintained more than desirable after that freezing. If we crush the frozen fruit directly, provide flavor and texture to a shake. Does not lose its nutrients and we will not notice the change in texture Taste and texture. An example. Freezing peas or corn, rich in starch, allows, after defrosting, both texture and taste are maintained satisfactorily. However, lettuce, which has a huge amount of water, not only is left without grace and soft when defrosting, also loses its flavor. That happens because, in cell breakage, food loses its juices and, if in the meat or fish it is less evident, in fruits or vegetables whose base is the water becomes much more palpable. Then it also depends on what we do with that food: eating a defrosted lettuce is a punishment, but if we freeze watermelon, which is basically water, and without defrosting it we make a shake, the result will be satisfactory. Although even there we will notice a change of flavor. And very fatty foods such as milk or a yogurt can separate proteins, creating lumps by defrosting them. The avocado, however, endures it well. There is fruit that better supports freezing And the nutrients? But one of the central themes of the debate revolved around the Loss of nutrients of frozen foods. This may be the point at which there is more confusion, and luckily it is a point that has been studied to be able to extract some conclusions. Again, there are nuances. Proteins, fat -soluble vitamins such as A and D of meats and fish, minerals and fiber remain stable in freezing. An investigation from the University of Guadalajara suggests That even freezing can be beneficial to preserve certain nutrients that bioactive compounds would “eat” if we do not freeze food. However, The opposite occurs with hydrosoluble vitamins such as C or some of Group B, which are reduced slightly not during freezing, but in the defrosting of food. And then it is not the same industrial ultra -Gellation, which freezes foods very, very fast, than the one we can do at home. In that industrial freezing, water crystals are much smaller because it does not give time to develop, damaging the cellular structure of the food. Freeze well. It is complicated that we have at our disposal a freezer that allows us to cryogenize a steak in seconds, but what we do are techniques to freeze foods in the best possible way. To freeze them, it is best to introduce what we want to freeze in an air without air or in a hermetic container so that it does not contaminate the rest of the food we keep and its flavor does not alter, and to defrost them, There is a trick of tricksbut above all two that are fundamental. As important as freezing is how we defrost. If it is something that we are going to cook at the moment, we can resort to the microwave or directly to the pan. In that rapid defrosting, juices are those that have hydrosoluble vitamins and, when the interior of the product reaches the optimal temperature, it would be suitable to consume. But if we have chicken, fish or a frozen homemade pizza dough, it is Bad idea to leave the piece defrosting on the countertop Or, worse, expose it to the sun. There the thing becomes complicated and can even be harmful to the flavor due to something very simple: in a defrosting at room temperature, the base that supports the surface is defrost before and favors that the bacteria that had remained in pause retake their activity in a big way thanks to the fact that they have life, nutrients and more water than before, increasing the risk of poisoning. The best if we are not in a hurry? Plan and get out of the freezer what we are going to eat the next day … Read more

China is building the fusion-fission reactor that the US canceled decades ago. The future of nuclear energy depends on your fate

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In the newly built Yoohu scientific island, next to the city of Nancheng, China advances discreetly in its plans to materialize a project that the United States explored and abandoned decades ago: the hybrid fusion-fission reactor. Xinghou-1. His name means “spark”, and is inspired by an appointment by Mao Zedong: “A single spark can set the entire meadow.” But it’s no small thing: it has behind An investment of more than 200,000 million yuanthe equivalent of 28,000 million dollars. The objective: build a hybrid central with 100 megawatts of electrical power, 300 megawatts of thermal power and, most importantly, a plasma energy gain factor (Q) greater than 30. An unprecedented achievement that could redefine the future of nuclear fusion nuclear energy. What all this means. To understand the magnitude of this objective, you have to put it in context. The nuclear fusion, the same process that feeds the stars, promises clean energy without the radioactive waste of current nuclear fission. The great challenge is get a fusion reaction to generate more energy of which consumes. The National Ignition Facility of the United States achieved in 2022 a historical milestone with a value q of 1.5demonstrating for the first time a net energy gain. The International Experimental Thermonuclear Reactor (Iter), a gigantic multinational project that is being built in France, aspires to achieve a Q> 10 to demonstrate the viability of large -scale fusion. Xinghuo, however, points to a Q> 30, the threshold that experts consider necessary for a merger plant to be commercially profitable. How does China plan to make this giant leap? The answer is in your hybrid approach. A fusion-fission reactor. That is, a reactor that uses the high energy neutrons generated by a fusion reaction (the “spark”) to bombard a mantle of fistible material such as uranium. This triggers a fission reaction that greatly multiplies energy production. In essence, use the fusion as a catalyst to make the fission much more efficient. The Xinghuo-1 project has already entered into the initial phase, which includes the tender and evaluation of its environmental impact. Its development is in charge of the state company Nuclear China Industry 23 Construction Corporation (CNI-23) and the private company Lianovation Superconductor. The road that the United States abandoned. The concept is not new. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States Department of Energy investigated hybrid reactors before political priorities changed. Concerns about nuclear proliferation (hybrids can be used to produce plutonium) and a strategic commitment to “pure fusion” such as the definitive and cleaner solution led to the abandonment of this line of research. United States, and with it much of the West, They put all their chips on projects like the iter. China, on the other hand, has seen a shortcut in the hybrid model. While pure fusion follows decades away from its commercialization, a hybrid reactor like Xinghuo could connect a merger plant to the electricity grid much earlier. As soon as in 2030, According to SCMP. A coordinated national commitment. Xinghuo is part of a well -financed fusion ecosystem. China also maintains the East project, a Tokamak fusion reactor that has been able to maintain a 100 million degrees plasma for more than 17 minutes. The Huanliu-3 project, a newer and more powerful tokamak in experimentation phase. And the CFETR project, A large -scale pure fusion reactorconsidered the Chinese equivalent of Iter. The success of Xinghuo not only depends on its own advances, but also on the development of a complex industrial supply chain for key components such as superconductor magnets and the thermal vacuum chamber. If China makes Xinghuo work, either in 2030 or 2035, the implications would be seismic. They would demonstrate the viability of a route to commercial fusion energy that the rest of the world abandoned long ago. He could put Beijing years, if not decades, ahead in the energy race. Image | Xinhua In Xataka | The largest nuclear fusion project fails before the first ignition: Iter delays one of its key milestones at 2033

If the question is “I can wear a free hand suitcase with Ryanair”, the response of justice is: it depends

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Win and lose. And along the way a fine continues to float a fine and the consequences derived from it. The sanction to Ryanair receives an extra cost in the hand suitcase continues to leave us sentences and one thing is clear: neither the justice itself agrees. A fine. It all starts last November. One is confirmed Historical fine to four operators. Of these, Ryanair is the most affected. The sanction is 107.78 million euros and is imposed to breach the rights of passengers to carry a hand suitcase without extra cost. At least that is what the government that sanctions the company through consumption. Ryanair, on the contrary, has another opinion. Yes, it accepts that there is a regulation that allows free hand luggage to be carried out but it shields that there are no established measures for it. As there is no “standard” suitcase, they charge to carry the luggage that can be transferred to the winery. What are Ryanair’s conditions? First of all, what we have to know is that Ryanair does let a lump to the cabin. But that is, exclusively a lump that does not exceed the measures of 40 x 20 x 25 cm. That size does not comply with those considered as cabin bags that extend up to 55 x 40 x 20 cm and 10 kg of weight. In that case, in carrying with us a trolley to the cabin of the plane, we will have to pay the fee Regular or priority that opens the door to that usual suitcase in the planes and a second lump such as a backpack or a bag. This game with the diffuse areas of the law, that of not being defined in any regulations what are the exact measures of a suitcase, is the one that the Irish company grabs to defend its position before the demands of the users. Ryanair wins. At least in Seville. There, the company has made the resource of a client who was forced to pay for the cabin suitcase does not prosper. Section 2 of the Mercantile Court of Seville has dismissed the demand filed by the traveler, they explain since The world. The client understood that they were charging 12 euros on a round trip (six per trip) illegally. However, the Sevillian court buys the defense of Ryanair: it is not true that it is prevented from flying with a free suitcase, what Ryanair prevents is accessing with a suitcase superior to the dimensions of 40 x 20 x 25 cm. And they point out that the client was allowed “to carry a lump of reasonable dimensions.” Ryanair loses. At least in Salamanca. There, the company has to return 147 euros to a passenger receivable the cabin suitcase in five different routes between 2019 and 2024, they point out in eldiario.es. The affected person is a Facua partner, an association through which they have filed their demand. In this case, the passenger denounced that the company had forced him to choose the rate Priority to be able to access the cabin of the plane with your hand luggage in which it only wore basic clothes and equipment. The judge has based her decision that “hand luggage is an indispensable element of passenger transport (…) cannot be subject to price supplement,” they collect in The world. Beyond specific cases. What we have, in addition to two contradictory sentences, is that the battle between Ryanair and the Government continues. On the one hand, from the Executive they defend the consumption decision and, on the other, Ryanair continues to show that the sentences in which they obtain favorable results They are certification that the company “fully complies with the legislation of the European Union.” The problem for passengers is that the pulse between Ryanair and Government has overflowed and is affecting peripheral airports, where the company had a substantial role in air traffic and where is marching as a pressure measure To the Executive. In fact, the company has insisted that if Aena’s rates do not fall in the future (the excuse to reduce the presence in these places) will continue to derive its operations To other places. Operations like its new line to Morocco that despite the low volume of occupation keeps open thanks to a government doping. Doping that, by the way, We have also applied in Spain. Photo | Fotis In Xataka | Choosing seat to fly has become a luxury. Now Ryanair has his own subscription to assure you

Europe’s access depends on the United States. ESA has presented a strategic plan to become independent

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Guarantee the technological autonomy of Europe in space will be key in the rearma of the European Union. He ESE Strategic Plan For the next 15 years it has just made it clear. The document, entitled “Strategy 2040: raising the future of Europe”, establishes as one of the priorities of the space agency to strengthen autonomous access to orbit and independent from NASA. At what point is that. With an annual budget of 7.7 billion euros, the European Space Agency has a powerful scientific exploration program: it has just presented The first Euclid space telescope data set, He is on his way to Jupiter’s icy moons with Juice and Has Hera traveling to the Dimorfo asteroid as a spatial defense mission. ESA also develops the Galileo navigation system of the European Commission, which is more precise than the American GPSis behind one of the most advanced land observation programs that exist: the constellation of Sentinel satellites, which is part of the European Copernicus program. Also together with the European Commission, ESA just closed An agreement of 10,000 million euros (between public and private funds) to build the constellation of Iris2 satellites. The objective: reduce the strategic disadvantage of Europe in front of the Starlink constellation and the incipient Chinese constellations. Europe also has a wide network of observatories and the ability to communicate with deep space with antennas in Madrid, Argentina and Australia. In fact, one of the NASA deep space network stations (DSN) has A station operated by INTA in Robledo de ChavelaMadrid, from where he communicates with his Martian rovers and other probes. What depends on NASA. ESA does not have its own spacecraft to transport astronauts. From the veto to Russia and its Soyuz capsules, it depends exclusively on the Crew Dragon ships of Spacex to access the International Space Station, either in NASA long -term missions or in commercial missions of short duration of the AXIOM company. The same thing happens with the Artemis missions to the moon. ESA is one of NASA’s most important partners in its lunar program. Plans to carry up to 1,500 kg of load With each flight of the Argonaut lunar moduleand has contributed a key component of the manned ship Orion: the service module. However, NASA has prioritized the presence of a Canadian astronaut in the Artemis II mission and A Japanese astronaut In the future of the launning. The giant’s rear. While that collaborates closely with NASA in many important missions, such as the detection of objects close to Earth, James Webb space telescope or the mission of recovery of land samples mars mars sample return (Now in pause), Much of its infrastructure follows the rear of the American space agency. Especially in launching capacity. In addition to the best funded space agency (25.4 billion dollars of annual budget), the United States has the most buoyant and advanced private space industry in the world. Spacex puts 80% of the mass that is launched globally a year, and is the only company, along with Rocket Lab, which usually reuses its pitchers. In recent years, Europe has had to launch some of its most important missions (including Galileo strategic satellites) in Falcon 9 rockets of Spacex for an internal crisis of pitchers. The European plan. For all the above, added to the political context, one of the central objectives of the EES in its Strategy 2040 is to reduce the dependence of the United States in spatial matters. A good part of their future public contracts will be oriented to boost the growth and competitiveness of the European private space industry. The goal is to generate more than 250,000 jobs related to space in Europe. At the same time, ESA will take advantage of its research facet to collaborate more closely with European universities in the development of new generation technologies. For this they need to attract talent to the careers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, so it starts from the work will be inspired by young people with space missions and the communication work of their astronauts, Among them Pablo Álvarez and Sara García. Reusable rockets. European releases have been stagnant in an inefficient duopoly: heavy satellites are thrown with French Ariane rockets and light satellites do it aboard Italian rockets Vega. Ariane 6 and Vega C are barely beginning to operate normally after erratic years, but its disposable nature puts Europe in a vulnerable situation against Spacex and the US New Space. Things are going to start changing. The German company Isar Aerospace could become this March 24 In the first European company that launches a commercial rocket, the Spectrum, to the land orbit. The Spanish PLD Space hopes to do it at the end of the year with the Miura 5ura rocket. There are only two examples of the effervescent panorama of European microlanzores, but all have in common the support of the ESA and ambitious plans to turn their rockets into reusable. Pld ha announced even a manned ship called lynx. At the forefront. Recovering the lost terrain with its own reusable rocket ecosystem and manned ships is only part of the plan. ESA also plans to expand its satellite constellations, lead the world in the elimination of space garbage, participate in future orbital stations and lunar bases, and develop high thrust engines such as Spacex or Blue Origin, for which you have granted A contract to the Spanish company PANGEA AEROSPACE. He does not expect to have everything ready suddenly, but the strategic plan projects an increase in launches from 2030 and an increasing capacity to launch heavier loads at more distant orbits, without depending on foreign pitchers and without neglecting the development of other technologies, such as advanced communications systems and autonomous capabilities for asteroid surveillance. In short, give the 23 member states that finance ES an autonomous access to space. A matter of money. In return, the European Space Agency asks Europe for something very concrete: more money. Its budget is less … Read more

Parental control depends on a subscription

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It is Sunday, February 2, and that means one thing: that the Mobile World Congress begins. The doors have not yet been opened, but the brands have begun to make presentations. One of them is Global HMD. The brand, which until relatively little manufactured nokia mobilesnow signs the smartphones with their own name, HMD, and it has been seen in the city to launch a new batch of products. One of them is a mobile for young people. And yes, it comes tied to a subscription. HMD Fusion X1. That is the name that HMD has given its new terminal, a device that has been developed in collaboration with Xplora. This brand may be familiar, since it is known for its Smart Watches with GPS for children. The company has not revealed its specifications or mentioned anything about the price, but it has commented that its key point (parental control) depends on a monthly payment. HMD Fusion X1 | Image: Xplora Parental control (payment). Leaving aside the technical characteristics, the Quid of this terminal resides in the Xplara subscription, whose price starts from 4.99 euros per month. According to HMD, this subscription “offers parents a total control over the experience of use of the smartphone of their teenage children (…) while offering a device for which young people can be excited.” What does it include? In HMD’s words, for 4.99 euros a month, parents can customize access to the internet applications. According to the company, this “allows parents to choose to restrict social networks and internet navigation or limit them.” Likewise, continuous monitoring of the location in intervals of 20 seconds with safe areas, emergency calls, low battery alerts and remote access to the device for parents is included. HMD Fusion X1 | Image: Xplora A “school mode” has also been added that “guarantees that distractions are reduced to a minimum during school hours blocking specific applications and functions when necessary.” All that, of course, can be controlled remotely from the parents’ phone. And more security. HMD has also announced a collaboration with Safetoneta system that offers “offers protection on the device based on artificial intelligence, automatically detecting and blocking the harmful content before it reaches the user, without depending on external applications that can be eluded.” This will be released in summer, thus being the first brand to do so. Images | HMD, Xplora In Xataka | My first mobile: 11 cheap smartphones for children and adolescents

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