desperate

Countries are desperate to raise their birth rates. They have a very simple weapon to apply: teleworking

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He aging population is one of the most pressing problems for large economies around the world. The birth rate is a pillar in a country’s economy, since the economy, the labor market, education and health, among many other policies, depend on it. When governments talk about “birth crisis“, they almost always resort to the same repertoire of solutions: baby checks, tax deductions or daycare aid. The problem is that, after years of applying them, fertility in most rich countries continues on the ground. However, a new study raises a new perspective: what if the solution to the birth rate problem was in the way we work? In that scenario, teleworking appears as a surprisingly powerful lever. Telework to have more children. a study carried out by researchers at Stanford University has discovered that offering work flexibility and teleworking improves the fertility rate in couples in which one of the members teleworks. The researchers did not measure the number of births (natality), but rather the fertility indicator. That is, the number of children that participants say they plan to have. The result is difficult to ignore because someone who does not have free time or who considers that they could not take on the upbringing of a child, nor do they consider having one. That is to say, there is no such predisposition, which does not help the birth rate grows. According to the study, going from having no teleworking option to teleworking five days a week is associated with an approximate increase of 0.13 children per woman in terms of expected fertility. This is equivalent to an increase of between 7% and 8% over the average of the group analyzed. Birth and fertility are not the same. It should be noted that talking about birth and fertility represents different scenarios, and this confusion can distort the debate. The birth rate It is the number of births that occur in a country during a specific period. It is the most common data when talking about birth rate since it determines, in real terms, the number of annual births, and allows it to be compared with the number of deaths to establish the demographic balance. Fertility, on the other hand, is a background indicator. It represents the number of children a woman has (or is expected to have) throughout her life. It is usually expressed as Global Fertility Rate (TGF). The difference between both concepts is important. While the birth rate can vary from year to year (for example, advancing decisions or in response to certain policies) without changing the structural trend, the fertility rate is a long-term metric: it indicates whether a woman plans to have only one child (no matter the year) or more. Motivated to have children. Examples like South Korea or Japan They show how complicated, and how expensive, it is to change a downward birth rate trend. That is why the increase in the intention to have children, without making any investment or applying additional fiscal policies, is very striking. The results of the study suggest that, perhaps, the way forward is not to subsidize the birth of more children, but rather to make the organization of parents’ work compatible with their upbringing. It’s not for money: it’s for time. For years, the political response has been fairly predictable. Having children is expensiveso you have to put money on the table to lighten that burden. The problem is that, although in most homes they need two salaries To survive, the truly scarce resource is time to take care of the children. Teleworking and flexible hours have reduced this daily friction since it implies less time traveling, greater control over schedules and, above all, greater ability to react to unforeseen events. for child care. The report ‘Women in the Workplace’ prepared by McKinsey showed that the lack of flexible hours forces many women to reduce their hours or stagnate their professional career. On this point, the conclusions of the Stanford researchers fit with the data that Pew Research got In a previous survey: Even with the difficulties of reconciling family and work, the majority of respondents considered it necessary to continue working and did not want to sacrifice their professional careers. What they needed was a job that does not make work life and childcare incompatible. It needs investment, but it is cheap. The study concludes that to match the fertility rate achieved by teleworking, it would be necessary to apply fiscal policies and incentives at a much higher cost. Subsidized childcare can improve the situation, but none of these measures make it easier. child care on a day-to-day basis, nor does it encourage families to have more children that complicate logistics even more. The time availability and flexibility of teleworking does. This does not mean that the implementation of teleworking is free. Has organizational costs for companiesyou cannot telework in all sectors and it can generate inequalities between employees whose positions do allow teleworking and those who do not. In Xataka | We have been teleworking for four years and a study has reached a conclusion: working from home makes us happier Image | Pexels (Anastasia Shuraeva)

The new Ferrari Luce is much more than Ferrari’s first electric car. It is a desperate cry to find a new audience

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We thought of 2026 as the year in which we would see Ferrari’s first electric car. Boom. As of February 9, we already know the first details of its interior. The company itself has made them public in what is the first of the many appetizers that they will provide us before knowing the final bite. At the moment we already have its name, its interior and a bomb: the design of the cabin has been carried out by Jony Ivewho led Apple design until his departure in 2019. He Ferrari Lucewhich will be the company’s first electric car, has been seen with an interior that breaks with the entire collective imagination of what a Ferrari should be and, at the same time, draws on its history. Why an electric Ferrari? We have been talking about Ferrari’s first electric car for more than five years. Do you remember what life was like before 2020? The electric car seemed like the future, brands were striving to make the leap to zero emissions and the European Union warned that in 2035 we would not have a single car on sale with a combustion engine. Five years later, regulators have accepted that cars with combustion engines can be sold. Of course, the common mortals will not touch them. Or, at least, we will not be able to go to the dealership and order one because the real demands regarding emissions dictate, right now, that if a brand does not want to pay fines it will have to sell many (very many) electric cars for each pure combustion car. And that leaves two paths: either the brand sells those electric vehicles or it puts cars on the market that are expensive enough for the customer to pay the fine and continue to get an economic return from them. Come on, what Combustion cars will be a thing for the rich. But this change in regulation comes late for most brands. Because almost all of them had launched a 100-meter dash race to have their electric cars ready as soon as possible. This career has come hand in hand with enormous investments that, except in very specific cases, were no longer worth stopping. One of them is Ferrari. The brand has needed to move forward with Luce, its first electric car. A car that will not only take advantage of the advantages of electric motors. The first thing its interior tells us is that the Ferrari Luce will be much more than a sports car. It is one of the most important cars in its history. And Ferrari wants to make it a before and after. Ferrari Luce interior Much more than an electric Ferrari In its first electrified car, the Ferrari LaFerrari, the Maranello company sent a clear message: its first electrically powered car was going to be the most cutting-edge and wildest Ferrari ever built. With its first fully electrified car, the first to be sold without an exhaust pipe, Ferrari sends another clear message: techie customer, customer who wants to be fashionable, we are here. It is no coincidence that the cabin of This Ferrari Luce was designed by Jony Ive. Whoever was the head of design at Apple is considered one of the legends of industrial design, with decisions in which he clearly opted for form over functionality. The beautiful over the practical. The Ferrari Luce is everything we could expect since the relationship between Ive and those from Maranello is known. The cabin plays with a neo-retro design, with a steering wheel that recalls the simplicity of the extreme sportiness of a Ferrari F40 or an interior where the buttons have been replaced by aviation-style keys. There are just a few buttons on the center console to raise and lower the windows or lock them. A kind of joystick acts as a gear shift lever. Ferrari Luce gear selector Detail of the central screen button panel The interior of the Luce does not forget that a Ferrari is a sports car with paddles behind the steering wheel rim. But the small islands that shelter the selection positions here forget about the most sporting details to prioritize more day-to-day functions. And this is important. It still has a manettino to select the driving mode but it has a second lever to select what, we assume, will be the degree of power delivery to extend the battery’s autonomy. We have a direct button to control the wipers and another to, we suppose, deactivate the beeps of the wipers. ADAS systems. The turn signals, on what look like touch surfaces but I’ve explained to Top Gear which are physical, are integrated into the spokes of the steering wheel itself instead of having physical buttons and routes as in the brand’s latest models. But, of course, what draws the most attention are its two screens. We have long accepted an instrument cluster and a central screen for a Ferrari. What we did not imagine is that the main screen would be the absolute queen of the cabin with its 10.12 inches and a mobile solution at the bottom that balances between genius and purist horror. The handle is pure Ive design. The graphics displayed by Ferrari are so reminiscent of Apple that one would almost think they have embraced CarPlay Ultra. And at the same time, its 12.86-inch OLED instrument cluster screen is displayed as it would in a classic Ferrari, with its clocks well separated and extraordinary clarity for reading. The whole set is a sample of where Ferrari is right now. The company could have chosen to put an electric car in the body of a combustion Ferrari. Instead he has embraced another proposal: if I can’t convince you to jump to an electric car, I will look for new customers. Although those from Maranello have cars that are more or less usable on a daily basis, until now their proposals have always been consistent. racing Inside, a clear reminder that … Read more

Mexico needs the Mayan Train to work. And they are so desperate that they have put it in military hands

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There are many ambitious trains, but like the Mayan Train there are not as many. And it’s not because this train stands out for its speedby go through impossible tunnels either for luxurybut because few trains in the world must support a load as heavy as this one: being the backbone of the tourism in Mexico. Born with tremendous ambition, he started his engines with promises of wealth. AND is crashing resoundingly. So much so that Mexico has completed the transfer of control of the train to the Secretariat of National Defense. Army, to manage. FONATUR Tren Maya was the organization attached to the Ministry of Tourism that, since 2018was responsible for leading and managing the project. However, things did not work out, the plans were not fulfilled and, already in September 2023, when Obrador saw the arrival of the deadline to launch the train, he began to take steps for the Secretariat of National Defense to take control. After a series of steps, and as we read in Chroniclerit was at the end of 2025 when the process was finalized for Tourism to stop operating the train and Defense to take charge of it. Goals. The program has the following goals: Consolidate responsible transportation with the environment and society. Offer a safe and innovative transportation system. Ensure profitability through efficient management. That last point sounds like an ax to the previous management, but they are going to have a difficult time. Indifference. It was a few weeks ago when, in an article published by El País, the figure was revealed: the Mayan Train moved 5% of the expected demand. Neither tourists nor locals seem to have the slightest interest in a vehicle that was born to unite the different regions of the Yucatan Peninsula. Just because, It is the tourist jewel of Mexicobut also a tremendously unequal region in which Chichén Itzá brings together the majority of archaeological tourism, to the detriment of the others. And it seems that the train is not solving this. The report states that, during the first year, it transported about 3,200 passengers daily. Do we contextualize? The forecasts were for 74,000 passengers per day. Billionaire failure. It is a hard blow for a project that was already born on the wrong foot. It was the most ambitious project of the previous president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, one without private or foreign capital, 100% Mexican, which caused headaches practically from the beginning. Obrador took advantage of that public investment, but from an initial budget My dear between 120,000 and 150,000 million Mexican pesos -about 7,400 million euros-, it ended up costing more than 500,000 million pesos -about 24,500 million euros- for 1,500 kilometers of roads. Current itinerary Expansion. The change in management is not symbolic: a series of actions have been proposed to expand services. On the one hand, passing under military control implies that seeks to operate with greater security for passengers, especially in areas where conflicts with drug traffickers are a problem. Greater professionalization of management is also sought through an administration under military command, but in the background there is an expansion plan. The aim is to transport cargo such as food for isolated indigenous communities or medical goods. Also that the train serves as a humanitarian corridor in the face of misfortunes, and for this they will create more than 3,000 additional kilometerswith an extension to Puerto Progreso. Will anything change? It’s the million dollar question. On the one hand, the Sheinbaum Government has made it clear on more than one occasion that they want the railway to be the backbone of the country not only for the transportation of people, but also as a freight corridor. The goal By 2030, four million passengers per year and 4.7 million goods per year will be moved thanks to the integration with the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Thuantepec. Come on, turn the train into something that can compete against the Panama Canal. But of course, it can become a way to move goods, but we have to see if passengers use it to move. In statements to El País, it is more profitable for locals, and it is also more practical, to get around by bus. And tourists usually arrive in Yucatán with already established itineraries that do not require train services. And, on the other hand, there are the controversies associated with the military and the construction sections that they were in charge of in the past. Sections 5, 6 and 7 were commissioned directly to SEDENA, and there are not few cases of environmental violations, social conflictsviolation of human rights against indigenous Mayan communities and extra costs associated with those sections under military control. Images | Mayan Train, ProtoplasmaKid In Xataka | Urban transportation in Mexico City hangs by a thread. Literally: they will have the longest cable car in the world

A town in Burgos has resorted to a desperate idea to get people to stay there: paying them for food

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Cardeñajimeno is a small town from the Alfoz de Burgos region, in Castilla y León, where just under 1,200 residents live. Its city council is not willing to let that figure drop and has decided to tackle the challenge of depopulation by making it as easy as possible for its inhabitants, especially the elderly. As? Cooking for them and bringing food to their doorstep. Whatever it takes to escape from an “emptied Spain” that has been going on for decades. expanding your footprint through the peninsula, with the challenge what that entails. Objective: establish population. Spain may move in record population numbers, with 49.4 million of censuses as of October 1, 2025, but that does not mean that the entire territory is going through its best demographic moment. On the contrary. The ‘record Spain’ also hides a ‘Spain emptied’ that has spent decades spreading its footprint across the peninsula, feeding on municipalities that have been gradually depopulated. I warned him Before the pandemic, the Spanish Rural Development Network (REDR) recalled that in a matter of two decades the number of towns with less than one hundred neighbors had increased by 60%. A similar message The Galician Accounts Council was launched in 2024, remembering that a hundred towns in the region face the risk of becoming ghost towns. How to avoid it? That’s the million dollar question. In an attempt to fix the population and not swell the map of emptied Spain, over the last few years the administrations have racked their brains looking for solutions. Some offer financial aid to attract new residents. There are town councils that they are taking charge of local businesses (gas stations or grocery stores) to prevent their neighbors from being left without basic services. And not long ago we even told you about a remote town in the province of Soria that reached offer house and business in an attempt to attract new blood. Making it easy. In Cardeñajimeno (province of Burgos), they have gone one step further to make it as easy as possible for its inhabitants and prevent the elderly from packing their bags to move to larger towns. As? Taking care of your diet. The news has advanced it Burgos Connectwhich on Saturday revealed that two populations in the region “will pay for food” to their elders to stop the depopulation that is shaking part of the community. “Encourage permanence”. The towns in question are those that make up the municipality of Burgos: Cardeñajimeno and San Medel. A few days ago its Consistory launched a tender to look for professionals interested in providing a “catering service to elderly people” residing in the town. The goal? “Promote the elderly person’s permanence in their usual environment and avoid depopulation.” In other words, provide the necessary means so that no elderly person from Cardeñajimeno or San Medel is forced to move to Burgos or another larger town in search of comforts. But… Is it necessary? The case of Cardeñajimeno is interesting because it shows that rural Spain not only faces the challenge of depopulation, it also deals with aging. Although the situation of the town is far from being critical (the INE counts there 1,185 registeredbelow the 1,205 in 2022, but significantly above those recorded two decades ago), it does not escape the trend of the rest of Spain. 20% of its population is over 60 years old and dozens of octogenarians and nonagenarians reside in the town. “Nutritional well-being”. With the new service, the City Council wants to “provide nutritional and physical well-being to all those elderly who, given their special situation, require it.” To achieve this, it even contemplates that the company prepares “different diets” adapted to users with special needs. For example, diabetics or people who need crushed food. The base tender budget is 16,500 euros for one year, with a maximum price per menu of 9.6 euros, but the specifications also clarify that the final price will depend on the acceptance of the service, its users and how much food they request. On the State contracting platform the budget Estimated is 30,000. In other locations are already offered similar benefits. Image | Wikipedia In Xataka | Empty Spain is now officially one of the quietest places on the planet. There is no risk that it will cease to be

The situation with RAM prices is so desperate that there are already those who build their own memory at home

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The crisis we are experiencing with RAM memories and its exorbitant price is shaking the technology industry in multiple ways, precisely because they are components that found in the vast majority of devices that we use in our daily lives. Faced with the crazy prices, there are users who have not given up and have resorted to extreme solutions: building their own RAM memories. Untenable. Memory prices have skyrocketed to unsustainable levels. DDR5 modules that previously cost between 100 and 150 euros now easily exceed 350 euros in many markets. You can blame the AI. And the demand for DRAM for artificial intelligence applications has absorbed a large part of global production. OpenAI alone has accounted for 40% of all productionleaving home users paying the consequences. The worst thing is that it doesn’t look like this is going to be solved soon. And it is that according to analysis firm IDC, the shortage could last until 2027. cheap adapters. In recent weeks we have seen how some users have chosen to build their own RAM memories to face the price crisis. One of the approaches is to use SODIMM to UDIMM adapters. In a video The Hardware Canucks YouTube channel shows how they have tested this solution on Ryzen 7000, 9000, Intel LGA 1700 and LGA 1851 systems without too many problems. The approach is simple: buy DDR5 SODIMM modules (the ones for laptops) that are still relatively cheap and connect them to the system using adapters that cost between 10 and 15 euros. It must be said that this method also has its limitations, and that is that the data transfer speed that these adapters achieve is quite a lottery. In the tests carried out by Hardware Canucks they say that some do not exceed 4,800 MT/s stably, while others reach 5,600 MT/s or even 5,800 MT/s, although it depends a lot on the adapter model and the platform. In terms of performance, the good thing is that the difference is practically imperceptible. According to the content creator’s tests, with an RTX 5090 and a Ryzen 9800X3D, the difference is between 5 and 7% in the worst case compared to conventional DDR5-6000 memory. A more radical solution. Another approach is the one that the Russian modder VIK-on has opted for. And just as they count From Videocardz, the enthusiast has built a functional 32GB stick by combining chips from two 16GB SODIMM modules from SK Hynix, a Chinese PCB, and a heatsink from AliExpress. The total cost: 17,015 rubles, about $218. As explained in the media, in Russia an equivalent module costs at least three times more. Images: VIK-on After physically assembling the parts, a process that requires BGA reballing stations and considerable soldering experience, the modder then integrated ADATA firmware to enable an XMP profile that allowed the memory to run at a speed of 6,400 MT/s. In this way, VIK-on has achieved a functional 32 GB stick that any motherboard could recognize and that according to the modder works stably in games. Between the lines. That making a RAM from home is economically viable says a lot about the state of the market. Furthermore, not everyone experiences the situation in the same way, since in some markets such as Russia prices are especially prohibitive. Of course, soldering memory chips is not trivial, as it requires specialized equipment, technical experience and taking risks of damaging expensive components. The adapter method is much more bearable, but it is most likely that these homemade solutions will continue to be a niche. Most users will prefer to pay the extra price rather than risk soldering components or dealing with third-party adapters. Although if the forecasts end up being true and the crisis extends for several years, the emergence of a secondary market for professionally refurbished modules taking advantage of surpluses is no small feat. It would probably be the last solution we would resort to, but in other markets there might be enough demand. Cover image | Andrey Matveev In Xataka | The computers of the future have found an unexpected ally to store information: fungi

Telephone spam is so desperate in Spain that the Government has had to pass another law to put an end to it

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If there is something that all of Spain agrees on, it is that we must put an end to spam calls, the problem is that at the moment it is not being an easy task. Have call filters that identify them, we can report If they call us without permission and there is even laws to end thembut they keep calling us. Now the Government is back on track with the new Law on Customer Service Services. Another law. It was approved in Congress last month and is waiting to go through the Senate for final approval. It is the first state law to regulate customer service and places special emphasis on abusive practices such as automatic renewals without consent and commercial calls. It is striking that it is already the second law that includes measures against this practice (first was the General Telecommunications Law), which shows that the problem continues despite previous measures. Against spam. The Government banned commercial calls without permission in 2023the problem is that most contracts include a clause called “prior consent”, so the prohibition is of little use. More recently They have banned spam calls from mobile numbers and now the new law includes new measures. Companies will be required to use specific prefixes that distinguish commercial and customer service calls. Operators must block commercial calls that do not use such codes. To discourage companies, contracts closed through non-consensual commercial calls will be declared void. Doubts. The new measures pose more obstacles for companies that bombard us with calls, but we have already seen that the law is made, the trap is made. The obligation to implement specific codes sounds much more effective than other previous measures, but the reality is that we have been talking about the end of spam calls for years and they still continue to call us, so the doubts are there. Furthermore, we still have the problem of telephone scams that escape the regulations. Fake reviews. The fight against spam calls is only one part of the new law. The text also includes fake reviews for the first time, a problem we have been talking about for years. The law sets a limit of 30 days to be able to post a review and prohibits buying and selling reviewsalthough it does not specify how it will fight against this practice. Other measures. The law also includes other obligations for companies that provide customer service: Companies must report the total price of the service from the beginning, including management costs that may make the product more expensive, as often occurs in ticket sales. Customer service numbers cannot be premium rate numbers. They must guarantee that 95% of calls are answered in less than 3 minutes. Customers may request to speak to an operator at any time during the call. The period for addressing claims is reduced to 15 days. If the claim is for an improper charge, the period is reduced to five days. Companies with more than 250 employees that have a turnover of more than 50 million euros must guarantee service in the co-official language of the territory in which they operate. When a contract is automatically renewed, companies must inform 15 days in advance and facilitate cancellation of the service. Image | Pexelsedited In Xataka | If you are tired of receiving spam calls every day, good news: MasOrange is tired too

Correos is desperate to find the business that will save it from the red numbers. And that has led her to selling insurance

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There was a time (not so long ago) when Correos was basically an intermediary, a company you went to to send letters, postcards or packages. That’s how it grew. And thus he strengthened his brand for decades. The changes in demand and fierce competition in the logistics sector have, however, forced the public company to reinvent yourselfan endeavor in which he has been engaged for years without this having allowed him to abandon the red numbers that weigh down their accounts. What has altered is its relationship with users. The last (and most revealing) example is left the decision of Correos to market insurance taking advantage of its vast network of offices and postmen, which has already earned it the union reproach. What has happened? That Correos has led a curious movement in its efforts to diversify income and leave behind the red numbers. a few months ago reached an agreement with the company AXA to market its private insurance. The alliance was announced in spring, when it was applied in 32 offices with a view to expanding to more than 800 branches throughout the country over the months. At that time, the Post Office detailed which would initially be dedicated to distributing policies for vehicles, homes, health and life and death insurance, although without closing the doors to expanding that offering to “any product” from AXA. Why is it news now? The agreement It closed in February and Correos began to market AXA insurance in mayupon registration as exclusive agent. The initiative has now made headlines again for a reason that has more to do with form than substance, although it gives an idea of ​​the extent to which the public company is committed to diversifying its services. CCOO has denounced that the company is entrusting postmen in rural areas with the task of selling policies, “a function completely unrelated to their traditional delivery work.” “Instead of strengthening the public service and hiring more staff, the management is dedicated to improvising and diverting work towards commercial tasks that have nothing to do with Correos’ mission,” ditch CCOO, which warns from its office in Castilla y León: “The viability of the company cannot be reduced to the sale of insurance by rural postmen. Correos cannot become a network of street vendors. Its function is to communicate, connect territories and guarantee rights, not do business with private insurance.” Why is it important? Because of the context, which is as or even more important than the measure itself. Insurance is not the public company’s first bet to strengthen its accounts in a challenging context, marked by the collapse in postal demand and an increasingly disputed parcel sector, in which it has to compete with multinationals and is losing market share. It’s nothing new. Years ago the company already launched one of its bets more ambitious: Post Marketa space of its own e-commerce who aspired to become ‘Amazon Post Office’. The objective: to take advantage of the boom in online commerce with a differentiated commitment to mark distances from giants such as Amazon or eBay, a “market for local products in which national producers and artisans (…) come together with online buyers.” In the presentation of the platform, in 2020, in fact focused on those two concepts, “local” and “artisan”. Today in Post Market It can be found from food and drinks to beauty, home, toys, fashion and pharmacy items. Have there been more initiatives? Yes. A few. In an attempt to find its place again, the company has opted for prepaid cardsthe telephony and fiber or the marketing of O2 servicesfrom Telefónica. In recent years he has also experimented with such ambitious projects as Correos Cargoan air parcel transport service in the Latin America-Europe-Asia axis, and even studied launching to commercial rail transport with the help of Renfe. Why this effort? Because Corres is very big. A lot. And the scenario in which he has to deal has changed. A lot too. With more than 50,000 employees and 2,000 offices it is usually said which is the largest public company in Spain. And how recently recognized to elDiario its strategy director, José Miguel Moreno, the company has been faced with the delicate situation of reinventing itself or disappearing. “Society is transforming and postal operators either do it or die.” It’s not just theory. According to the data revealed a few months ago by ABCLast year, Correos recorded losses worth 95 million euros, a hole that widens the carryover in previous years and that even has taken its toll to the accounts of the State Industrial Participation Company, to which it is linked. And how to turn it around? The million dollar question. That is what Correos has sought in part with its Strategic Plan 2024-2028, validated a little over a year ago by SEPI and that aspires to “transform, recover and reposition” the company to “change its business model.” With this purpose, it aims to reinforce its weight in the postal sector, give a boost to parcel delivery and “increase and diversify income” through “new activities, such as financial services, administrative procedures, insurance marketing or logistics services.” If in 2023 the postal business represented around 66% of income of the public company, followed by 24% from parcel delivery and 10% from “diversification” (“new lines of business”), the idea for 2028 is to turn the tables by making these quotas represent (respectively) 49, 35 and 16%. The goal: “Reverse the losses to end the period with an Ebitda margin of 6%, a consolidated profit situation and a healthy financial position.” Are they all challenges? No. The scenario may be complicated, as demonstrated by the fact that Correos can’t quite find the key to gain market share or the challenges it has encountered in its commitment to insurance marketing, but the company still has two good assets. Both closely interconnected. The first is its geographic penetration and vast network of operators and offices. The second, its focus as a “provider of essential services.” … Read more

Meeting the energy demand of AI is leading to desperate measures. How to reuse old airplane turbines

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The AI ​​race has put the electrical infrastructures of half the world in check. Data centers need more and more megawatts, and they need them now. But the energy industry does not play at the same pace, which explains why there are companies installing airplane engines next to these huge graphics card farms. Two options, two problems. When a company builds a new data center for AI, it has two options. The first is to connect to the electrical network, but according to IEEE Spectrumpermits to carry out interconnection can reach eight or even ten years in some regions. AI, however, advances in a matter of months, and cannot wait a decade. Hence, many companies, like Elon Musk’s xAIopt for option 2: build their own power plant on the site. This is not without problems either. Global demand for gas turbines has skyrocketed, and not just because of AI, but because of economic growth in Asia and the Middle East. Manufacturers such as GE Vernova or Siemens Energy have waiting lists of three to five years, and for larger models, the period is longer. As noted in a report by Public Powera new gas plant project commissioned today could begin operating in 2032. Aircraft engines as power plants. This bottleneck has caused, on the one hand, that turbine manufacturers rub their handsand on the other, that companies sharpen their ingenuity. And this is where aeronautical engineering and the reuse of aircraft turbines come into play. The concept of using aircraft engines to generate electricity is not new. They are known as aeroderivative turbines: they are smaller, lighter and easier to maintain than heavy industrial turbines. What is new is the scale and urgency with which this solution is being implemented. From a Boeing 747 to the data center. An American company called ProEnergy has become a protagonist of the trend with a simple plan: buy used jet engine cores, specifically the CF6-80C2 model of the iconic Boeing 747, and adapt them. These engines, after decades of service in the air, are disassembled, reviewed piece by piece and rebuilt for a second life on dry land. The result is the PE6000 unit, a gas turbine that, as detailed the popia companyis capable of generating 48 megawatts (MW) of electricity. A single one of these units can power a small or medium-sized data center, or a city of up to 40,000 homes. A bridging solution. The reality is that these converted aircraft engines are not the definitive solution, but rather what the industry bridges for the first years of operation of its data centers. “Both projects are designed to provide bridge power for five to seven years, which is when they hope to have interconnection to the grid,” says the CEO of ProEnergy. But business is good. The company has already sold 21 of these turbines for two projects, adding more than 1 gigawatt (GW) of capacity thanks to its speed of delivery. Companies can buy a turbine from ProEnergy by 2027 or wait a decade to build a conventional plant. Everyone wins. Except the environment. It is gas that ends up burning in order to have these data centers operational in record time. Image | ProEnergy In Xataka | If the question is “how does having a data center next to my house affect me”, in the US they already have an answer: 267% more expensive electricity

Japan is so desperate for its bears that it will allow hunters to shoot them in cities. Problem: you run out of hunters

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Tuesday was not an easy day Numatain Gunma prefecture, north of Tokyo. Around seven thirty in the afternoon the police received the notice that a 1.4 meter bear He had sneaked into a supermarket with several dozen customers and destroyed the fish and sushi sections. He also injured two people, one in the parking lot and another inside the store. It is not an isolated case. Not anything exclusive to Numata. Japan has a serious problem of encounters with bears. To solve it, the authorities have decided to use their most experienced hunters, but they won’t make it easy either. There are less and less. What has happened? That Japan has a problem with encounters between bears and humans, episodes that in most cases result in scares or injuries, but that sometimes end with the worst outcomes. It’s not something newbut statistics show that the problem is far from being solved. CNS News assures that between April and September 108 people suffered injuries caused by bears, reflecting a similar rate to the year between March 2023 and 2024, when the Government recorded a record of 219 attacks. Is it that serious? Many of the encounters end in scares or injuries, but the Japanese media also talk about an all-time high number of deaths: seven, the highest number since records began in 2006. The people who have suffered attacks also include both locals and tourists from other countries. In fact, just a few days ago a Spaniard received the blow in the village of Shirakawa-goWorld Heritage Site. In Shiretokoanother place popular with tourists, the trails were closed after an attack in August. What is the reason? Better to talk about ‘reasons’, in plural. When analyzing the problem, a cocktail of causes is usually cited in which environmental issues are mixed with other social and demographic issues. At the end of the day the record of attacks arrives in full abandonment from rural areas and farmland and with a serious population decline that the country has been dragging on for several decades. There are those who include other causes in the equation, such as the effect of climate change on food availability or fluctuations in acorn and beechnut harvests, which cause food scarcity among the adult population. The truth is that Japan is losing inhabitantsis suffering a rural exodus, has seen the borders between populated centers and forests blur and the country has also seen a clear increase in the bear population. Yomiuri Shimbun ensures that the number of black bears has tripled since 2012, with tens of thousands of copies, to which are added the brown from Hokkaido. And how to solve it? The big question. A month ago the country took an important decision and not exempt from controversy: Amended its wildlife protection and management law to relax rules governing what hunters can and cannot do in densely populated neighborhoods. To be more precise, the new regulations allow municipalities to commission hunters to carry out “emergency hunts” for dangerous animals in inhabited areas. Until now, the general rule prohibited killing wild animals with weapons in public spaces. It could only be authorized (and exceptionally) by the police in cases of imminent danger. After the legislative changemunicipal governments may authorize hunts against brown or black bears in densely populated areas provided that certain requirements are met: first, it must be an emergency measure; second, there can be no room for other solutions; and third (and most importantly) it must be ensured that no stray bullet will end up harming a resident. The idea is that only authorized hunters intervene. End of the problem? Not quite. Japan has decided to rely on hunters to solve bear attacks, but the problem is that in the country (like in Spain) there are fewer and fewer hunters. The diary The Mainichi published on Thursday a extensive report in which he recalls that the number of licenses in force in Japan has been decreasing as the population has decreased, the fields have been abandoned and society has changed. If in 1976 there were 500,000 first-level permits approved, since 2012 the figure has always been below 100,000. Who will shoot the bears? In Japan, there is also debate about who will be able to kill bears in neighborhoods full of houses and people. The Government already has announced that the measure will be accompanied by training workshops to guarantee that the system works correctly, which also includes planning security measures, restricting access and evacuating residents. “Emergency shots” are not in any case the only solution that the country has on the table. On the trails of Fukushima, for example, they have installed devices with sensors that seek to scare away animals. The idea: that they emit an annoying buzzing sound that becomes more intense when the bears approach. Images | Suzi Kim (Unsplash) In Xataka | Wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it

The US studied what would happen if it enters war with China. Now he has started a career desperate to double missiles

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When China raised the curtain of your military parade staged much more than arms power which has. It was a clear and direct message that had its reaction a few days later, when the United States moved its new platform from missiles to Japan. It was then discovered that, if missiles, there are 3,500 pointing In the same direction. Since then, the United States has started a desperate race: to double its own missile manufacturing for what may happen. The strategic awakening. I told it in an exclusive The Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon has turned on all alarms in the face of the evidence that its missile arsenals would not reach to sustain a prolonged conflict With China. Russian Ukraine invasion and mass consumption of interceptors In Europe the fragility of the American industrial base had already made clear. However, He counted the medium What was the twelve between Israel and Iran, in which Washington launched Hundreds of high -end missiles to support their ally, which finished emptying the deposits and precipitated a shock plan. The message that circulates in the pentagon’s offices is clear: the current arsenal is not enough to defend Taiwan or the allied bases in the Pacific if a direct confrontation with Beijing explodes. The new creation. To face that reality, the Department of Defense has created an extraordinary body, the Munits Acceleration Councilpersonally directed by Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg, who calls the main executives of the industry every week to demand immediate increases. The strategy seeks to duplicate, and even quadruplethe production of the twelve missiles considered critical: from the Patriot interceptorsto him Standard Missile-6the Long Range Anti-Ship Missilesthe Precision Strike and the Joint Air-Surface Standoff Missiles. The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegesh, and the Chief of the General Staff, General Dan Caine, They have presided Meetings with giants such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon or Boeing, but also with new actors such as Anduril Industries and with key component suppliers, from solid propellants to batteries. The destroyer of guided missiles USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) of the United States Navy launches an RIM-174 Standard Eram (Standard Missile-6, SM-6) The industrial bottleneck. The challenge is monumental. The complete manufacture of a missile can take up to two years. The production lines have cooled after decades of divestment, secondary suppliers have disappeared and critical pieces such as Boeing front search engines have become true bottlenecks. Expanding shifts, add square meters and form specialized personnel require billions of investment and firm purchase commitments. As Experts remembercompanies do not produce without contract: they need guarantees that the pentagon will not withdraw financing in the middle of the effort. Even so, some suppliers have taken steps in advance. Northrop Grumman, for example, has invested More than 1 billion in expanding its rocket engines capacity, with the expectation of doubling production in four years. Patriot Priority: Patriot. The most urgent case is the Patriot PAC-3whose global demand has shot himself. In September, the army gave Lockheed a contract of almost 10,000 million of dollars to manufacture 2,000 missiles in three years, but the objective of the pentagon is to reach that same figure Every twelve monthswhich means quadruple the current rhythm. To do this, Boeing has been seen forced to expand Thousands of square meters of its plant to assemble more search engines, while Lockheed studies new investments in assembly lines. The spokesmen insist that they can deliver above their declared capacity, but all claim more money and multiannual commitments that give stability to the productive jump. Precision Strike Missile New acquisition model. The pressure is such that The army announces “Massively substantive changes” in the way of buying weapons. Formulas such as licenseing technologies to third parties are explored, attract private capital or guarantee registration programs to give demand visibility to the entire supply chain. Trump administration already It allocated 25,000 million extra in five years through Big, Beautiful Billbut analysts agree that it will be necessary to multiply For several orders that figure to meet the objectives. The effort, in addition, is part of a greater debate: how to maintain an industrial base capable of sustaining high intensity wars in a world where arsenals are consumed in weeks. Background: China. The ultimate reason for this acceleration is the perspective of a War in the Pacific. A confrontation By Taiwan I would demand simultaneously American and Allied Bases, guarantee maritime runners and face a Chinese Navy increasingly equipped with hypersonic missiles and drons swarms. American superiority will depend not only on the quality of its systems, but on their ability to replace them quickly in case of prolonged conflict. Pentagon fears Discover too late that does not have the necessary volume to hold the pulse. Hence the race against clock to turn the industry into a large -scale war arsenal. The risk of the gap. The acceleration effort reveals the structural contradiction of the West: weapons every time more sophisticated and faces which are consumed at an industrial rate, in front of adversaries willing to flood the battlefield with solutions of low cost and mass production. In that sense, Ukraine’s lesson seems clear: millions of millions of dollars They can be exhausted In a matter of months, and rebuild reserves it has been. If the United States wants to maintain its deterrence against China, it must demonstrate that it can sustain not only technological innovation, but also the mass production on which the survival of its network of alliances depends. Image | Lockheed Martin, Mapn, Us Navy In Xataka | Satellite images have revealed that China has turned its oriental coast into a war zone: 3,500 missiles point to Taiwan In Xataka | After the demonstration of China’s force, the US moves a card sending its new missile platform to Japan

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