facing

The Winter Olympics are facing the most unexpected technological doping: penis punctures

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Human beings have always had a special relationship with flight. They say that Icarus flew so high to leave Crete that his wings ended up melting due to the action of the sun. Many years later, in 1903, the Wright brothers took flight for 12 seconds. Since then, all types of aircraft and flying accessories have been developed: from the commercial airplanes to the military, passing through the zeppelins and all kinds of gadgets for extreme sports. What we never imagined is that one of those gadgets was going to take on an unexpected name: penis. What has happened? Something as simple as it is complex: the ski jumpers’ penis is in the spotlight. Coinciding with the Winter Olympic Games which begin on Friday, February 6, 2026 in northern Italy, a rumor has spread that athletes are using their penises as part of technological doping that would make them fly further. The information that pointed to possible (and more than peculiar) doping among ski jumpers has its origin in information from the German newspaper Bild last January. It noted that athletes were injecting hyaluronic acid into their penises to increase their size. The goal, fly further. Literally. Because? Ski jumpers cannot use the suit that best suits them. Before the competitions, the responsible federation carries out 3D studies of the athletes’ bodies so that they use the suits that best fit their bodies. If the jumper reached these measurements with a swollen penis, he could use a larger size in his suit. This would create a larger surface area and, therefore, help keep it in the air longer, performing functions similar to those of a parachute. Unlike a boxer, who lose weight before going on the scale often dehydrating, in this case it is about increasing the size of the penis so that when it jumps it is smaller and than on fabric. Click on the image to go to the original tweet 5.8 meters. Winter sports, like any other elite sport, have become a race for marginal gains that can make all the difference when it comes to seconds, meters and, in this case, centimeters. According to The Timesincreasing the crotch area by two centimeters can represent a benefit of up to 5.8 meters. That, in terms of scoring, can make the difference between winning or not a medal and its color. In ski jumping, distance and technique are measured in two separate scoresincluding a wind correction. Is it doping? It’s the big question here. For now, WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) seems to be washing its hands, pointing out that injecting hyaluronic acid into the penis does not seem to increase performance of athletes. In this case we would talk about technological doping. That is, use the material used to your advantage to achieve marginal advantages that make a difference. In The New York Times They highlight that it would not be the first case of technological doping that would be studied in these Winter Olympic Games. England has been prohibited from participating with new helmets in the Skeleton test that improved the aerodynamics of its athletes. From England they defend themselves ensuring that these new helmets are safer than the old ones. Looking for the loophole in the regulations. Since the professionalization of the sport, efforts have been made to look for loopholes in the regulations to use them for their own benefit. The clearest example is in Formula 1 that has been seen since cars with six wheels to single-seaters that use turbines. Moto GP now lives in a constant obsession with aerodynamics. But playing on the margins is something that has also been used in sports where the athlete’s physique is decisive. Athletics has put the brakes on to the use of new foams and carbon plates in shoes that have broken records. In cycling too he has looked at his socks with a magnifying glass and it has been banned the use of the transistor on the chest for improve aerodynamics of the body. Although, probably, the case most similar to Penisgate It is that of the full-body swimsuits made entirely of polyurethane that caused a before and after in the history of swimming. Its use was prohibited because it increased the swimmer’s buoyancy.. But, above all, after 14 international records were broken at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and, already popularized, up to 43 world records were broken at the World Swimming Championships the following year in Rome. Photo | Todd Trapani In Xataka | This Dutch team has given its cyclists enormous “Darth Vader” helmets. And he has good reasons

We believed that the US was facing a major energy shortage problem for AI. The data says the opposite

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To win the AI ​​race you need several things, but two are very important. The first, have the best technology and the best chips. The second, having enough energy to power those chips. The US has the first, but everything pointed to it having a major energy bottleneck. That is no longer so clear. China has plenty of energy. The China’s strategic visionwhich once again has been investing in the energy field for decades, is bearing fruit and the country has considerable room for maneuver in terms of energy supply. That is a factor that seems to tip the balance in its favor: Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, already warned that China can win the AI ​​race. According to him, China has more flexible regulation and its companies have government subsidies for the energy their data centers need. But the US has another philosophy. A deep study from the startup Epoch AI—responsible for FrontierMath AI benchmark— serves as a counterpoint to these pessimistic theories. In recent months we have seen how the US seems to have a real problem with the energy needed for AI data centers. China has not stopped increasing its energy generation capacity, but the US has not for a simple reason: until now it did not need it. Source: Epoch AI. However, Epoch AI explains that it is not that the US is not capable of creating more energy capacity: it simply has not needed it until now. While China has prepared for the future—even if that future does not come—the US has maintained a more conservative attitude: as long as there was no demand, it would not make any move. The immediate question, of course, is whether you can move it now or is it too late? And no, it doesn’t seem like it is. Forecast of necessary energy capacity for data centers in the US until 2030 according to different scenarios. In the worst of all of them (pink color), almost 80 GW of capacity will be needed. Source: Epoch AI. The demand is going to be huge. There is a reality: those ambitious plans to create more and more data centers throughout the US —with Project Stargate at the forefront—will cause data centers in the country to need between 30 and 80 GW of energy capacity in 2030. For those responsible for the study, it is perfectly possible that the US “gets its act together” – pun intended – and manages to increase its energy capacity. As? Various options. The US has room for maneuver. In order to supply all that energy that all those data centers will theoretically need, there are several clear alternatives according to the Epoch AI study: Natural gas: is relatively cheap and plants can be built quickly. There are three large companies that can cover this demand: GE Verona, Mitsubishi Heavy and Siemens. The plans of all of them point to a production of more than 200 GW in 2030. Even if they are not met, this supply (without being totally dedicated to AI) would already be an important part of the solution. Solar energy: the other big part of the solution, especially because its costs have fallen drastically and because it is very, very scalable. We have already seen how the US has the capacity to install 1,200 GW solar for IA thanks to its deserts, but at the moment Big Tech does not dare to use them. Once again, estimates point to around 200 GW of installed capacity in 2030, but even if these expectations are not met, this infrastructure will also be a clear part of the solution. Energy flexibility. The report also talks about a dynamic supply philosophy. Most of the time the US power grid is oversized for one simple reason: It is built to be able to supply power at peak peaks—like when everyone turns on the air conditioning—but most of the time there is plenty of power even to give to large AI data centers. This future infrastructure must be created with that same idea: oversized, but flexible. And there are other alternatives. The country is turning to energy solutions that it thought were buried to power data centers. Among them are the fossil plants that were theoretically going to close but that are returning to operation due to the astonishing increase in demand. There is also talk of going to military solutions and even more unusual alternatives, such as energy under volcanoes. Not to mention, of course, the nuclear power plants and the small nuclear reactors (SMR) that are already being used by some of the Big Tech for your data centers. Be careful with your electricity bill. The reality is that in the North American country data centers are growing faster than electrical infrastructure, and these facilities They are draining the country’s electricity. The situation is even causing electricity grid operators to ask be able to shut down data centers in times of high demand. And then there’s the other big side effect: AI data centers they are skyrocketing the electricity bill. When starting up an AI data center, power costs a tenth of what chips cost. Source: Epoch AI. There doesn’t seem to be a problem. Even with all those obstacles, Epoch AI’s conclusion is clear: “we doubt these challenges are significant enough to impede the scaling of AI.” In fact, they remember that what is actually expensive are the chips, not the energy, which represents a tenth of the investment in chips. The report concludes that China having an advantage is not necessarily true, and that the hypothetical US energy bottleneck “is much weaker than many people have indicated.” Image | Andrey Metelev In Xataka | Artificial intelligence has already reached nuclear power plants. And it’s going to change them forever

We are facing the greatest threat to livestock farming in 30 years

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As I write this, the Military Emergency Unit is deploying to Collserola to try to contain the African swine fever epidemic that has already left 14 dead wild boars and threatens bring the entire Spanish pork sector to a historic crisis. Right now, while the Generalitat finishes the tests on the 39 livestock farms in the area, more than 80 UME operatives (together with the Rural Agents and the Civil Guard) are sweeping the natural park between Barcelona and Cerdanyola del Vallès. Thirty years later, this animal disease is back. What has happened? On November 26, in the vicinity of the campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Bellaterra, two dead wild boars were found. The tests by the veterinary services of the Generalitat of Catalonia left no room for doubt: the African swine fever virus was back on the peninsula. It was the first positive in Spain since November 1994. After notification to the Ministry of Agriculture, confirmation of the positives by the Central Veterinary Laboratory of Algete (Madrid) and the implementation of the control device, the Department of the Generalitat found four other bodies more in the same area. Given the confirmation of the outbreak, the Government requested intervention of the UME hunting control unit. Aren’t we overreacting a little? That’s what it might seem like. After all, African swine fever does not affect humans and is relatively localized among wild pigs in a specific natural park. The question that many ask is whether it is really necessary to mobilize one of the elite units of the Spanish army for 14 dead wild boars. And the answer, I’m afraid, is yes. Although it is a strictly zoonotic disease (and, indeed, does not affect humans) it has mortality and morbidity levels close to 100% among domestic pigs. That is, it is a disease that “can kill all the pigs on a farm after a few days of fever, coughing and bleeding.” And the world takes it very seriously. To the point that “the appearance of a single case of plague causes preventive blocking of pork exports.” There are more than 20 countries that, to begin with, they do not accept regionalization and, therefore, the veto of Spanish pork exports is en bloc and immediate. Among them are Japan or Mexico. The Ministry of Agriculture is in negotiations with them, but shipments are stopped. We must not forget that it is leader in pork export within the European Union and ranks third worldwide in production. The arrival of African swine fever (however predictable it could be) is a catastrophe for the sector. And for Spanish foreign trade in general: China, which imports 20% of Spanish pork and which has just signed a historic agreement precisely on pork with the presence of the Kings, is very pending of what is happening in Catalonia (and the possible expansion of the virus). We must not forget that the arrival of the plague to Spain in the 60s (through Portugal and its African colonies) led an international isolation of the Iberian pig for more than three decades. And now what? The first thing is to “clean” Collserola. That is why the deployment has been so rapid and large. But afterward, it will be time to identify the origin of the outbreak (Councilor Òscar Ordeig has pointed to contaminated food as the main suspect, but it is still not clear) and, above all, we will have to reflect on hunting and veterinary controls. Because, as I said before, this is not a surprise. In 2014, reports were already saying that the virus was rampant across Europe’s eastern border; but it wasn’t until 2020 when he jumped to Germany also through a wild boar. The German country was, by the way, at that time the largest pork producer in the EU. Since then, the virus has already appeared in 15 EU countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Belgium and Sweden). Just these last two They have managed to eradicate it again after the application of draconian control measures. Now it’s our turn and we have a lot at stake. Image | Oscar in the middle | Jonathan Kemper In Xataka | In a country with almost as many pigs as people, the worst that can happen is that investment funds take over

The reality is that we are facing a dead end

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There is a race among major AI companies to build a AGI or artificial general intelligence, that which surpasses humans in all areas of knowledge. Sam Altman has been hyping up about AGI for a long time, and he is not the only one. Mark Zuckerberg has spent a million on a team to create it, Dario Amodei believes it will arrive very soon and Elon Musk says Grok 5 could achieve AGI. What if it’s all a big lie? Language and intelligence. It’s not the same. OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic… all these companies have something in common: their path to AGI is LLM or great language models. They count in The Verge The nuance, and it is not just any nuance, is that language and intelligence are two very different things. Decades of research have shown that language is a tool of communication, not thought. In other words, mastering the language is not equivalent to more intelligence, in the same way that not mastering it does not mean ceasing to be intelligent. Language models. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini… are tools composed of hundreds and even billions of parameters, trained on enormous textual corpora. Their technical complexity is undeniable, but they are still systems that They predict the next word from statistical correlations. Its core is language, not ideas or abstract thought in the human sense. Achieve AGI. Getting to AGI with a language model is a dead end. I said it recently Yann LeCunconsidered one of the godfathers of modern AI and, until recently, head of AI at Meta. According to LeCun, the path to achieving AGI is not the LLM, but the LWM or world models. These models they learn from the environment and they can imagine scenarios, like humans do. He hype. If language models are not the way, why do AI companies keep saying they are on the verge of achieving AGI? Because they need it. Their premise is that with more computing power (more chips and more data centers), their AIs will become smarter, so fueling the hype is their way of justifying that absurd amounts continue to be invested to scale AI. Deceleration. At first the evolutionary leaps in AI chatbots were palpable; the first versions of ChatGPT they blew our minds. The reality right now is that Generative AI has entered a stage of continuity or deceleration. There are improvements, but they are no longer as notable or revolutionary. The solution is to generate expectation: with AI agents and, of course, with the AGI. Does this mean that AGI will never be reached? Not necessarily, but it will take more than language models and above all time. According to Andrej Karpathy, co-founder of OpenAI, AGI will take for at least another decade. Image | Meo, Pexels (edited) In Xataka | Someone has taken a look at the dotcom bubble and compared their data to AI. And it’s not optimistic

We thought we were facing a “historical” oil harvest. Farmers now foresee a reality bath

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Olive oil is going through convulsive times. The drought lived some crops back put many crops against the strings and fired the prices of this cornerstone of our kitchen. Last year the arrival of the rains allowed some normalization, without moving from some modest results. And now, uncertainty does not disappear. Like the last, “in the best case.” The Olivar sector has issued a statement to lower expectations Regarding the following oil harvest. They did it after a meeting of members of the union of small farmers and ranchers (UPA) in which representatives of the olive grove of all the autonomous communities were able to discuss the situation of this harvest. Farmers estimate that oil production will give us between 1.2 and 1.4 million tons of the product. According to Indicates the UPAthese figures would imply a harvest similar to the last “at best.” According to Data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foodlast year there were 855,577 tons of olive oil, which would have to add 112,973 tons of olive pomace oil and 407,400 tons of table olive. According to The most recent estimates From the Ministry for this year, the expected production for this year would be at 1,415 million tons of pomace oil, plus 126,000 tons of olive pomace oil and 533.012 tons of table olive. Different communities, different impacts. In the eye of this hurricane are the Andalusian producers. “The current situation in the main autonomous producer community, Andalusia, leads us to think that the euphoria that reigned among the great market operators about a historical harvest is collapsing,” They point in a press release From the UPA. According to the estimates of the organization, the Andalusian harvest could give between 950,000 and 1,150,000 tons, while the Castilian-Manchega would be around 125,000 tons and in Extremadura the production would be about 80,000 tons. The rest of CC.AA. would contribute around 12,000 tons to this year’s harvest. Heat, pests and productive capacity. The data seem to validate the fears that A few weeks ago He highlighted the sector. As indicated then, there were several factors that invited to reduce optimism regarding the coming harvest. The first of them, the meteorology: the premature arrival of heat at the end of May implied a problem for the olive grove in full flowering. Meteorological conditions have affected different olive groves differently, but intense and advanced summer could be a determining factor in this year’s harvest. To the meteorology we must add the appearance of certain pests, such as prays (Prays Oleae), also the so -called olive moth; or that of milkweed (Euphyllura Olivina). To this must be added the olive grove, the fact that the plant tends to not be able to produce in full performance for two consecutive years. Waiting for September. It is still soon to know reliably the evolution of the harvest since There is still one of the key points that the olive groves throughout the year. The first of these stages occurs in spring and is the flowering of the olive tree, which usually occurs between April and May; The second, which we still have ahead, is the maturation of the fruit. To know how the olive grove this stage, we still have to wait until September. For now we do not know what the meteorology will hold for a month seen, although The predictions Aemet does not invite optimism. Medium-term predictions indicate a warmer and more dry August than normal, while quarterly forecasts also indicate a trimester August-October by pulling warm and dry. There will be so much to wait to see the evolution of the crop. In Xataka | More and more giants get into the Andalusian field and in the olive oil industry. The last: Pepsico Image | Royber99

If Midjourney survives Disney’s demand we could be facing the most radical transformation in Hollywood’s history

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Tool or enemy? It is clear that the relationship between generative and Hollywood IAS is going to bring a lot of tail: they were one of the key points of the requests of actors and screenwriters in the strikes that paralyzed Hollywood A few months ago. But far from being circumstantial allies, producers and artificial intelligences do not team, but quite the opposite: for the first time, two Majors of cinema demand a company of AI. What requests for demand. It is notorious because it is the first time that happens, although very possibly it will not be the last. The demand accuses Midjourney of violating the copyright of the plaintiffs, Disney and Nbcuniversal, both directly and secondary. That is, Midjourney is accused of both performing without authorization acts reserved for the holder of rights and facilitating the tools for others to do so. This infraction has occurred during the training process of its AI model and by showing images generated by artificial intelligence of copyright characters. The precedent of strikes. Interestingly, now you are Majors They face the companies of AI representing the industry, but it was also the IA that caused the fracture of the industry two years ago: the scriptwriter union faced the Alliance of Film and Television Producers in May 2023 (The actors in July joined the conflict), paralyzing Hollywood For six months. The agreement that was reached significantly restricted the use of the generative AI: this is prohibited so that the producers generate a script without a screenwriter, or replicate the image of an actor without permission, but its use is allowed as tools for the technicians. What can and what is not. Producers are clear What do you want from AI companies: “Piracy is piracy, and the fact that it is done by an AI company does not make it less offender,” says Disney’s legal department. It clashes like this with an assumption of technology: that it is legal to train machines with protected material, low the rules of Fair Use that in the US defends, for example, to parodies. The result enters a very diffuse legal landand that is why the result of this demand is essential for the future of the entertainment industry: Should Chatgpt images inspired by Ghibli’s work account with Hayao Miyazaki? They are not the first. Although this action is a point and apart from the size of the plaintiffs, there have been other previous ones (one of the most sounded: the New York Times demanding Microsoft and OpenAi): This updated map details the 42 current demands against AI companies. The one that brings together more conflicts is Midjourney, which does not put limitations to its Prompts If you try to make ChatgPT make a version of an image of Darth Vader, for example, you will find a warning that the petition violates its content policies. Midjourney, on the other hand, adds Dozens of artists’ demands and creators to absorb and inspire themselves in their work. There is no back. There is much at stake with this demand, to the point that if it goes ahead it can mean the end of many companies linked to AI, which could have to return to their zero models. Hollywood would have a free way, thus, to generate new income through the licenses of its properties, or creating companies that use “legal”, giving rise to producers built entirely under these cases, such as Asteria Film, Natasha Lyonne and Bryn Mooser’s companythat only has official material and will soon release its first film. We may be, in that sense, in a “wild” era for the IAS, which has their days counted before they begin to be preceded. Trump’s idyll with the IAS. However, this purpose can run into an impediment: large technological corporations have already taken steps to ensure that they have the law on their side. Not only the great CEOs Tech supported Trump In his presidential possession: Openai, for example, sent a report to the White House In January defending that the use of material bachelor in training of AI systems should be free. Several laws around Copyright relaxed as an immediate effect, and then the avalanche of images inspired by Ghibli generated by chatgpt came. We are not seeing a clash between weak rivals, precisely: both sides have a lot to win and they will invest millions so that the demand is resolved in their favor. The future of this war. This conflict just started. Disney and Universal (depending on how long and successful this demand) they go behind other companies: they have started by Midjourney, possibly because it is the weakest. But, if for whatever, Midjourney or whoever continues to win the demand and has free way to generate images under copyright, we will be before A total revolution: The studies, as we have met them until now, could abandon their role as guardians of the franchises and the characters and anyone could generate their own material of licensed content. The new role of studies. Studies would simply be property licenses. It is a dramatic turn, but not completely unreal. After all, it is what they are already doing: exploit properties in Attraction parks and produce infinite sequelae and Continuous refritos Of the same images, the same characters and the same stories. We may be taking the first steps towards the disintegration of Hollywood as we know it. Header | Disney In Xataka | Sony seems determined to embrace AI to reduce costs in their films. Their own producers have doubts

The 16E iPhone is the proof of the opportunity cost facing the mobile manufacturers: each millimeter is crucial

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The renewal of the iPhone economic line has been waiting. The last entrance model that Apple launched was the iPhone Se 2022 And, after 2024 with rumors about a iPhone Se 4Apple launched a few days ago iPhone 16E. Finally names the rest of the range and, in addition, we finally have a design that does not have generations behind it. There are things that do not change, such as maintaining a single camera, and others that yes, such as New Apple C1 Modem. And something interesting is that the iPhone 16E have already undressed and we have been able to discover something that, obviously, is still curious: the enormous amount of space that the cameras steal to the battery. Naked. Apple is usually quite unclear when it talks about some data from its phones. One of the most elusive is the real size of the battery because they usually tell you about “it lasts more than x telephone of the previous generation”, and they remain so wide. That is why it is interesting to see the first ‘Teradown’ or ‘disassembly’ of the iPhone when they reach the market. The protagonist this time has been the Rewa Technology channel, since his work not only allows the drums to be taken, but to other details of the internal composition of the 16E iPhone that allow us to extract very interesting details. Before continuing, here we leave the video: C1. It is not the direct protagonist of our article, but it is evident that the component that can get the most attention of the iPhone 16E is … the modem. The reason is that Apple bought in 2019 the Intel Modems Division for the whopping of 1,000 million dollars. The goal was to break with a Qualcomm that is the one that provided (and continues to do so in the iPhone 16 and 16 pro) The iPhone modems And with which he has maintained a relationship, say, tense. After years waiting to see what the first iPhone with modem made from home was, the premiere has arrived with this 16E iPhone. This chip combines lithography in 4 and 7 nanometers and facilitates somewhat the encapsulation of the modem, leaving free space in the part of the sandwich type motherboard in which it is enclaustrated. The theory. Apart from being able to design its size and benefits, have your own modem It is a license savings for Apple (something that we do not have to notice in the final price of the device) and, above all, a better integration with the rest of the chips. This implies, theoretically, a lower consumption and, therefore, greater autonomy. Apple itself on its website Comment The following: “It reaches 26 hours of video reproduction thanks to the efficiency of iOS and our chip, which includes the modem C1.” And that is very good, but what they do not say is … that the battery has risen from level. On the left, the 16e. On the right, the iPhone 15 Huge battery. In the Rewa video we can compare the 16E iPhone with the iPhone 15 to appreciate the substantial change in the battery size only by eliminating one thing from the equation: the wide angle camera. The main chamber module also seems to have been redesigned, but beyond an interior redesign work, which allows between a larger battery is to have lost a component. Specifically, 4,005 mAh, 444 mAh larger than that of the iPhone 16. According to Apple estimates, while the iPhone 16 could play video for 22 hours, the iPhone 16E endures four more hours. Recycling, which is gerund. For the rest, Apple shows that she is a teacher when it comes to recycling components and Rewa’s video states that, in many ways, the iPhone 16E is a mixture between a iPhone 14 of which he takes screen, part of the plate, notch and the Face ID system, and an iPhone 16 with which he shares the main camera, processor, RAM. In the end, the C1 chip may help achieve greater autonomy, but having a substantially larger battery than that of its direct brothers, definitely, cannot be set aside. These ‘Teardown’ also serve to check details such as that the 16E iPhone battery has the same disassembled technology as their brothers, making it more easy to repair And, as we said, it is curious to see the amount of space that any component takes inside the smartphones, making manufacturers constantly playing the game of commitment between functions to maintain a balance. Images | Rewa Technology In Xataka | My iPhone’s battery is 90% of its capacity after ten months. It is completely normal

Telefónica is 100 years old but it is now when you have to decide what you want to be older. Is facing its greatest existential dilemma

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Few companies become hundred. Of those who achieve it, few have survived as many transformations as Telefónica. Founded when the phone was a luxury, a civil war, world war, dictatorships, democracies, republics and monarchies, privatizations, technological bubbles and digital revolutions has lived. But He has never faced a crossroads as existential as the current: Define your identity for the next century. He Mobile World Congress 2025 It has been the scenario where Marc Murtra, in his first months as president, has presented his vision for Teleco. A stand of almost a square kilometer encapsulated this Identity search. The Valencian artisanal spheres that decorated the space – a beautiful wink four months after the Dana tragedy – represented something halfway between tradition and modernity. A Perfect metaphor of a company trapped between two worlds: The conventional teleco that is seeing how its margins are eroded, and the technology company in which it aspires to become. Above, Valencian artisan spheres connected to the failed world to decorate the stand. Below, the Autonomous Drone connected by 5G that starred in a part of the MWC of the Teleco. The metaphor of the two worlds among which Telefónica trapped: tradition (the pure telecation business) and modernity (the technological company in which it seeks to become). Image: Telefónica. An operator in a hostile world The European context does not help. While the United States has three main operators for 335 million people, Europe has 34 for 450 million. This fragmentation, praised by regulators as a low price guarantor, has created an ecosystem where no operator has the critical mass to compete globally. Murtra was not subtle in Barcelona with Your Opening Speech: “It is time for large European telecommunications companies to consolidate and grow to create technological capacity.” A warning: “Europe’s position in the world will continue to decide and will not have the capacity to decide its future autonomously.” What until recently was a business debate has now climbed to geopolitical matter. The new president draws the battle with a sports metaphor: “We operate in a fragmented market, it’s like playing football with a hand tied behind our backs. If we unleash our hands, we will mark a few goals.” A GRADE OF Aid Shared by the CEOs of Vodafone, Orange and Deutsche Telekom, who joined the choir In Barcelona with an unusual voice. Pallete left a perfect paradox on the table: He reduced the debt in half (from 53,000 million to less than 29,000) while the stock value collapsed 57%. The equation is clear: Financial sanitation is no longer enough to seduce markets. The investment seeks growth stories, not survival. And that is where the technological jacket feels better than that of Teleco. And for her they go. The MWC as a declaration of intentions The demos that Telefónica presented in Barcelona are the anticipation of their future bets. It is no longer limited to talking about connectivity, but goes into more complex territories: Autonomous drones integrated with Open Gateway APIS, Security in the face of quantum computing challengesand its digital operations center for cybersecurity. It is striking that the Teleco did not simply show its 5G network, but the applications that can be built on it. Your demo drones He showed cases of health, environmental and logistics use. An effort to be in the value chain beyond the “tube” of data is appreciated. Beyond the dreaded Commoditization. The presentation of its technology Quantum-Safe Networks He anticipates threats that have not even arrived yet, but they will do it when quantum computing is more present than future. The announcement of an excellence center in this field, although without detailing investment or template Xataka On this matter, it shows its intention to become a strategic security provider. Enrique Blanco, outgoing Ctio after four decades in the company, has indicated that they have been working in this field for a decade, conducting limited tests in areas such as Madrid or Vizcaya. But perhaps the most important bet is Open Gateway. Chema Alonso, visible face of digital transformation (although An uncertain future), has presented Agreements with Tiktok, Cabify, AWS, Google Cloud and the Community of Madrid. The goal is convert their networks, so far mere highways, on platforms that generate income. Telefónica wants to monetize its privileged position as an identity validity and position itself as a technological intermediary between citizens and services. However, Under these modernity signs, the structure of a company born to another world persists. Its corporate culture, molded for decades as a national monopoly, collides with the agility that innovation requires. The More than 100,000 employees that still maintains the group contrast with lighter operators. Not to mention the great technological ones. The impossible referents When telecos have tried to reinvent themselves, the results have been lime and sand. AT&T opted to become a media company acquiring Warnerjust to end selling it years later. Verizon bought Yahoo and Aol, and then detach from both in half of what cost them. Deutsche Telekom, perhaps the greatest success case, has managed to better balance its transformation, but as its CEO Tim Höttges explained in Barcelona, ​​”today we make 65% of our income in the United States.” Telefónica’s case is more complex. Its international expansion gave it global scale, but also dispersion (a few days ago He sold his Argentine subsidiary for 1,000 million). And its telephone division Tech points to diversification towards cybersecurity, Cloud and IoT, but still represents a small fraction of total income. In the agora of their stand in Barcelona, ​​where more than one hundred managers have paraded tensing during the fair, Telefónica has sought to project a technological leader image. The problem is that the market continues to see it fundamentally as a teleco with aspirations technot as a true technological company. The transition is a long process. The absent host paradox The MWC has put another painful irony on the table: Spain organizes the largest technological fair in the world While your participation in the development of the … Read more

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