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Battles are won long before the first missile is launched

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In World War II, armies began to discover that intercepting a radio signal could be as decisive as sinking a ship. Decades later, that logic has multiplied: today a modern conflict can involve satellites, algorithms that process millions of data per second and attacks that occur on invisible networks long before the first plane or the first missile appears in the sky. The war that happens before. In the past, wars began with the first visible shot: a cavalry charge, an artillery barrage, or a missile launch. But the conflicts of the 21st century have changed radically that logic. Before the first projectile crosses the sky, it has already been released a decisive battle in another much less visible place: computer networks infiltrated for years, satellites observing movements, electronically blinded radars and algorithms that analyze mountains of data to anticipate each enemy movement. The war in Iran has proven it again crudely. Same as it happened in ukrainethe real showdown begins long before the audience sees the explosions. A years-long murder. I was counting last week the financial times in an extensive report how the attack that ended the life of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was planned, one of the most extreme examples of this new way of fighting. When Israeli fighters dropped their bombs on the Pasteur Street complex in Tehran, the operation was actually years developing in silence. Israel had hacked a large part of the traffic cameras in the Iranian capital and transmitted their encrypted images to servers in its territory. Those data are combined with algorithms able to reconstruct patterns of life: what time the bodyguards arrived, where they parked their cars, what routes they followed and which officials they worked with. This information was integrated with human intelligence, communications interceptions and social network analysis that identified centers of power within the Iranian system. The result was a production chain targeting: an intelligence machine designed to convert data into military targets. Blind first, attack later. When it came time to execute the operation, the missiles and bombs were actually the last phase of the plan. Before the fighters went into action, the United States launched cyber attacks aimed at degrading Iranian communication and air defense systems. The goal was simple: blind the enemy. Disabled radars, confused command networks, and cell towers unable to transmit warnings created a temporary vacuum in which attacking forces could move with advantage. That logic (take away first the eyes to the opponent) had already appeared in previous conflictsbut has now become a centerpiece of modern military strategy. The invisible battlefield. This previous combat is fought in what the military calls the electromagnetic spectrum: the domain where radars, communications, satellites and navigation systems operate. Controlling that space means being able to detect threats before the enemyguide precision weapons or block signals that allow a defense to be coordinated. Losing it can have immediate consequences. Without secure communications, units cannot coordinate, without satellite navigation, guided weapons lose precision, and without radar, anti-aircraft systems stop seeing the targets they must intercept. That is why military strategists repeat a warning increasingly clear: if the electromagnetic spectrum battle is lost, the war is probably already lost. The lesson that came from Ukraine. How have we been countingthe war in Ukraine was the laboratory that demonstrated to what extent this invisible combat It is decisive. There, both Russia and Ukraine have employee war systems electronics to jam drones, jam GPS-guided missiles or disable enemy communications. At times, Western precision weapons such as lHIMARS rockets or the JDAM pumps They lost some of their effectiveness due to Russian electronic interference. The result was a battlefield where spectrum control (and not just the number of missiles or tanks) determined who had the advantage. The new phase of modern warfare. The operation against Iran confirms that this trend is not a Ukrainian anomaly, but rather the norm in contemporary wars. Today the first movements in a conflict are not usually visible, because they are hackers infiltrating networks, satellites detecting signals, algorithms processing data or electronic systems blocking communications. If you like, it is also a silent phase, but absolutely critical. Only when that battle is won do missiles take off, planes cross the border or bombs fall on their targets. By then, however, much of the outcome has already been decided. Because in the wars of the 21st century, the most important combat is not fought in the air or on the ground, but in an invisible domain where seeing before the enemy is as decisive as shooting first. Image | US Navy, nara In Xataka | Iran’s drones have aimed at the same target as the US. And now that they have pulverized it, they are going to unleash their most dangerous weapon In Xataka | Iranian oil made the Shah of Persia immensely rich. He also financed palaces, 140 luxury cars and a private Boeing 727.

In 1968 the Soviet Union launched two turtles into space. The most incredible thing is that the two came back to tell it

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After the applause, whistles and the clinking of vodka bottles with which the night had started, silence now extends through the control center of Yevpatoria like a cold blizzard. The Soviet engineers, standing scattered in front of the monitors, can almost feel their icy, wet touch on their skin. All eyes are focused on the same person: Vasili Mishin, the chief designer who arrived from Baikonur to supervise the launch of the Soyud spacecraft of the Zond 5 mission. Sitting in front of the computers, Mishin does not take his penetrating eyes off the flashing lights on the panel. The Soyud which shortly before had successfully taken off towards the Moon (with a Proton rocket) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, is having problems. And serious. With each clearing of Mishin’s throat, the silence in the Yevpatoria room becomes denser and denser. Although, like the rest of his comrades, Mishin had celebrated the takeoff of the Soyud ship in style, now beneath his thick, tangled eyebrows his pupils shine with a concentrated expression. History remembers him as “the loser in the race to the moon“, but that night he hits the nail on the head. Before the expectant gaze of his colleagues (and the distant but overwhelming tutelage of the Moscow leaders, immersed at that time in the space race with the United States), Mishin gives some precise and the ship 7K-L1 solves its first incident. The gyrfalcons of Moscow breathe a sigh of relief. Mishin’s brow relaxes. And at the Yevpatoria control center, bottles of vodka are being uncorked again. The celebration continues. Zond 5 at the time of being rescued. (POT) It is the night of September 14-15, 1968. Hundreds of meters above the heads of Mishin and the Yevpatoria engineers, 7k-L1 rises unstoppably towards the Moon. The journey of Zond 5 will go down in history for being the first probe to hit one turn around the satellite and return to Earth. An odyssey not without difficulties. The problem that the ship registered shortly after taking off from Kazakhstan would not be the only one on its eventful journey. Zond and his peculiar crew Zond 5 does not attract attention, however, due to the incidents it has had since its takeoff. He does it for the curious crew that was on board. The same one that would have perished in space if Mishin and the rest of the Yevpatoria team had not shown their cold blood. In order to check whether trips around the Moon could pose any problems for astronauts, the Soviets introduced Zond 5 capsule fruit flies, worms, plants, seeds, bacteria and… two turtlestwo copies of Testudo horsfieldii. In the pilot’s seat there was also a mannequin that emulated a Soviet astronaut: it was 1.75 meters tall and weighed 70 kilos. Space technicians had inserted sensors to monitor the levels of radiation to which he was exposed. A peculiar Noah’s Ark… With a rag and plastic Noah at the controls. Scientists with turtles in their hands. As Brian Harvey tells it in Soviet and Russian Lunar Explorationthe turtles had to face a journey worthy of Hollywood. On the way to the Moon, part of the mechanism contaminated and became unusable. During their return to Earth, another incident prevented the operation from proceeding as planned. The work that the Soviets had done left much to be desired: the sensor to locate the Earth was poorly mounted and the optics of the stellar sensors were blocked by the thermal insulation. On their return, the Chelonians had to endure a tremendous sway. The violent descent caused the outer shield of the ship (which weighed about 5,400 kilos) to reach very high temperatures. The capsule landed in the Indian Ocean on September 21, around seven in the afternoon. Their large parachutes were deployed to cushion the fall and beacons marked their location, not far from the Borovichy ship, who took it out of the water the next morning. From there he transferred to the cargo ship Viasili Golovin bound for Bombay, where he embarked on a Antono planev that took her back to the USSR. When they checked the interior of the ship, the technicians met the watery eyes of the pair of intrepid turtles who had flown around the Moon. They arrived before all of us. (Schorle/Wikipedia) Although their health was good, the turtles looked like two newcomers from the war: they had lost 10% of their body weight, they were starving (they had not eaten since days before takeoff, when they were placed in the capsule) and to make matters worse, it is said that one of them had hurt her eye. Not a bad balance if you take into account the stellar journey they had undergone. Their triumphant return after making a historic return to the Moon, however, did not help them save their lives. What the violent splashdown in the Indian Ocean had not done, scientists from the USSR did shortly after. After your first exam they sacrificed to perform an autopsy on them and study them in depth. The trip that had ended successfully. Zond 5 had been about 1,950 kilometers from the Moon and made a historic circumlunar journey. He also left impressive images for posterity. The Legacy of the Space Turtles The maneuvers of the Zond 5 mission generated excitement even outside Soviet borders. At the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Manchester, the famous radio astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell He tracked the ship. The English center would set off alarms by intercepting a message with a human voice that had its origins in Soviet ingenuity. Had the USSR managed to make a trip around the Moon piloted by an astronaut? In reality, what they were listening to was a recording to test transmissions in space. Among the voices they heard in Manchester was in fact that of the veteran Russian cosmonaut Valeri Bykovsky. On the pages of the book Animals in SpaceColin Burgess and Chris Dubbs point out that the voice was … Read more

The wildest race on the Olympic tracks in Cortina was in 1981. A man launched himself dodging bullets and assassins on a motorcycle

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There are places that seem calm until someone decides to take them beyond reason. Scenarios conceived for precision and discipline that end up becoming, through a combination of ambition and audacity, within the framework of feats that border on the impossible and they leave a mark that is difficult to erase. The slopes of Cortina, in Italy, have seen all kinds of sporting feats, but few like the one that occurred in 1981. Return with the aroma of cinema. When the Winter Games They return to Cortina d’Ampezzothe tracks not only recover their sporting history, but also one of the sequences more wild and brutal never shot in the snow. The scene in question turned these mountains into the scene of impossible chases, shootings adrenaline in full descent and suicidal jumps that were etched in the collective memory long before he was once again at the center of the Olympic calendar, or even before Tom Cruise himself will amplify the scene in his Mission Impossible saga. The wildest chase. The story took place in 1981, during the filming of For Your Eyes Only which led to James Bond himself (then played by Roger Moore) to flee skiing of armed killers, motorcycles and even a biathlete who shot him while he was descending at full speed. In fact, the brutal sequence culminated with a maneuver as absurd as it was legendary: sliding down an Olympic bobsleigh track at more than 80 kilometers per hour and be thrown into the void as if it were a ramp. It was an extreme scene even for the saga, which came from sending the agent into spacebut which found in the Italian Alps a new limit for its formula of constant danger. Six weeks on the brink of disaster. The sequence in question required more than a month of filming, expert drivers inherited from The Italian Jobpiano wires, cameras mounted on bobsleighs and snow transported by trucks in the middle of the drought. Not only that. The team continued despite injuries from Roger Moore himselfburning bobsleighs and a level of risk so extreme that it was necessary to check every screw on the cameras before launching across the ice. Bogner and the men who did know how to ski. Behind the camera was Willy Bogner Jr.former Olympian and pioneer of ski filming, who decided roll the action back and designed double-tip skis to survive the challenge. Around them, specialists as John Eavesworld champion freestyle skier, learned to bobsled down the slopes again and again, while some actors struggled simply to stay upright on skis. Curtain, specialists and memory. Another of the key names was in the figure by Giovanni Dibonaa local specialist recruited to test whether it was possible to ski in and out of the ice channel, a feat that defined the entire final sequence. Decades later, The Wall Street Journal said that Dibona barely remembers why they were chasing Bond, but he remembers the titanic effort involved in filming in those conditions, an experience that made him understand that action cinema was not very different from extreme sports. Between glamor and tragedy. Plus: the filming was also marked by death. During a break for the 1981 world bobsleigh championships, an American athlete died in competition and, on the last day of filming, a young Italian stuntman He died when his sleigh overturned. All of this contrasted with the glamorous premiere of the film, a grand premiere attended by the then Prince Charles and Diana of Wales. Bond got off his skis, Cortina didn’t. The truth is that, over the years, the character of James Bond left the snow behind for other purposes such as hanging of trains and helicoptersbut Cortina remained a temple of vertigo, one shared by cinema and sport. There, those who lived through that filming know that the Bond films and the Olympic Games have something essential in common: they both look elegant from the outside, but they hide a hardness that only those who have ever gone downhill understand (or above) without network. Image | United In Xataka | One of the best comedies in history turned this simple scene into the most expensive. 9/11 and a highway were to blame In Xataka | In 1987 a death was filmed so savage that people had to cover themselves. The trick to achieve it turned RoboCop into a cult work

The European Space Agency has always launched rockets from South America. Norway is very close to changing that

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The Arctic is no longer just that vast ice desert at the end of the world, but it has become a strategic point for many countries that they do not want to waste. And Europe does not want to let him escape, now opting to migrate the launch of part of your rockets from South America to this new location, something that has a great geopolitical strategy behind it. An agreement. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Norway recently signed an agreement to promote the creation of a new research center in the north of our planet: the ESA Arctic Space Center in Tromso. But it is not just another research center, but rather it is Europe’s response to ensure its autonomy in observation, navigation and communications in a region where it is already Russia and China is deploying its own infrastructure. The location. Choosing Tromsø as the city where to locate this new launch zone is not something chosen at random. If we go to a map, we can locate it far above the Arctic Circle, already being a city that has become a vibrant ecosystem of satellite data. Looking back, Tromsø already hosts mission control Arctic Weather Satellite, a satellite launched in 2024 that tried to demonstrate how a polar constellation can save lives through very accurate weather forecasts. But it also has a large number of institutions that make it a true Silicon Valley of the cold, housing the Secretariat of the Arctic Council and the Norwegian Polar Institute. A greater amount of data. The agreement signed between ESA and the Norwegian agency NOSA establishes a working group that will define the details before the end of 2026. This center is defined as an opportunity to monitor the melting of the Arctic, which warming four times faster than the global averagewhich gives us data on what will happen in the rest of the planet. It also entails an important national security reason, since today maritime traffic in the Northeast Passage does not stop increasing, and this means having signs of Galileo It allows you to have better control of everything that happens here. That is why, more than science, we are facing a critical center for civil security, search and rescue. The change of location. Until now, our gateway to space was French Guiana for a reason of basic physics: its proximity to the equator allows us to take advantage of the “impulse” of the Earth’s rotation to launch heavy satellites. However, the center of Tromsø and the new Nordic ports respond to a different need: polar orbit. That is why while from South America it is ideal to launch television satellites that remain “fixed” on the equator, the Arctic is the perfect balcony for satellites that must monitor melting ice or borders. Launching from the Pole, the satellite enters directly onto a North-South path that allows it to scan every corner of the planet as the Earth rotates below. In addition, being on the axis of rotation, rockets do not have to “fight” against the Earth’s lateral spin, which makes observation missions much more efficient and cheaper. Geopolitics. Beyond science, in this case there is a reading of territorial sovereigntysince while China invests in the “Polar Silk Road” and Russia increases its infrastructure in Siberia, Europe needs its own eyes in the north. In this way, while from South America it is ideal to launch television satellites that remain “fixed” on the equator, the Arctic is the perfect balcony for satellites that must monitor melting ice or borders. In this way, the Tromsø–Svalbard axis, added to the new spaceports of Andøya (Norway) and Kiruna (Sweden), consolidates northern Europe as the main gateway to space on the continent. This decision reduces dependence on external infrastructure as occurred in South America and obviously guarantees that all data remains in European territory. What’s next now. Norway, a member of ESA since 1987, brings its network of polar stations and its unique experience in polar orbit operations that are undoubtedly crucial in the current situation. From now on, the working group that has been formed has two years to design the governance and calendar of a center that promises to be “the control tower” of the European future in the Arctic. Images | riya rohewal In Xataka | In January a SpaceX rocket exploded. Today we know the danger that an Iberia plane was in with 450 passengers in the air

When Spotify launched its first Wrapped, it didn’t know what it was creating: a real monster

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If companies have learned anything since the Internet has evolved into this strange algorithmic mass that sometimes escapes our control, it is that, if something creates a trend, it must be there. For a few days we can enjoy the latest Spotify Wrappedthe now classic annual review where we find data playfully designed to share on networks such as which artists we listen to the most on the platform or which songs have defined our year. And as it could not be otherwise, the networks are flooded with captures. So far everything is correct. But as happens with any content that becomes popular and people like it, alternatives arise. And that’s not bad. In fact, Spotify didn’t invent personalized annual reviews, but when we already see a pseudo-wrapped on platforms like WeTransfer (hey, good for them), the alarm bells are already ringing that perhaps we are slipping a little. And throughout these days I have found examples that are each more absurd. Spotify. Wrapped has become one of those excellent viral marketing strategies. Since its launch in 2016, Spotify has gotten millions of users to voluntarily share their listening data every December. The flood of screenshots that each user shares on social networks becomes a tool for creating FOMO that encourages another potential user to use Spotify, or even gives them reasons to stay on this platform. It has become more or less a cultural phenomenon, a tradition like Christmas itself. And of course, this has attracted other companies enough to want to replicate this effect at all costs. YouTube Recap Irresistible. As I said before, Spotify was not the first to make annual summaries, but it was the first to turn them into irresistibly shareable content. The key is in its design: very striking graphics, personalized statistics and a perfect format to share on your Instagram story. The hashtag #SpotifyWrapped becomes a global trending topic every year, generating organic advertising comparable to very few advertising campaigns. And the formula is repeated every year without few changes beyond the visual: take the data you already have about your users, wrap it in an attractive way and return it to share with other potential clients. PlayStation Wrap-Up A Wrapped for everything. Having an annual review of your platform or service has become mandatory for many companies, extending to all types of industries. In the field of entertainment and gaming, platforms such as YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon Music, PlayStation, Xbox, nintendo, Steam either Twitchamong many others, offer their own summaries. Curious not to see anything official that resembles it on Netflix and other streaming platforms, beyond some third-party tools, such as kapwingwhich allow you to import your own viewing data to see a similar overview. Twitch Recap cforced asses. Where the trend becomes truly interesting is in sectors where, a priori, an annual summary does not make much sense (or seen another way, cases ahead of their time). To Lidl (yes, the supermarket) has its annual review, where it tells you what you have bought the most through its app or how many times you have gone shopping. Lidl’s move is even nice, but there are cases that play a fine line. WeTransfer could perfectly fit in here. As a file transfer service I have no complaints (maybe one or two), but I would never have expected that a platform of this kind would also think of joining this type of marketing initiatives. And if we talk about forced cases, Securitas Direct. As is. The platform tells you through its My Verisure app data such as the number of times you have accessed and things like that. I can’t help but imagine someone anxiously awaiting their annual review of their alarm service to find out how many times they have been broken into this year. Jokes aside, here is already an area in which having a wrapped looks out of place. But if anyone finds these statistics useful, nothing to say about it. Courtesy of Jose Jacas More examples that embrace fashion. Duolingo even overtook Spotify this year by launching your Year in Reviewrevealing learning statistics, streaks and the dreaded error counter. Trakt, a website where users register series and movies what do you see, too has its own summaryalthough to see it you have to upgrade to their payment plan, so I’ve never seen it. WeTransfer Recap Platforms like Uber either LinkedIn They have also joined the bandwagon with their own versions. Even the New York Times has launched its “Year in Games” for Wordle, Connections and other games, showing statistics such as the average attempts in Wordle or the most correct categories in Connections. Viral logics. If something starts to gain traction on the internet, all brands want to be there, even if the connection with their business is forced. It is the fear of being left out of the conversation. The same FOMO effect that these tools achieve, in some way, also generates FOMO around companies that seek to enter this trend in any way. These annual reviews are no longer just a data analysis tool, but a format that brands try to appropriate to gain visibility and engagement. It works because we are very heavy on sharing content and we generate the occasional unpopular opinion in the process, even if it is your supermarket purchases. This is how we operate on the Internet. I can’t wait to see the Wrapped from my electric company to learn more about my consumption peaks or my bank account to see what nonsense I waste my money on. In Xataka | How to share Spotify Wrapped 2025 on Instagram, WhatsApp or other apps

DeepSeek has launched its new reasoner model. It’s free and beats GPT-5

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DeepSeek has introduced DeepSeek-V3.2 and DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale. They are AI models that combine complex reasoning with the ability to use tools autonomously. Why is it important. The company of Hangzhou claims that DeepSeek-V3.2 matches the performance of GPT-5 in multiple reasoning tests. The Speciale model It reaches the level of Gemini-3 Pro and has achieved gold medals in international mathematics and computer science Olympiads. The context. DeepSeek surprised the world in January with a revolutionary model for efficiency and cost. Now it ups the ante with open source systems that throw down the gauntlet directly to OpenAI and Google in reasoning capabilities. Technical innovation. DeepSeek-V3.2 integrates “thinking” directly into tool usage for the first time. You can reason internally while running web searches, operating a calculator, or writing code. The system works in two modes: With visible reasoning (similar to the reasoning seen in ChatGPT and company). Or without any reasoning. The chain of thought persists between tool calls and is restarted only when the user sends a new message. How they have achieved it. Researchers have developed ‘DeepSeek Sparse Attention (DSA)’, an architecture that greatly reduces the computational cost of processing long contexts. The model maintains 671 billion total parameters but activates only 37 billion per token. In figures. DSA cuts the cost of inference in long contexts by approximately 50% compared to the previous dense architecture. The system processes 128,000 context windows tokens in production. Reinforcement training has consumed more than 10% of the total pretraining count. The team has generated more than 1,800 synthetic environments and 85,000 tasks to train agent capabilities. The results. DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale has won a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad 2025, the International Informatics Olympiad 2025, the ICPC World Finals 2025 and the Chinese Mathematical Olympiad 2025. Both models are available now. V3.2 works on app, web and API. V3.2-Speciale only by API, at least for now. Between the lines. DeepSeek has published the full weights and technical report of the training process. This transparency contrasts with what large American technology companies usually do. Even those that offer open source models such as Call, with an asterisk. The Chinese startup wants to demonstrate that open source systems can compete with the most advanced proprietary models. And it does so while continuing to reduce costs. Yes, but. The benchmarks Public settings do not always reflect performance on real-world tasks. Direct comparisons with GPT-5 either Gemini-3 Pro They depend on specific metrics that may not capture all relevant dimensions. Furthermore, the integration of tools in reasoner mode still needs to be tested in complex real-world use cases. The reduced cost is not as important if the quality of the responses does not hold up. In Xataka | DeepSeek Guide: 36 Features and Things You Can Do for Free with This AI Featured image | Solen Feyissa

Airbus has launched an urgent alert for the A320, the most delivered aircraft in the world: “operational interruptions” are looming

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If you are about to take a short or medium-range flight, such as the one that connects Madrid and Barcelona, ​​Paris with Rome or Berlin with Prague, you may want to look carefully at the ticket and check what model of plane you are going to travel on. It’s not about worrying, because air transport remains by far the safest meansbut it is important to understand that a very relevant part of these journeys is made on airplanes Airbus A320. And precisely that model, the most delivered in history, is at the center of a preventive alert that could lead to specific delays, aircraft changes or operational readjustments in the coming days. Airbus has recognized thatafter analyzing a recent event on an A320 family aircraft, detected that intense solar radiation could corrupt data essential for the operation of the flight control system. The company identified that this risk could affect “a significant number of aircraft currently in service.” For this reason, it has asked airlines to apply immediate preventive measures, including software or hardware protections, with the aim of guaranteeing operational security. An unexpected descent in mid-flight. Reuters, citing industry sourcespoints to a JetBlue flight as a possible origin of this technical review. It was a route between Cancún and Newark, on October 30, which recorded a sudden loss of altitude and a flight control problem. Several passengers were injured and the aircraft had to divert and land in Tampa. The case is being investigated by the US authority, although it has not been officially validated as triggering the alert. The response of the authorities. After receiving the results of the analysis from Airbus, the European Aviation Safety Agency has issued an emergency airworthiness directive which establishes that, if an affected flight control system component is identified, the correction must be applied before the next flight, following the manufacturer’s technical instructions. The document also prohibits reinstalling components that have been classified as affected. It does not mean grounding the entire A320 family, but it does force airlines to take immediate action and adjust the scheduling of their operations when necessary. European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency Airworthiness Directive When the Sun affects flight systems. Airbus explained that certain levels of intense solar radiation can alter data essential for the operation of flight control, something rare, but which requires additional protection. In aviation, these situations do not imply a failure of the aircraft, but rather the need to reinforce the systems to prevent external interference from affecting sensitive components. Hence the importance of applying software or hardware updates that ensure that, even in exceptional conditions, the system’s behavior is stable and predictable. European Aviation Safety Agency Emergency Airworthiness Directive The most present plane in airports. The Airbus A320 is not only familiar to passengers, it is also the model with the greatest real presence at airports. According to manufacturer datathere are about 11,300 A320 family aircraft in operation, of which 6,440 correspond to the A320 model. In October, This family surpassed the Boeing 737 as the most delivered aircraft in historywith 12,260 units officially delivered since its entry into service in 1988. In aviation, deliveries do not refer to orders, but to aircraft completed, certified and already in the hands of an operator. Present on the most common routes. The Airbus A320 is not only a very widespread aircraft, it is also the one carried by many passengers without knowing it on common routes. Flightradar24 identifies it as one of the most used models on short and medium range flights within Europe, and also in other parts of the world. Routes such as Madrid–Barcelona, ​​operated by Iberia with Airbus A320, are frequently carried out with this model. This constant presence means that any preventive measure can have visible consequences in daily operations, even on routine journeys. How it can affect you as a passenger. The directive does not imply that Airbus A320 flights will be canceled across the board, but it does mean that airlines must adjust their programming while applying the indicated technical measures. Airbus recognizes that these recommendations “will cause operational interruptions for passengers and customers,” which in practice can translate into aircraft changes, specific rescheduling or delays. Therefore, as we pointed out from the beginning, it is advisable to check the status of the flight until the last moment. Commercial aviation is not the safest means of transportation by chance, but because it operates under a very strict technical and regulatory framework. In this context, instruments such as the emergency airworthiness directive allow us to react quickly when a possible risk is identified, as has happened in this case with the A320. Airbus, the European Aviation Safety Agency and airlines are implementing preventive measures while the fleet continues to operate, in a constant balance between service continuity and enhanced safety. Images | Miguel Angel Sanz | Screenshot In Xataka | The Comac C919 symbolizes China’s aerial dream: the trade war threatens to clip its wings in mid-takeoff

OpenAI just launched ChatGPT for teachers. The question now is how much education we are willing to delegate to AI

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What happens when a teacher uses artificial intelligence to prepare his classes, a student uses it to do homework, and finally, that same teacher uses AI again to correct them? It may not be the norm yetbut that scenario no longer sounds so far away. The speed at which these tools have been integrated into classrooms has opened a fundamental debate: what do we really learn if we let technology do the work for us? And what does the educational system lose if this process becomes a habit? The landing of AI in education is neither coincidental nor recent. Technological tools have been present in classrooms for years, with platforms such as Google Classroom either Moodle. The novelty is not in using technology, but in relying on systems capable of generating content, proposing solutions or even being used in pedagogical decisions. That is where the big developers—Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and, more recently, OpenAI—have decided to go a step further and position themselves at the center of the educational debate. Here OpenAI lands with a dedicated proposal for teachers in the United States. We are talking about a version of ChatGPT Designed for primary and secondary educators, free for verified teachers, with administrative controls for centers and school districts. Unlike the service that almost all of us know, OpenAI ensures that the data generated in these environments will not be used, by default, to train its models. What ChatGPT offers for teachers Personalized assistance. It allows you to enter school level, curriculum and desired format so that the answers adapt to the real style of the classroom. It is the teacher who controls that configuration. Integration with usual resources. You can generate presentations with Canva, import lesson plans or documents from Google Drive and Microsoft 365, and start a conversation with that context already activated. Ideas from other teachers. Show real examples of teachers already using ChatGPT in their classes, directly below the editor, as a source of inspiration. Teaching collaboration. It makes it easy to create custom GPTs and shared templates to plan units, lessons, or assessments among colleagues in the same school or district. Management from the center. It offers a manageable workspace, with secure accounts and differentiated roles for teachers and academic leaders. What is OpenAI pursuing with this? Among the 800 million weekly ChatGPT users there are many teachers. The company explains that they are using the tool to design teaching units, adapt the curriculum to regional standards or generate examples that help evaluate their students. Let’s look at some of the usage examples you have shared: Generate examples for a task You are an expert English teacher. Using the prompts in the accompanying readings, generate seven different sample answers. Responses should be one paragraph in length and range in quality from very well written to very poor. They must be written following the RACES format (restate, respond, cite, explain and summarize). Include a justification for each answer, indicating your level of writing. Plan a multi-week drive My science department is redesigning the 8th grade physical science curriculum and I need help creating a teaching unit based on the attached objectives. Please make a plan for a 20-day unit with 55-minute classes. I need a guiding question for each day to help focus learning. Provide hands-on activities for students to explore these topics. As we can see, AI is here to stay, and trying to ignore it is not an option. The real question is how to use it without replacing the act of learning, which is much more than completing a task. Because if the teacher uses AI to solve what he has to prepare, and the student does the same to deliver what is required of him, what remains of that process beyond compliance? The educational system is not based on the ability to deliver results, but on the ability to think, make mistakes and argue with one’s own knowledge. An MIT study provides data that begins to illuminate the debate: users who wrote essays with ChatGPT produced the text 60% faster, but their cognitive effort was relevant was reduced by 32%. That is, they achieve a more polished result, but with less mental work. Another study, in this case from the SBS Swiss Business Schoolnotes that the increased use of AI is linked to the deterioration of critical thinking skills. We still do not know what effects this dynamic will have in the medium or long term. What we do know is that the classroom has become a territory where big technology companies want to be. And that the real educational challenge of the next decade will not be deciding whether we use AI, but deciding how much of the educational process we are willing to delegate to it. Images | Xataka with Gemini 3 | OpenAI In Xataka | The problem is not that the AI ​​is not able to read the time. The problem is confirming that he does not reason and only repeats what he has seen.

In a gesture of incalculable Frenchness, France has named the first rocket launched from its borders “Baguette One”

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The Spanish Miura 1 rocket took off from southern Spain. He french rocket Baguette One will do the same next year from the south of France. It’s not a joke. It is the real name of the next bet of the European New Space. And it is very serious: the French company HyPrSpace has just closed an agreement to launch an experiment on board, confirming that the launch will take place from mainland France: something unprecedented in the civil sector. Traditionally, France launches its missions from the Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana. However, the Baguette One will take off from Europe. The suborbital rocket, about 10 meters high (slightly lower than the Miura 1), will take off from the Biscarrosse missile testing center, in the Landes department, thanks to an agreement with the French Directorate General of Armaments. You already have a client. The little rocket will not go empty. HyPrSpace has signed a memorandum of understanding with ATMOS Space Cargo to launch a demonstration mission. The German space logistics company will take advantage of the suborbital flight to test its Phoenix-2 reentry capsule. The French startup HyPrSpace, based in Bordeaux, is developing Baguette One as a preliminary step to validate the technologies of its future commercial rocket Orbital Baguette One. The project has just closed a financing round of 21 million euros from private funds. They are added to the 35 million that HyPrSpace had secured from the France 2030 public plan. Orbital Baguette One. The OB-1 will follow the Baguette One with a first launch scheduled for the end of 2027. This microlauncher promises to put between 200 and 250 kg into orbit with low prices as its main attraction. Instead of using pure liquid or solid fuel engines, HyPrSpace (short for Hybrid Propulsion for Space) will use a mixture: solid fuel made from recycled plastic and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer. The advantage of this architecture is that it eliminates turbopumps, one of the most expensive and complex pieces of aerospace engineering, which reduces the cost of the launcher by 40%. The disadvantage is that they are less versatile engines and without the possibility of reuse, something that PLD Space does plan for future versions of the Miura 5. Image | HyPrSpace In Xataka | The only photo you need to understand the scale of what Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ company, has just done

has launched a modern autonomous minibus

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Something is changing in Mercamadridand it’s not just the pace of trucks that enter and leave from the first hour. The venue has taken another step towards the future with the entry into the scene of a minibus capable of moving without depending on the direct control of a driver. The image may surprise even those who know this place well, an enclave that operates day and night. The City Council has chosen this space to show how it wants to start testing technologies that aim to become everyday in the coming years. Where the experiment really begins. The new Smart Urban Space turns Mercamadrid into a place to measure, with real data, how certain technologies work in urban management. The City Council has activated a pilot here included in the European project Mobilities for EUwhich uses delimited enclosures to evaluate its impact in operational situations. In this case, mobility, efficiency and safety indicators are analyzed that will allow us to know if the solutions applied can be replicated and later scaled to other areas of the city. Who is behind the minibus. The official note from the City Council does not specify the manufacturer of the vehicle used in the pilot, but the images released by the project partners and the material provided by Somauto They point out that it is the e-CENTERa model from the Turkish company Otokar. It is an electric minibus designed to operate in urban environments and has a version with level 4 autonomous driving capabilities. The e-CENTRO is prepared to move autonomously thanks to a system that combines perception of the environment, 360-degree vision and continuous analysis of the road. This equipment allows the vehicle to plan its route and react to the elements it encounters in a limited and monitored space. In the shared material, a person can be seen in the front seat, but the official communication has not specified their function. Vehicle numbers. The e-CENTRO is a 6.6 meter electric minibus that incorporates 110 kWh NMC Li-ion batteries installed in the floor, an arrangement that frees up interior space and allows a capacity of up to 32 passengers. Its DANA-TM4 engine delivers 100 kW (peak 200 kW) and 1,200 Nm for urban routes. According to the manufacturersupports a full recharge in 1.5 hours and uses a regenerative braking system that recovers up to 25% of energy in urban circulation. The concept behind the experiment The City Council defines these spaces as areas where physical infrastructure is combined with sensors, actuators and telecommunications systems connected to the City Operating System. Its function is to monitor in real time what is happening in the environment and generate data that allows urban management to be adjusted more precisely. The project also includes a Smart City Interpretation Center, designed to show citizens how these technologies work. As we say, the pilot is part of Mobilities for EU, a consortium led by Madrid and Dresden, the German city that co-directs the project and acts as a strategic partner in its coordination. This group brings together 29 partners from nine countries and extends its tests to cities such as Espoo, Gdansk, Ioánnina, Sarajevo and Trencin. It involves transport operators, technology companies and universities that collaborate at different levels of the project. Among the members are Alsa, PreZero, MásOrange, Ferrovial, SAP, Volkswagen, T-Systems and the Polytechnic Universities of Madrid and Dresden, along with other entities linked to the digital transition and sustainable mobility. The roadmap and the money at stake. The City Council has framed this pilot within its Digital Transformation Strategy, a plan that reserves more than 60 million euros for different projects over the next five years. These include the contract for smart urban spaces, currently in the bidding phase, with a budget of 7.5 million and an execution period of 48 months. Images | ALSA | In Xataka | A fear begins to grow in some European countries: that China will deactivate its electric buses remotely

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