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If the oil apocalypse becomes a reality, Spain has known for years how long it can last: 92 days

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Faced with the logistical blockage of Hormuz that threatens to drown the global economy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has decided to press the red button. The organization has proposed the largest release of oil reserves in its history: about 400 million barrels. To put it in context, this figure is more than double the 182 million barrels that were injected into the market in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Spain, as a member of the IEA, will not be left out. How to collect Europe Pressthe vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, has confirmed our country’s support for this plan. If the proposal is approved unanimously, Spain will contribute to the market the equivalent of about 12 or 12.5 days of its national consumption. The Spanish bunker. All this movement leads us to the big question: how much margin does Spain really have if the situation becomes entrenched? Legally, there is a global obligation to maintain minimum security stocks equivalent to 92 days of sales or computable consumption. According to calculations of The CountryAdding all the capacities, the country has about 105 days of autonomy. This safety mattress works through a mixed system: The Corporation of Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products (CORES) must maintain 42 of those dayswhile the remaining 50 days are maintained directly by the industry. Currently, CORES custody more than 5.4 million cubic meters of stocks. It’s not just crude oil. To be truly useful in a crisis, CORES reserves are composed by 54.4% diesel, 29.2% crude oil and 6.0% kerosene. stocks They are strategically distributed by Spanish geography. The Levante area accounts for 44.8% of the total, followed by the central area with 19.2% and the northern area with 17.7%. The objective of these reserves is not to replace normal long-term supply, but to inject fuel into the market to stop sudden price increases and buy vital time to reorganize logistics and trade routes. We can’t relax. Just because we have a margin of three months does not mean that we are invulnerable. Spain is a country with almost absolute foreign energy dependence. In 2024, national oil consumption was 1,322,492 barrels per daybut own production barely reached 76,947 barrels. Our net crude oil imports represent more than 100% of our consumption. Furthermore, our economy she is addicted to black goldespecially to move. The transport sector is responsible for 71.1% of the final consumption of petroleum products in Spain, with diesel/diesel being the undisputed king, accounting for 61.1% of that consumption. The Iranian asphyxiation has a crack. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have activated a logistical “antidote” capable of rescuing up to 7 million barrels per day. The main asset is East-West Pipelinean oil pipeline connecting eastern Saudi fields with the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The machinery is already in motion, there is already an “army” of at least 25 supertankers sailing towards Yanbu to load this crude oil. Adding to this effort is the United Arab Emirates pipeline, which provides up to 2 million additional barrels directly to the Gulf of Oman. The refinery factor. But the macroeconomy hits a wall, Saudi oil pipelines transport crude oil, not diesel. As analyst Arne Lohmann Rasmussen warns, the real danger is the deficit of distillates. If Europe does not have enough refineries to process that oil in time, the desert pipelines are of no use. This is where the CORES bunker win the game. The 54.4% of already refined diesel that Spain stores is the only thing that guarantees that the trucks do not stop. In short, the Saudi “antidote” prevents total collapse, but our reserves buy the 100 days of peace necessary to avoid seeing the pump in the clouds. If diplomacy fails, not even the bunker will avoid the historic scare. Image | Volgotanker Xataka | The price of oil has plummeted overnight. The one at the gasoline pumps will remain the same

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.

The best AI agents that are faster and easier to use to do tasks for you without complications or long installations

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Let’s tell you the best fast and easy AI agents to use, without complicated installations and configurations. This type of AI agent They are less complete and powerful than the more complete and advanced ones, but they allow you to explore how the artificial intelligence can do tasks for you. We are going to make a small list to stick to the best alternatives. Many are quite popular, others are more unknown, and we even ended up with an open source alternative for privacy lovers. Claude Cowork Claude Cowork It is possibly the best and simplest tool to test the benefits of a medicine, but in a controlled way. It is a paid feature that you can use within the desktop application of Claude. The price to use it starts at 15 euros per month. Claude Cowork allows Claude’s AI to manage files and use applications on your computer. You tell him what you want, and Claude will find the best way to do it. Also, if you install the extension Claude in Chrome in your browser, Cowork will also be able to do things for you in the browser. Perplexity Comet Comet is the browser with artificial intelligence Perplexitya platform that started as a search engine based on artificial intelligence, and now it is much more. It is now a chatbot that allows you to use various artificial intelligence models, such as Gemini, GPT or Claude. The Comet browser has the peculiarity that can use AI to do tasks for yousuch as browsing you, interacting with websites, automating tasks, searching and filtering information, managing workflows and other tasks such as comparing prices on multiple pages. Manus on Telegram Manus is an autonomous AI agent, to which you can give a high-level objective and it works on its own to achieve it. Tasks are asynchronous, so you can ask it to do something, turn off the computer, and receive a notification when the work is completed. Manus also has the ability to used in Telegram chats like a bot With this, you will be able to use Manus directly from the messaging app and without entering its official website or application, and then you will be able to access them to see the result of AI research, web development, design, whatever you have asked. ChatGPT Agent ChatGPT also has an agent mode in your application. With it, you will be able to interact directly on web pages, ChatGPT will act on your behalf to book appointments, create presentations and perform other complex tasks. Of course, to use it you will need have a paid subscription in AI. Genspark This platform is a kind of all-in-one AI worksspace. It is not exactly a chatbot but acts in a similar way to the concept of an agent, planning taskschoosing the correct tools to do it, and chaining the steps autonomously. With this tool you will be able to create applications, documents, designs, images, music, spreadsheets and more. It has a free plan with limited access, although you will have to pay to access everything. Also has more than 80 toolsand eight language models of different sizes, each for a task. AgentGPT This was one of the first services to make AI agents accessible from the browser without having to install anything. It works similar to the previous ones, you have to write what you want with natural language, the agent divides this into subtasks, and then executes them autonomously. Kuse Cowork Kuse is an open source alternative to use an agent capable of helping you perform tasks on your computer. It can generate documents and presentations, transform d oc files, PDFs, you can also create mind maps, interact with YouTube videos and more. It is therefore an open alternative to Claude Cowork, where you can decide which AI models to use attaching them with their API, or even installing them directly on your computer. In Xataka Basics | How to create a Telegram bot that sends you a summary made by Gemini of each email you receive in Gmail and other emails

We thought it took us a long time to learn to cook. Until some 780,000-year-old carp teeth rewrote history

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If we think about the technology that has most transformed humanity, it is easy for the wheel, the steam engine or the microchip to come to mind in a more current way. However, there is a much older and more fundamental “technology” that literally changed our anatomy: the kitchen. The evolution. For decades, paleoanthropologists have debated At what exact moment did our ancestors stop consuming raw foods to start processing them through the control of fire. The most recent evidence not only rewrites our chronology, but confirms that mastering cooking was the true driving force of human evolution. How do you know? Date something as precise as the beginning of cooking, but the reality is that Until recently, indisputable evidence of the continued use of fire for cooking They were around 600,000 years old. However, a great finding published in the prestigious magazine Nature in 2022 set back this evolutionary clock. In this case it was at the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqovin Israel, remains of large carp teeth were found. With these samples and through advanced techniques such as X-ray diffraction, the researchers demonstrated that these remains had been exposed to controlled and relatively low temperatures, being less than 500 °C. The first date. With this evidence it seemed quite clear that it was not an accidental fire, but rather that it was dated 780,000 years ago these animals began to be cooked. This is consistent with the fact that Acheulean hunter-gatherers were already exploiting aquatic habitats, selecting nutrient-rich fish and cooking them in what archaeologists call “ghost hearths,” which were structured fire zones. Another hypothesis. Although direct evidence pointed us back to 780,000 years ago, biological clues suggest that the culinary revolution began much earlier. This is what primatologist Richard Wrangham pointed out, in his book Catching Fire and in subsequent studies published in Current Anthropology, proposing that systematic cooking emerged with Homo erectus approximately 1.9 million years ago. Your arguments. To be able to give this date, this expert focuses mainly on energy efficiency, since he points out that cooking predigests food, breaking down fibers and starches. This allows you to obtain many more calories with minimal effort. But the most relevant thing is that by facilitating digestion, the Homo erectus It no longer needed a massive intestinal tract to process hard, raw vegetables. And here size matters, since intestinal tissue and brain tissue are energetically very expensive, and so, by shrinking the intestine, the excess energy could be redirected to the growth of a much larger and more complex brain. But this softer diet also explains why the molars of the Homo erectus They shrank and their jaws became less prominent. Beyond nutrition. The implementation of cooking not only brought anatomical benefits, but studies indicate that in the case of the first hominids, this was essential for roasting raw meat and killing the bacteria that were inside. But in addition, fire control and the ability to process food were key tools that facilitated human migration. In reassessments of classic sites, such as the Zhoukoudian caves in China, they confirm that the Homo erectus pekinensis used controlled fire to cook deer meat in specific stratademonstrating that this practice was essential for adapting to colder climates outside of Africa. Images | Michael Lock

AI saves you eight hours of work a week. As long as you’re the boss and you don’t have to use it yourself

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The AI ​​that was going to change everything and revolutionize our work He doesn’t seem to be doing any of that at the moment. What there is is a great polarization between those who believe in that promise and between those They do not see it at all clearly or they fear it. And if there is a place where this love-hate for AI is palpable, it is in companies, where CEOs see things in one way and employees in a quite different way. what has happened. The consulting company Section has conducted a survey of 5,000 workers and managers in US companies with a fundamental question: How many hours of work per week is AI saving you? Survey results, displayed in The Wall Street Journalsay a lot about the vision of CEOs and employees about the impact of AI tools. Source: WSJ. CEOs love her, employees not too much. According to data from that survey, two out of three employees indicated that AI does not save them time at work or that at most it saves them less than two hours a week. These responses contrast with those of managers and CEOs: one third affirm that it saves them between 4 and 8 hours, another third affirms that it saves them 8 or more hours, and the other third affirms that it saves them 4 hours or less. The big difference is precisely in this negative view: 40% of employees say that they do not save any time, and only 2% of CEOs agree with that opinion. AI screws up more than anything else, some say. A user interface designer named Steve McGarvey indicated in that text how managers “automatically assume that AI is going to be the savior (of the business).” His experience is different, however, and he tells how “I have lost count of the times I have looked for a solution to a problem, asked an LLM, and they gave me a solution to an accessibility problem that was completely wrong.” And it’s not that big of a deal. This professional also indicates that he uses Perplexity as an assistant to research on various projects and that it has saved him time. However, part of their job is to ensure that visually impaired users can access websites, and chatbots have not been of help in that task. The employees are somewhat afraid. There’s another important aspect to the findings: Employees were much more likely to report feeling anxious or overwhelmed by AI than excited by it. That 40% who responded that it did not save them time added that because of them they would never use AI again. Employees are the ones who are most overwhelmed by AI, managers are the ones who are most excited about it. Source: WSJ. For now AI is used like Google. But there is another problem and that is that many of these professionals are using AI as an alternative to the traditional search engine from Google. They do not use it for practical applications of their work—perhaps because they do not know how—and, for example, it was used much less for topics such as code generation or data analysis. It saves me time, but like it doesn’t. Software companies like Workday participated in the survey and pointed out an interesting fact: this technology imposes an “AI tax” in terms of productivity. Although 85% of its 1,600 employees surveyed indicated that they save between one and seven hours a week thanks to AI, that doesn’t help them much: Much of that saved time ends up being used to correct errors made by AI or modify content generated by AI. AI isn’t much use (yet). An additional and also recent survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers focused on 4,500 CEOs. The result: only 30% of them were confident that there would be an increase in revenue thanks to AI, although they admit that having a good AI foundation can help boost that return on investment. The adoption of AI, however, at the moment is not compensating them too much, and only 12% of companies claim to have obtained benefits in revenue or costs, while 56% claim to have “not obtained anything” with that investment. These data are in line with those of the MIT study of August 2025 according to which 95% of pilot projects with generative AI were not paying off to companies. But. The data is negative, but there may be factors that point to a change in trend. The surveys do not indicate how much time users are spending learning how to use AI versus the time it saves them. The benefit may be negative now, but in the long term it will be positive. Furthermore, there are sectors in which AI has clearly become a clear tool to assist workers, as in the field of programming. Although there is, of course, a necessary phase of code review that AI generates, the massive use of these tools indicates that productivity may have gained in whole. Image | Redd F In Xataka | “We will lose social permission”: the CEO of Microsoft knows that either they do something valuable with AI or it will have little progress

Barcelona believes it has a night security problem. So you’re going to leave the Christmas lights on all year long

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Vigo risks losing his position as “city of lights” (from Spain). Although the Galician City Council usually displays its Christmas decorations already in July and boasts every year of the millions and millions of LEDs that adorn its streets for almost two months, from November to January, there is another city that is about to raise the stakes: Barcelona. There the Consistory has decided maintain part of the lighting for the festivities Old City during the remainder of winter. Their reasons actually have little to do with Christmas. Lights, lights and more lights. Christmas may be over, but in Spain it is becoming common for us to talk about its lights for months and months. In Vigo they do it because the City Council begins to hang them in the middle of Julywith the thermometer flirting with 30º and the city full of tourists in shorts and flip-flops. Now they will do it too in Barcelonaalthough for other reasons. What do they want to do there? The news I advanced it on Monday The Vanguard: Barcelona is finalizing a plan to improve the lighting of some of the narrowest (and darkest) streets of Ciutat Vella, taking advantage of part of the decoration that was installed there this Christmas. That is to say, in the absence of traditional streetlights, garlands strung between facades are good. Although Jaume Collboni’s team has not yet revealed the details of the initiative, the idea does seem clear: it is not so much about neighbors, merchants and tourists continuing to walk for months under decorations of Santa Clauses, Three Wise Men and Christmas trees, but rather about maintaining the most ‘timeless’ designs. Walking under light bulbs. The key is therefore to take advantage of decoration that does not clash with the rest of the winter. To reinforce it, the municipal government also proposes maintaining the garlands that the merchants themselves have placed. In the Gòtic there are businesses that have been hanging decorative lights on their own, although as these were private initiatives they encountered challenges such as the passage of garbage trucks or some parades. Where, when and how. While waiting for the City Council to provide more details about where, when and how the initiative will be deployed, The Vanguard has advanced some keys: the measure will focus on points in Ciutat Vella, Gótic and Sant Pere streets, Santa Caterina and Ribera that aspire to improve their lighting. Regarding the calendar, councilor Albert Batlle explains that the Consistory proposes keeping the lights for several months: “The will is that the measure be implemented, now and in the future, during the winter time period, approximately between the last weekend of October and the last weekend of March.” Two keys: trade and security. Batlle too confirm that the measure pursues two objectives: to favor the businesses and residents of the area and to put an end to alleys in which pickpockets find refuge. “We want to improve the lighting of some small streets in Gòtic and Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and la Ribera to promote commercial, cultural and social revitalization, and also to improve the feeling of security, especially on days with fewer hours of daylight,” he adds. “We are working on the formula to enhance this network.” “They give them more qualms”. The measure appears to have had good reception among the businesses in the area, which even proposed expanding the list of roads that were initially going to benefit from the lights. “If the streets are more illuminated, walking becomes safer and commerce will benefit,” recognize to The Newspaper David González, from the Via Laietana Merchants Association. Proof of how convincing the measure is is that at the time some businessmen from Born they already started to hang garlands at your own risk. “People go along Paseo del Born very happy because the promenade and the streets are usually well lit. But the dark alleys make them hesitant.” The idea has also been found with detractors who consider it a patch. But… Does it work? Although he has achieved reduce your crimeBarcelona usually appears in the area highest of the rankings about the cities insecure from Spain. The key is whether more public lighting will translate into greater real safety, a question that has generated debate in recent years. What they do seem to confirm cases like that of Vigo is that a good commitment to street lighting (even if it is seasonal) serves to attract thousands of visitors. Images | Barcelona City Council (X) and Núria (Flickr) In Xataka | The upper area of ​​Barcelona no longer interests the rich: the Eixample has become fashionable and its neighbors tremble because of the prices

ride a 15 kilometer long cable car

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Mexico City is one of the most massive cities on the planet. Also hell when it comes to transportation. It is about one of the most congested cities in the world because you have to take the car for absolutely everything, but the Government found a solution: the cable car. What we have associated with ski resorts and tourism is in Mexico the artery for thousands of people to move much more quickly and economically. After a line of almost 12 kilometers, Mexico City is preparing something worthy of China. A new 15 kilometer cable car that will become the longest in the world. In short. If someone controls cable cars, that is Doppelmayr. This Austrian company is the largest manufacturer of cable cars in the world and is the one that, as we read in EFEis going to be in charge of the new longest cable car in the world. In total, 15.2 kilometers in length for Line 5 of the Cablebus of the Mexican capital. This line will have twelve stations, will interconnect the suburbs of Álvaro Obdal, Contreón and Beni Contreón and it is estimated that it will be able to transport 3,000 passengers per hour and direction in the 642 cabins it will have. The project will have a cost of about 400 million euros and something that draws attention is the start-up: 2028. It is one of the advantages of this transportation system. While railway lines, subways or roads require years of planning and construction, laying cable car cables is faster and easier. The longest, but not the only one. Those 15.2 kilometers are impressive, but they are not that far from other lines that already operate in Mexico City. Without going any further, Doppelmayr has laid more than 25 kilometers of cable between three lines that operate in different parts of the city and they are already building a Line 4 of 11.4 kilometers in length. In addition to Cablebús, there is Mexicanable (that came before), with another 13 kilometers deployed. Mexicable is the system of the State of Mexico operated by a Mexican company, while Cablebús is from CDMX and operated by Doppelmayr. Advantages. Aside from the short development times from when the project is approved to when it starts operating, the cable car is a relief for daily traffic. The first thing is that it is a simple way to connect the suburbs with the most central parts. Areas that are poorly connected today will be able to access a continuous route with other areas. In areas where the orography is complex and the roads are collapsed, it is a real transportation alternative. And, although it does not have the capacity of the metro, it is affordable transportation and, as we say, any help when it comes to decongesting the city is welcome in a city where Mexicans spend, on average, a hundred hours in traffic jams. There is also a reduction in CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere. The intangibles of ‘Cablebús’. Although they are not perfect and are sensitive to extreme weather conditions, such as strong winds or storms, there is something less visible, but equally important: the state of mind with which the user arrives at their destination. One of the problems that CDMX faces is that the population is geographically far away and disconnected. Travel times from peripheral areas to employment, education or health centers can be up to an hour and a half when the cable car would take about 45 minutes. This reduces the inequality gap, which is measured not so much in money as in hours and opportunities lost by living so far away. A study of the United Nations Office for Project Services measured the benefits of two Cablebús lines, specifically what they called: generalized travel costs. They are everything that a passenger absorbs beyond the price of the ticket, and the conclusion is that traveling by cable car saves 466 million hours in 20 years, 102,000 tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere and users arrive more rested where they need to go. Also safer as they are not exposed to traffic accidents. And, in the end, although they are not a magic solution, in certain cities, especially where the terrain is not a help, cable cars seem like a support for decongest the brutal daily traffic. When lines 4 and 5 are completed (by 2028), Mexico will have about 50 kilometers of public cable car. Images | Government of Mexico City, Joke 2021 In Xataka | Mexico spent a fortune building its Mayan Train to attract tourists. Things are not going as expected.

It had been a long time since a cell phone left me speechless. So I went to China to test the Honor Magic8 Pro camera

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If you asked someone from HONOR how they were going to improve the camera on their phones next year, the answer they would give you is that you hold the telephoto. A few weeks ago I was traveling to China to see first-hand the factory and the R&D laboratory from which the HONOR Magic8 Proa terminal that bets (almost) everything on the camera. And what a camera. Just stroll through the busy streets of Shenzhen or sit and enjoy the sunset in Hong Kong to discover that yes, HONOR has been working hard on its camera. I can’t talk about specifications, yet, but I can confirm that we have a wide angle, an angle and a periscopic zoom which is, without a doubt, the main protagonist. So much so that I ended up using it more than the main sensor for obvious reasons. That zoom was enjoyable A quality optical zoom not only makes the photo “look sharper”, but also gives a lot of play. The perspective we get with the telephoto cannot be achieved with a normal zoom (cropping of the sensor), since it is by using a longer focal length that we get that “compression effect” of the shots. Let’s say that the distance between two objects in different planes of the scene is reduced, something that is very useful in urban photography and allows us to achieve things like this. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka But let’s start at the beginning. Little can be said about the main sensor. It is a sensor that HONOR has clearly mastered and whose results speak for themselves. Good control of highlights and shadows, notable HDR work and faithful color representation, although some background work is noticeable to highlight the strongest colors. In this case, green. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka At night, the sensor knows how to surprise. It is no secret that there is a treatment for shadows and noise, but The result is one of the best I have seen to date.. These photos are really complex because you have fine details in highlights and huge contrast. The terminal resolves photos well, preserving detail, eliminating noise almost completely and keeping glare at bay. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka In this image we have to look not only at the enormous tubular building on the left, but also at its reflection in the next building. It is not a pastiche of lights without rhyme or reason, but the camera manages to perfectly capture the reflection without burning either the background or the building. Also notable is the definition not only of the lines of light, but of the light bulbs themselves hanging from the trees and the texts of the distant blocks. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka I liked it a lot during the day, but it’s at night when it really conquered me. If you told me 15 years ago that a gadget I carried in my pocket was going to allow me to take this photo, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. HONOR has done an excellent job not only in the camera, but in the processing. This image would be impossible to take freehand if there were not good stabilization, a good sensor and good background processing. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka But if this camera surprises, the telephoto is another story. The HONOR Magic8 Pro has a periscope with 3.7x optical magnification that we can digitally expand up to ten and 100x. The sweet spot, however, is x3.7. Because? Because we can get closer to the subject taking advantage of the full resolution of the sensor and take photos like these, I hope you are not hungry. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka In these photos you can perfectly see what I mentioned previously. Without an optical zoom we would not be able to achieve a blur as silky as this image. You don’t have to rely on portrait mode to crop your subject and blur the background, but you can achieve a superior effect by simply moving away from your subject and using the zoom. If you add a large, high-resolution sensor to that, you get a photo with exquisite textures. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka If we talk about urban photography, this periscope allows us to get closer to the scene and frame in ways that, normally, we could not achieve, either because it does not have a telephoto (something strange in the high range) or because the resolution of the sensor is not up to par. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka It also allows us to see things that we can only intuit with the naked eye. The advantage of having this resolution is that, even when cropping by zooming to 10x, we can achieve good results. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka The best thing is that the quality of the photos is preserved even when light is scarce. Normally, it is taking photos at night when I least enjoy testing a mobile phone. It is the most complex moment and where the seams are usually seen by the cameras. The HONOR Magic8 Pro is not exempt from those seams by any means, but the work that the Chinese firm has done is sensational. Photograph taken with the HONOR Magic8 Pro | Image: Xataka Photograph taken with … Read more

Ouigo and Renfe unleash a price war like we have not seen in a long time

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Who was going to tell us 20 years ago that we would change the traditional races at the doors of El Corte Inglés on January 7 to burn the F5 on the Renfe website. Or, much more inconceivable, that of another French company that was going to compete with the public company to take us on high-speed trains through our country. However, this is how we are. January sales. Since yesterday, January 7, Ouigo has put it up for sale train tickets at reduced prices. So reduced that it is possible to find options for nine euros because 80% of the available tickets are discounted. The maximum price of these tickets is 33 euros. The offer will last until next January 14th… as long as there are tickets available. An almost carbon copy maneuver Renfe has undertaken. Since January 8, the Spanish company has opened juicy discounts on its train tickets. In this case, the offer extends until January 18 on AVE, Avlo, Alvia, Intercity, Euromed and AVE Internacional tickets, but it is not specified how many tickets are available with discounts that offer AVLO tickets at seven euros and AVE tickets at 15 euros. CNMC source: https://www.cnmc.es/sites/default/files/6291881.pdf New year, cheap trains. It has been a constant since competition entered the Spanish railways. Train prices in our country plummet every beginning of the year, as shown in the graph above referring to the Madrid-Barcelona corridor from the Railway Traveler Report presented by the CNMC every quarter. The image above refers to the most used broker in our country and, therefore, the least susceptible to price changes. Obviously, the image is repeated on trips to Andalusia or the Levant. Thus, all companies lower prices with juicy discounts at the beginning of the year. Then they rise due to Easter and the arrival of summer and suffer a small drop again in the third quarter before picking up again at the end of the year. It repeats. If we take a look at the report that collects data from just one year ago, we see how the number of passengers has been increasing in recent years but that prices had to drop to transport a passenger with fewer incentives to move in a quarter without major holidays and worse weather prospects. That made it so that in 2025, according to data from the CNMCin the first quarter of the year, AVE prices fell by 9.2%, Iryo prices by 11.2%, Ouigo prices by 16.1% and AVLO prices by 19.5% compared to the previous quarter in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor. And December is one of the most expensive months of the year to buy tickets and this is repeated in all corridors. With leaden feet. Although the offers are attractive, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is a specific ticket sale and that what sets the trend is the average price at which most tickets are sold. And the last few months tell us that ticket prices are going up. This quarter’s performance is something we will have to wait to find out but if we look at last year’s data from the same Madrid-Barcelona corridor, only Iryo lowered prices in a representative manner when compared to the previous year. It did so by 5.4%, followed by AVLO which lowered prices by 3.9%. However, the AVE only fell by 0.9% and Ouigo raised prices by 5.6%. On average, the price only fell by 0.9%. It is true that in the Andalusian corridors and in Madrid-Valencia, prices fell significantly last year, with drops in the average ticket price of between 10 and 17%. Of course, it must be taken into account that these are destinations where the seasonal influence is more pronounced than in Madrid-Barcelona, ​​a more stable corridor in passenger volume. Fewer offers and more profitability. We give this notice because in recent times we have seen how the prices of Spanish trains have been rising. According to the latest report from the CNMCwhich refers to the third quarter of 2025, the average interannual price of this period increased by more than 25% in Madrid-Barcelona and remained more or less stable in all corridors except Madrid-Málaga, which Until last year it did not have the Ouigo factor. However, from all companies they have paved the way so that we get the idea that the price is going to rise. So much Iryo as Ouigo They have announced that they are ending losing money to enter a new market. Both have made changes in management and from Renfe they have warned that If the competition raises prices they will follow. Photo | Xataka In Xataka | When Iryo and Ouigo began to compete with Renfe they did so by lowering prices. Those days are not coming back

We joke about porn at ChatGPT, but it’s the most lucid financial move OpenAI has had in a long time

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There are people so hooked on AI who needs professional help to get out of there. Others they fall in love with one and even they cheat on their partners. In the midst of the debate about the effects of AI on mental healthOpenAI took a radical turn: would allow erotic content on ChatGPT. Porn on ChatGPT is on the decline, and it may be the push OpenAI needs to start monetizing its invention. adult mode. They count in The Verge A few days ago the head of OpenAI applications confirmed the approximate date for the arrival of this new mode. The adult mode was expected to be ready for this month of December, but apparently they do not have the age prediction system ready yet, so it will arrive sometime in the first quarter of 2026. Rudder turn. The measure represents a turn in Altman’s speech, which in August of this year He was “proud of not making a sexbot to squeeze profits”, in which many of us saw a swipe at Elon Musk and his competitor Grok. His change of position provoked criticism from many users, to which responded saying that Open AI was not “the world’s moral police” and that “as AI becomes more important in people’s lives, giving them the freedom to use it as they wish is an important part of our mission.” Subscriptions. Only one word is needed to understand the change in position: money. If there is something that OpenAI needs as May water, it is money, a lot of money. The subscriptions They were proposed as the most logical way to monetize AI chatbots, but the reality is that of the 1.8 billion users that ChatGPT has, only 3% pay any of the subscriptions. OpenAI’s plan is that by 2030 the number of subscribers will increase by at least 8.5% and adult mode is part of that plan. A sector that moves millions. Grok is one of the AI ​​chatbots that has fewer restrictions regarding erotic content, but there are more apps like Character.Ai or Replika that also allow sexual content. They count in The Economist that the adult content AI market will bill $2.5 billion in 2025 and is expected to increase 27% annually until at least 2028. It is too juicy a business to be left out, even if that means going against what he said just a few months ago. Something more will be needed. Sam Altman himself recently said that OpenAI’s spending projections over the next eight years amount to $1.4 trillion (European trillions, add twelve zeros). Although the adult mode was a success and they managed to double their subscribers, There is still a long way to go to achieve the desired profitability. OpenAI has other open fronts such as the creation of the highly anticipated “AI iPhone” or robotics, but they are businesses that require a huge investment. The advertising It is emerging as another path to follow and, together with porn, they seem to be the two most realistic and effective ideas of all those that OpenAI has on the table. Image | Unsplash In Xataka | OpenAI has lost $11.5 billion in a single quarter. Sam Altman doesn’t like to be reminded

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