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young people are alone and no longer want to flirt like before

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I’ve never been much into dating apps. I tried it once—shortly, just enough—and it overwhelmed me. Too many faces, too many conversations started at the same time, too much feeling of choosing men as if they were menu options. I closed the app and thought maybe the problem was mine. For years, that feeling seemed to remain in the minority. The dominant narrative was different: if you weren’t in the apps, you were missing something. He matches as a gateway to an active, modern and socially validated sentimental life. But something has begun to break in that story. And it is not their critics who say it, but the companies themselves that built the business of swipe. Today, dating platforms recognize that young people still want to love, but they feel less and less capable of starting a relationship. Not because of a lack of desire, but because the process has become emotionally burdensome, socially exposed, and psychologically demanding. In the midst of a hyperconnected generation, the result is not more love, but more loneliness. According to a report Elaborated by Match Group with Harris Poll and The Kinsey Institute, 80% of Generation Z believe they will find true love one day, more than any other generation. However, only 55% feel ready for a relationship right now. This distance between desire and action is what the company has called the readiness paradoxor “paradox of readiness.” Contradiction is key to understanding the current moment. Young people want relationships, but they don’t know when—or how—to start them. The same report notes that almost half of Generation Z say they are not ready for a relationship right now and that 75% are in no rush to get into one. As I explained to Fortune Chine Mmegwa, head of strategy at Match Group, the process becomes a cycle that feeds on itself: very high standards of emotional preparation lead to waiting; waiting, loneliness; loneliness, to the desire for connection; the desire, the fear of not being ready. The result is not detachment, but paralysis. Hyperconnected loneliness This paralysis does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs in a context where youth loneliness has skyrocketed, even among people with an active social life and constant presence on networks. a study published in PLOS One defines this phenomenon as a “social ambivalence”: young people surrounded by people who, even so, feel deeply alone. In Spain, data from the State Observatory of Unwanted Loneliness show that Almost seven out of ten young people admit to having felt lonely recently, regardless of the number of friends or followers they have. The amount of interaction does not compensate for the lack of emotional depth. Have likes It is not equivalent to feeling accompanied. The Match Group Report confirms this feeling where more than 50% of Generation Z say they feel lonely despite having online connections. And, unlike previous generations, many admit that they seek connections not so much for love as to avoid loneliness, something that later generates guilt or the feeling of entering a relationship “for the wrong reason.” The fear is not of the appointment, it is of public failure Added to this emotional fragility is a decisive factor: social networks have changed the very way of starting a relationship. An appointment is no longer requested. Instagram is requested. And many times, everything stays there. Follow each other, watch stories, react with an emoji, observe for weeks—or months—without taking a clear step. A permanent phase of trial and error that reduces risk, but also blocks progress. When a relationship seems to be moving forward, the pressure doesn’t go away; moves to the public showcase. According to data collected by Fortune From Match Group reporting, nearly half of Gen Z’s relationships begin with a soft launch on Instagram —an ambiguous photo, a story without context— compared to 27% of the population as a whole. He hard launchon the other hand, is perceived as a serious commitment by 81% of those who have done it. Making a relationship official is no longer just another phase, it is experienced as a symbolic contract. Fear of public failurehaving to delete photosmanaging explanations, exposing oneself to judgment—works as a brake before even starting. Better not to start anything than to have to undo it in front of everyone. Match Group describe this climate as a real “performance pressure” applied to one’s love life. This retreat is not exclusive to dating. As we already analyzed in XatakaGeneration Z is consciously reducing their public exposure on social media: fewer posts, more private messages; Less footprint, less risk. This climate is reinforced by a change in the ways of dating. How to collect Business Insidertraditional flirting is on the decline: asking for a profile has replaced asking for a coffee. Dating apps and the pandemic have weakened the “muscle” of talking to strangers in person, creating more social anxiety. The result is not rejection of contact, but rather a passive, prolonged and unresolving approach. Some experts clarify, however, that it is not so much a loss of skills as a code change. Generation Z is more direct with its boundaries and expectations, and less tolerant of prolonged ambiguity. The indefinite is tiring. The confusing is exhausting. That fits with report data Year in Swipe 2025 of Tinder, where there is a growing rejection of “minimum effort” and ambiguous signals. Trends like clear-coding or the loud looking —explicitly saying what you are looking for and from where—reflect that desire for emotional clarity in an ecosystem that, paradoxically, pushes us to say nothing and wait. Apps adapt: ​​less pressure, more context Faced with this scenario, dating applications have decided to change their approach. They no longer sell the promise of hooking up quickly, but rather on reducing the anxiety of the first contact. Tinder, owned by Match Group, has been the most explicit in this turn. Last year he launched Modesa system that allows you to choose how and from where to meet people: classic mode, … Read more

The Model 3 is no longer the best-selling premium electric vehicle in China

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The automotive industry is giving us not-so-subtle clues about its changes and the baton it picks up. China as an influential country in this sector It is taking more and more shape. Just two years ago, dethroning the Tesla Model 3 as the best-selling electric sedan might seem like a joke. However, this same thing has happened in China, as it is the Xiaomi SU7 the one that has taken that position from him, and even more of an achievement if we take into account that it is the first car from the now also automobile manufacturer. Figures. Xiaomi’s SU7 reached 258,164 units sold in China during 2025, exceeding the 200,361 deliveries of the Model 3 by almost 30%, according to data of the Chinese Passenger Car Association (CPCA). It is the first time that a Chinese manufacturer has managed to take the lead from the Tesla model in its category since it began to be assembled in the Shanghai Gigafactory at the end of 2019. Context. Xiaomi has only been delivering vehicles since March 2024, making this success even more significant. With a huge user base on its mobile devices and other technological products, the Chinese manufacturer has managed to boost sales of its first vehicle with very outstanding features such as its sophisticated autonomous driving system preliminary and software and technology that has become a reference. There in China, the basic model of the SU7 has a price of 215,500 yuan (about 26,400 euros at the exchange rate), 9% cheaper than the Model 3, which starts at 235,500 yuan. The decline of Tesla in China. Elon Musk’s brand has seen how its market share was plummeting from 16% in 2020, when it began producing the Model 3 in Shanghai, to 6.9% in 2024. Tesla’s total deliveries in the country fell 4.8% in 2025 to 625,698 units, representing just 4.8% of total electric vehicle sales in China. “Tesla’s Chinese competitors are able to make technologically comparable vehicles while offering them at lower prices,” counted Eric Han, from the consulting firm Suolei, to the SCMP media. Lights and shadows of SU7. Despite Xiaomi’s great success, the SU7 has also been marked by tragedy. And in March 2025, three people died in an accident with an SU7 in the province of Anhui while the driving assistance system was activated, which led the Chinese authorities to tighten supervision over these technologies. In October, another fatal accident in Chengdu involving a SU7 Ultra once again generated debate, this time because neither the members of the vehicle, nor the people who wanted to help them, were able to open the doors of the burning vehicle. New versions. The company presented in early January a renewed version of the SU7 with a range of more than 900 kilometers on a single charge, launched in pre-sale from 229,900 yuan (about 28,000 euros at the exchange rate). The top-of-the-range edition reaches 902 km of autonomy, compared to 830 km for the Pro version that currently exists. Tesla doesn’t look good in Europe either. Things are starting to look ugly for Tesla, because if we are going to its overall figuresElon Musk’s company delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, compared to 1.79 million in 2024, accumulating two consecutive years of declines. In Europe, where Tesla launched trimmed versions of the Model Y and Model 3 to defend volumes, registrations fell 25% in the eight main markets. Its share in our market fell from 2.4% to 1.7% until November, according to the European association ACEA. Between the lines. Nor can we say that Tesla already has everything on order, especially considering that the Model Y remains the best-selling SUV in China. However, the ability of Chinese manufacturers to compete in the premium segment with technologically advanced vehicles and more competitive prices is redrawing the map of the sector. We were recently talking about BYD surpassed Tesla as the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world, with 2.25 million units sold in 2025. Of course, the fragmentation of the Chinese market, which already has more than 50 electric vehicle manufacturers, and the fierce price warraise doubts about the long-term profitability of the sector. Cover image | David von Diemar In Xataka | There is an unexpected victim of the rise in RAM memory prices: the very modern connected cars

music streaming has changed and there is no longer an obvious winner

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Long gone are the times when Spotify was practically the only option to listen to music on your mobile. Today the panorama is much more interesting: Apple Music and YouTube Music They have gained weight, they have made a real place for themselves in the daily lives of many users and they have turned a decision that was previously automatic into a question that is much more complicated than it seems. If you are paying to listen to music, which one do you choose? At Xataka we want to help you solve it. Instead of asking you to try each service on your own, we have done it ourselves. Specifically, our colleague has done it Ana Boria in a new installment of ‘Versus’the video format where we have already brought products and platforms face to face with very different approaches, such as AirPods Max vs. Sony WH1000XM6 or the iPhone Air vs. Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. Three services and a decision that is no longer obvious Ana starts from a very recognizable situation: she has been using Spotify for years, but lately she has been wondering if the time has come to change. With that doubt as a starting point, the video starts with the essentials, the catalog. “Both Spotify and Apple Music tend to stand out for their huge library of official songs from record labels,” he explains. And from there he highlights the fact that makes YouTube Music start to play with a differential advantage. The comparison also stops at an area where not everything is so obvious: sound quality. Before getting into technicalities, Ana makes clear an important idea to ground the debate: “There are technical differences that are not always noticeable if you use them with cheap headphones or common speakers, but that can be appreciated if you have good equipment and also have very fine hearing.” With that context, review the strengths and weaknesses of Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music in this section. Beyond what they offer on paper, it also matters how each service is experienced in daily use. And there the application makes a difference. Not everyone is looking for the same thing: some prefer a clean and minimalist interface, while others value having more options, more controls and more customization possibilities. The video goes into this point in depth and, in addition, addresses something especially useful if you come from another platform: the tools to import playlistsjust the scenario that Ana is exploring. In the final section, our colleague focuses on one of the factors that most determine the choice: subscription plans and price. It explains it very clearly and with tables to compare at a glance what each service offers and what concessions each modality implies. “In the case of Spotify, as we all know, we have a free version, with many ad cuts, low audio quality…”, he remembers, before laying out the advantages and disadvantages of each proposal. If you want to know all the details of the test, in addition to the winner of this ‘Versus’ with the new star rating system that we have just released, we invite you to see the full video on the Xataka YouTube channel. And, as always, you can leave us your opinion both there and in the comments of this article. Images | Xataka In Xataka | Apple Creator Studio is not just a subscription. It’s Apple looking to conquer the little tiktoker who uses CapCut and Canva

The war already lasts longer than the Soviet fight against Hitler

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On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa with almost four million soldiers and thousands of tanks, opening the largest front in history. In just a few months the Red Army lost millions of men, but that war would end up becoming in a total pulse: factories dismantled and moved to the east, entire cities converted into fortresses and a mobilization so enormous that even today it remains the central axis of Russian memory. The invasion of Ukraine has just surpassed the Soviet fight against Hitler in days. A historic threshold. Yes, the war in Ukraine reached a milestone as symbolic as it was grim on January 11, 2026: 1,418 days of combat since the Russian invasion, then exactly the same duration as the Red Army’s fight against Nazi Germany in the so-called Great Patriotic Warfrom June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945. The comparison is devastating by contrast and propaganda, because the operation that the Kremlin sold as quick and surgical has ended up fitting into the schedule of the greatest existential war of Soviet history. And it also does so with an ironic twist that weighs tons: then the USSR was fighting against invaders who reached the gates of Moscow, and now Moscow is the invader, and after almost four years it still has not closed the conflict or translated it into a clear victory. A war of attrition. Far from a rapid campaign, the conflict has become a slow crushermore similar to a war of positions than to the decisive offensives of the 20th century. Russia occupies about a quarter of Ukraine, but its advance is described as progress at a snail’s pacepaying each kilometer with time, lives and ammunition. In that sense, there is an image especially revealing: After years of fighting, Russian forces are further from kyiv than in the first weeks of the invasion, when the initial blow seemed destined to topple the Ukrainian government. The war, even with external attempts of negotiation, does not give clear signs of closure, and each month that passes reinforces the idea that Moscow underestimated Ukraine, overestimated its own performance and entered a field where attrition rules more than maneuver. Panzer III marching towards Voknavolok on 1 July 1941 Russia and its tradition of wars. Russian history is plagued by conflict prolonged and campaigns that lasted much longer than expected, almost as if duration were a structural constant of their way of waging war. There are examples that draw a pattern: an endless war in the Caucasus that lasted for more than a century, or a chain of wars with the Ottoman Empire that spanned centuries and reordered borders and loyalties in the Black Sea and eastern Europe. Even when Russia sought “quick solutions,” the result was often the opposite: unexpected defeats, victories very expensive or bogged down that forced them to sustain the effort for years. In that sense, Ukraine would not be an anomaly, but rather another confirmation that the “short hit” in Russia is often more a political wish than a military reality. When losing is very expensive. Furthermore, Russian defeats are not measured only in territories or casualties, but in political earthquakes. The war against japan in 1904-1905 not only meant a military coup and the humiliation of a European power defeated by an Asian rival, but also fueled an internal crisis that led to the revolution of 1905exposing incompetence, eroding morale and opening the door to a decade of instability that would end exploding in 1917. The idea is clear: when the war drags on, the defeat becomes visible and the State loses its aura of control, the damage filters inward. The country does not need to collapse immediately, it is enough for legitimacy to crack and fear to become in everyday wear. Afghanistan as a warning. The most modern parallelism It’s Afghanistan: a Soviet intervention designed to sustain an allied regime that ended devouring resources for more than nine years. It was not only a military defeat against insurgents, it was an economic and moral drain thatthat accelerated the decline of an already rigid, inefficient and stagnant system. The 1989 withdrawal It left a demoralized army and a tired society, and the impact was so profound that it became one of the wounds that preceded to the Soviet collapse. That memory works as a warning because it shows that, in Russia, a long war can survive on the front while rotting inside, leaving a bill that is paid years later. Ukraine and the weakening. The war in Ukraine may not cause an immediate collapse of the Russian state, but it will aims to subdue him to continuous pressure on the economy, industry, army and social fabric. Even if there is no revolution, attrition operates like acid: it erodes capabilities, pushes to improvise solutions, exhausts reserves and reduces room for maneuver for other challenges. The Russian death toll (more than 156,000) illustrates the magnitude of the cost, higher than the total for Afghanistan despite having been sold as something quick and controllable. And although those losses do not come close to the demographic horror of the Great Patriotic Warare enough for the war to stop being an episode and become a structural wound. Blow to prestige. Beyond the battlefield, the invasion has also damaged Moscow’s image as a global supplier of weapons and as a military power. They remembered in Forbes the sharp drop in its exports and a symbolic change: France overtaking Russia as the second largest arms exporter in the world, something unthinkable recently. Also the decline of emblematic programs due to cost and performance, such as the T-14 Armataand the Su-57 casea fifth-generation fighter that fails to attract buyers and whose actual operational presence seems limited. Contrasted with this is the industrial and export success of the F-35, which has become Allies and partners standardwhich accentuates the feeling that Russia not only wears itself out fighting, but also emerges from the war with less technological brilliance and less … Read more

Your design teams no longer report to design

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Tim Cook has placed John Ternussenior vice president of hardware engineering, will lead Apple’s design teams from the end of 2025. The move has not been officially announced and internal and external organizational charts do not reflect it yet, but Mark Gurman has made it public on Bloomberg. Ternus now acts as an “executive sponsor” of all design at Apple. Manages communications between the design team and executive leadership, and represents design in leadership meetings. Decisions are still made by consensus among senior managers, but Ternus now has more influence than any other hardware chief in Apple’s recent history. Why is it important. Only Apple’s most prominent figures have supervised design. Jony Ive did it until 2019. Cook briefly between 2015 and 2017. AND Jeff Williams from 2019 until its retirement in 2025. Ternus now joins that list. The difference is very notable: Ive was a designer, Williams came from operations and Ternus comes from product engineering, where his work has consisted of converting other people’s designs into manufacturing products. Now he is the one who oversees both phases: how the products look and how they work. Between the lines. Apple has gone years without major aesthetic revolutions in its main products. The iPhone has maintained a similar visual structure for several generations. He air It is fine as a recent exception, but otherwise the same. Macs have converged on a predictable, established design language. Apple’s recent innovation has focused on its own chips, integrating hardware, software and services; and in supply chain optimization. Exactly the areas where Ternus has excelled. Placing him at the forefront of design certifies that at Apple execution increasingly matters more than aesthetics. The company seems to have accepted that its years of visual leadership give way to another stage and that its competitive advantage lies in systems engineering and the optimization of each component. Yes, but. Design is still important to Apple, but it is no longer the department that sets the course. Ternus is not a designer and Cook “keeps his distance from design decisions,” according to sources from Bloomberg. Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak They maintain a voice in Apple’s overall aesthetic. Some company executives, as reported by Gurman, fear that Ternus is too risk-averse and uncharismatic. His main strength is his strong knowledge of the supply chain and attention to detail, but not the conceptual vision that Ive brought. Marking agenda. This move consolidates Ternus as big favorite for Cook’s succession. At 50, he is Apple’s youngest senior executive and Cook is exposing him to more and more areas of the company. Apple has increasingly positioned him as the public face of the business. Cook turned 65 in November. Although there appear to be no imminent plans to retire, succession planning is part of his responsibilities. And the signs are becoming clearer. Featured image | Carles Rabadà on UnsplashApple In Xataka | John Ternus, vice president of Apple: “The iPhone Air had been in development for years, but we had to say ‘no’ until now”

We can no longer trust any image on the internet

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In 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated the Caribbean Sea and reached the coast of New York. There he left floods, power outages and spectacular photos. Of all of them there was one especially amazing which went viral, but there was a problem: it was false. She wasn’t the only one that slipped into networks. That image was just one more example of what we have seen before and after: great phenomena and events end up generating floods of content, some of which are not real. There are many reasons why people take advantage of these moments to spread false images, but at least before achieving credible images and videos was expensive. Only advanced users of applications like Photoshop or Final Cut/Premiere could achieve convincing results, but AI, as we know, has changed all that. We have been warning about this problem for some time: distinguishing between what is real and what is generated by AI it’s getting harder. and these days we have had the last great example of this trend. Anatomy of a deepfake The Kamchatka Peninsula, in the far east of Russia, has experienced a historic snow storm. The worst in decades, according to records, with snow levels exceeding two meters in various areas, according to Xinhua. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the administrative, industrial, and scientific center of Kamchatka Krai, has especially suffered these consequences, and residents of the region have spread images on networks of the one that already has been baptized like the “snow apocalypse.” Those images spread in news media and social networks and that they were real—often more “mundane” and much less spectacular— contrast with others that theoretically also showed the state of various points in the region but that are actually generated with AI. That video, for example, was shared a few days ago by Linus Ekenstam, an influencer who often shares news and reflections on AI. He republished that video and claimed that it was real, but soon several users indicated that the video was actually created by AI. Ekenstam argued that the theoretical AI error that it pointed out in the user was not such, and that where he lives there are poles near the streetlights. He therefore tried to defend that for him the video was real, but others suggested that it was not. The definitive test: a user linked to the theoretical original videowhich apparently originated in a TikTok account dedicated precisely to disseminating AI-generated content that seems real. The crucial thing about that fake video is that it is spectacular, but not overly spectacular. It is, to a certain extent, believable, and when the image and the camera movement itself is so convincing, it is difficult to think that “maybe it is generated by AI.” With this snow storm experienced in Kamchatka, unusual images have been shared on networks, much more typical of a dystopian Hollywood movie than a real natural phenomenon. A priori the images may even seem coherent, but a more detailed – and above all, more critical – examination makes it easier for us to realize that perhaps these images are not as real as they seem. In fact, the most striking images shared on social networks and that accumulate thousands of retweets and likes on X, for example, contrast with those published in traditional media, which tend to be as we said much less flashy and much more mundane. Spanish media such as OndaZero or OKDiario have published some images and videos generated by AI on their digital media or on their social media accounts without realizing that these videos actually had their origin in the aforementioned TikTok account which has managed to spread like wildfire. Debates about the possibility that certain images could be real have been frequent for example on Redditwhere users shared for example an amazing catch which when analyzed in detail seemed generated by AI. The avalanche of “citizen journalism”, which can be well-intentioned and very important at times, contrasts here with the role of the media, which has an enormous responsibility in acting as trusted sources of information. Even they (and we) can fall into the trap, and here once again The best thing is to start distrusting what we see on our screens, because it may be false content. The videos that appeared in some media such as SkyNews or in The Vanguard they combine with others that (at least, a priori) seem real, but that at this point also require rigorous examination. Our brain betrays us and technology knows it There are several well-studied psychological phenomena and cognitive biases that explain why we believed in fake news in the past and now the same thing happens to us again with deepfakes. It doesn’t matter if we know (or at least rationally suspect) that these images and videos are false: technology and especially AI precisely exploit these biases. Among them the following stand out: Confirmation bias: we believe what fits with what we already believe. Our brain does not seek truth as much as internal coherence, so if a piece of news reinforces our ideology, we lower the level of potential criticism, but if it contradicts it, we analyze it with a magnifying glass or directly discard it. The problem here is that AI can generate tailor-made content adjusted to each narrative. Illusory truth effect: here it happens that “if I have seen it many times, it will be true.” Repetition increases the feeling of truthfulness, not actual truthfulness, and it is something that, for example, social networks, machines for repeating hoaxes, make the most of. Again, AI facilitates the mass production of the same lie with minimal variations. We believe what we see: This is what some call perceptual realism. We trust too much in the visual, and hence the famous saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Images are processed much faster than text, and critical thinking comes after the emotional reaction, as you well argued Daniel Kanheman in his famous ‘Think fast, think slow’. Cognitive load: related … Read more

Self-consumption is no longer a marginal option to conquer half of Spain

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The spring of 2025 marked a before and after in the psyche of the Spanish consumer. The so-called “Great Blackout”which left millions of homes without power on the Peninsula, transformed the perception of solar panels. What was previously seen mainly as a way to reduce the monthly bill, is today perceived as a guarantee of resilience and energy independence. in the face of market volatility. The consolidation data. According to the “Solar Report 2025: X-ray of self-consumption in Spain”, prepared by SotySolar in collaboration with the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF)the market has entered a phase of maturity after years of accelerated expansion. Spain closed the 2024 financial year with an accumulated installed capacity of 8,137 GW. These figures closely coincide with the records of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO), which places the power at 8,255 GW. However, Red Eléctrica raises the total estimate current at 8.7 GW, integrating data from the Electrical Measurements System (SIMEL) and estimates from the System Operator (OS). The end of “refundable” subsidies. After the closure of the European Next Generation funds, the sector has stopped depending on direct aid to embrace more structural profitability. This change is reflected on the national map: Catalonia has become the benchmark for success, with an increase of 20.6% in the volume of interested parties thanks to agile management of its local incentives. Despite the accumulated strength, the beginning of 2025 presented a slight cooling: the residential sector suffered a drop of 14% in the first quarter compared to the average for 2024. Even so, self-consumption has maintained sustained growth since 2021 and demonstrates greater stability than the large plant market (utility scale). The profile of the new consumer. The user profile has evolved towards a more informed and demanding one. Although financial savings continue to be the main driving force for 65% of users, factors such as sustainability (12%) and energy independence (8%) have gained unprecedented weight. As José Donoso, CEO of UNEF, explains, self-consumption has gone from being a minority technology to an “everyday, reliable and essential appliance.” This maturity is reflected in the choice of the installer: the price continues to matter (45%), but trust based on recommendations (25%) and support in procedures and aid (20%) are now decisive factors. The new standard. The acquisition model has undergone a radical transformation. Financing has gone from being a barrier to a driving force: between 60% and 70% of households opt for flexible payment formulas, a figure that rises to 80% in projects that exceed €10,000 or include batteries. In fact, strategic partners like Pontio They project to exceed 10,000 funded installations in 2026. This financial boost facilitates the integration of aerothermal energy, which has established itself as the ideal companion to photovoltaics. 66% of solar system owners plan to install aerothermal in the next three years. However, as experts in Xataka warn80% of Spanish houses have technical deficiencies in their electrical installation, which requires a prior evaluation of the insulation to prevent the investment from becoming an expense that is difficult to amortize. Roadmap. To prevent progress from slowing down, UNEF has proposed in its presentation urgent measures that strengthen the structural profitability of the sector: Tax incentives: Apply a reduced VAT for both installations with and without batteries. Network expansion: Extend the distance of shared self-consumption from the current 2 km to 5 km. Administrative simplification: Extend the exemption from requesting access and connection permits to all facilities that inject less than 15kW into the grid. Review of tolls: Modify the distribution between the fixed and variable part (target 25% fixed and 75% variable) to encourage savings. For its part, Red Eléctrica has reinforced the “maximum observability” of the system, publishing detailed information on self-consumption on all its platforms from the end of 2025, including a new demand curve (“Total Scheduled”) that integrates the impact of this energy on the national grid, where it already represents close to 4% of demand. An irreversible path. Self-consumption in Spain has come of age. It is no longer a specific response to a price crisis, but a strategic decision. As José Carlos Díaz Lacaci, CEO of SotySolar, points out, the path towards electrification is now “irreversible.” The challenge for 2026 will be to modernize the real estate stock and consolidate an intelligent management model that guarantees that every ray of sunlight captured becomes energy freedom for the citizen. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Landing at an airport full of solar panels had become a drama. Until Malaga had an idea

India. It will no longer be possible for another reason: Europe

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In recent years, cars are not the only thing that has risen in price disproportionately. The general escalation of prices has affected also to the world of motorcycles and, to try to contain even greater increases, in recent years the most common practice by large manufacturers has been to move part of their production to India to save costs. The EU has not been amused in the slightest. New tariffs. The month of January starts with new tariffs on motorcycles and scooters made in India. And not a single model manufactured outside European territory is spared. 8% tariff for models up to 250cc Tariff of 6% for larger cylinder capacities In a market with tight margins, a tariff of this amount will force large European manufacturers to completely rethink their strategy. Who is affected?. KTM, Triumph, BMW, Suzuki, Aprillia and mainly Royal Enfield will be the main affected after this measure by the European Union. KTM manufactures its small displacement motorcycles in India, such as the KTM 390 Duke and Adventure. BMW and its best-selling contender, the GS 450is manufactured together with TVS Motor, an Indian conglomerate. Aprillia manufactures together with Bajaj its 457. Triumph has been allied hand in hand with Bajaj for years to manufacture its stars of displacement 400. Why is it important. Given the increase in prices in recent years, manufacturers made a very clear bet: to commit to manufacturing medium-low displacement models in India. Seeing premium brands like Triumph or BMW launch 400 models that aspire to be bestsellers is a true reflection of the state of the sector. The key? Manage to sell competitive models between 5,000 and 6,000 euros, in a segment ideal for everyday use and occasional outings. The 6% tariff will shake this pricing strategy. Because now. Although the measure seems like an attack from Europe on external manufacturing, the context goes further. The EU has the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) to regulate the flow of exports from developing countries to Europe. But there is fine print: The EU requires certain minimum standards when manufacturing the product. It also requires that, if certain export volume thresholds are exceeded, preferential tariffs end. Although there is no official data on how many motorcycles manufacturers are exporting from India, the threshold has been exceeded, and with it tariffs are once again applied without any type of bonus. The great beneficiary. China is sweeping Spain with economical models and much more equipped than the rest of its competitors, and China will continue to sweep if tariffs negatively affect the main European manufacturers. With Zontes making its way as the third manufacturer in our country, the countdown to see a podium headed by motorcycles made in China. Image | bmw In Xataka | The 11 cheapest electric motorcycles with the most autonomy: the best quality-price options

fusion energy no longer has a ceiling

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For four decades, nuclear fusion scientists have lived under the shadow of a figure: the Greenwald limit. Something that, in essence, is the “glass ceiling” of the reactors tokamak type and that supposedly prevents them from producing more energy than they could. But the one known as the China’s ‘artificial sun’ has broken this ceiling completely, and on top of it in a stable way (surpassing the European model). The Greenwald Wall. To understand the achievement, you must first understand the problem. In a fusion reactorthe power you generate depends on the square of the density, this way, The more density there is inside the reactor, the more energy it will produce.. However, in 1989 the physicist Martin Greenwald formulated a rule that has remained unbeaten: there is a maximum density. If this maximum density is exceeded, the plasma inside the reactor becomes unstable. What does this mean? Well, if this line is passed, the edge of the plasma cools down too much due to radiation, the electrical current contracts and the reactor suffers a disruptiona sudden stop that can even damage the reactor structure. Bordering the limit. In this way, nuclear physicists have always been very attentive to this limitsince exceeding it can generate great chaos in a nuclear power plant. But logically what is always sought is to get the most out of all the resources available, which is why they have always been working very close to this limit, but never without exceeding it. Until in the end it has been possible to overcome it and remove this limitation from the ‘speedometers’ of nuclear energy. The study. The researchers They have achieved this fact, as they have reported in their article published in Science Advancewhere they point out that they have managed to achieve stable densities of between 1.3 and 1.65 times the Greenwald limit. It was not by brute force, but by experimental “finesse”. Something that they have been able to achieve within the Chinese Artificial Sun. This means that the reactor has been able to work at 165% of its maximum theoretical capacity without suffering any disruption. It is as if we had discovered that an engine designed to go 200 km/h can travel at 330 km/h constantly and without overheating. How has he achieved it? The key has not been just to “put in more gas”, but to change the way in which the Artificial Sun interacts with its own walls. Unlike other reactors, the Chinese Artificial Sun has tungsten on its walls, which is a metal that withstands heat better and makes the plasma less dirty. In addition to this property of its walls, The researchers used high-power microwave waves to heat and “clean” the plasma just before ignition. This is in addition to the fact that they were able to validate a new theory that says that, under certain conditions, the plasma “organizes itself” to move away from the walls and remain stable, even if the density is extreme. Real energy. What China’s Artificial Sun has shown is that the “density-free” regime is real. This changes the rules of the game for ITER (the large international reactor being built in France) and for the future CFETRthe reactor with which China hopes to begin pouring fusion energy into the electrical grid before 2040. Its importance. With this new milestone, making giant reactors will no longer make sense, since with this new theory we no longer need gigantic machines to obtain the same energy. Furthermore, by operating in this new regime, the risk of plasma damaging the reactor is drastically reduced, since you will not be “playing” with the limit. But the most relevant thing is that it has been seen that the denser the plasma is, the closer we are to “ignition”, the point where the Artificial Sun generates more energy than it consumes. This may mean that we are closer to the longed for infinite energy. Images | Daniele La Rosa Messina POT In Xataka | China has discovered an energy source so massive it potentially lasts 60,000 years. The bad news: it’s thorium

why the specimens of the 21st century no longer look anything like those of a thousand years ago

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In recent decades, the image of the unchanging bear of wild nature has given way to a different reality. Science is now watching as the bears They are changing their physiognomytheir DNA and their way of interacting with the world in order to survive two great pressures: the persecution of humans and the climate change. The Italian experiment. The most surprising case is that of Apennine brown bear in Italy. For centuries, this animal has lived on a biological island surrounded by the civilization that has managed change the animal both physically and genetically. This is something that science itself has collected and that has been seen in the weight of the animal, since this animal weighs an average of between 140 and 210 kiloswhile their closest relatives usually weigh 350 kilos. And this was not a conscious selection, because for generations humans systematically eliminated the largest, boldest and most conflictive specimens. Those that remained in the ecosystem were the smallest and also the most docile specimens that began to reproduce. Selection of the shy ones. This reality connects with the theories of Alejandro Martínez-Abraín on “shy-selected” populations or selected for their shyness. According to this concept, historical hunting not only reduced the number of predators, but acted as a psychological filter. We have pruned the personality of the species, eliminating the brave and leaving behind a lineage of animals whose main characteristic is the extreme avoidance of human beings. with the aim of not giving us problems. Also in the Cantabrian Sea. While the character of the bear changes in Italy, if we come to Spain it is easy to see how we are breaking the calendar of our own species. In the north of the peninsula, climate change has begun to dismantle hibernationone of the most sacred biological processes of the species. Data collected since the mid-1990s shows a clear trend: females are leaving their nests earlier and earlier due to rising spring temperatures. In this way, what once represented an awakening regulated by biology and food availability at the end of April or May, is now an uncertain exit conditioned by shorter winters. The hidden biological cost. By leaving the burrow early, mothers with babies face a mountain that has not yet fully awakened because spring has not arrived. In this way, the bear cubs, vulnerable and with a developing immune system, are exposed to pathogens and also to the attack of adult males that also activate early. In this way, climate change is not only warming the air, it is forcing the bear to live in a time lag with its own ecosystem. Something that also adds to the scarcity of resources that can compromise their survival. In the Arctic. Here the situation has reached an almost science fiction level of genomic complexitysince the subpopulation of polar bears in southeastern Greenland has become the living laboratory of adaptation to global warming. These animals live in an environment that no longer has the sea ice necessary to hunt seals for much of the year, but they have found an emergency solution: using the glacial ice that breaks off from the fjords. Inside. The deepest adaptation they are undergoing is within their cells, as researchers point out that they have identified more than 1,500 specific fragments that are active specifically in this population. These elements seem to be altering fat metabolism, since they cannot depend on seal fat as they have until now. That is why they have to look for other sources of fat such as eggs, poultry or reindeer. To do this, their genetic profile is changing to allow them to process terrestrial energy sources, a metabolic transformation that could be the species’ last line of defense against an ice-free Arctic. Which is what is being achieved with the increase in the Earth’s temperature. A new coexistence. This global metamorphosis poses a management dilemma for the 21st century, since with the abandonment of rural areas and the boom in nature tourism Encounters between humans and bears are more frequent than ever. But this is a problem, since although the ‘shy’ ones have remained in nature, the lack of fear they have can reverse the trend of security that we have before them. That is why the key to the future is not only in protecting the animal, but in managing its behavior. The goal is to achieve what they call “zero habituated bears,” which implies the use of more aggressive measures: from the use of firecrackers and rubber bullets to reinforce fear of humans, to surgical waste management to prevent bears from seeing towns as easy food. Great plasticity. This is a great characteristic of bears as we have seen, since they have reduced their size in Italy, they come out of hibernation earlier in Spain and they are more omnivorous in the Arctic. But this “redesign” is also a reminder of our omnipotence: even when we try to save species, we end up altering their very essence so that they can survive on a planet we have made in our image. Images | Mark Basarab In Xataka | Faced with the largest flood of wild bears in memory, Japan has taken a measure: emergency hunts

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