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The first major exam has left Binance on the ropes

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It is no secret that Binance has become one of the names in the crypto world. For many users, talking about buying, selling or storing cryptocurrencies is talking about Binance, a platform that the company itself presents as the largest crypto exchange in the world. Precisely for this reason, the fact that its regulatory future in Europe is now in question is not just another administrative detail: it is proof of how far the European Union wants to go when it says it wants to put order in this market. The signal came in the form of a letter published by Binance on June 16. In it, the company does not announce a departure from Europe nor confirm that it has lost its authorization, but it does recognize that its path towards the license Mica It still doesn’t close. Binance assures that “we will provide a new update before June 30, 2026” and promises more details about “next steps and available options.” That’s where the real issue begins: not in what Binance categorically states, but in what it avoids closing. MiCA, acronym for Markets in Crypto-Assets, is the regulation with which the European Union wants to provide a common framework for a large part of the crypto market. Until now, many companies have operated relying on national registries or transitional regimes, with relevant differences between countries. The new rule changes that logic: crypto service providers need a specific authorization, or a valid route under MiCA if they are already regulated financial entities, to operate under the European umbrella. Simply put, Europe wants to move from a fragmented map to a shared rule for who can provide these services and under what conditions. MiCA, Greece and the underlying consequence The design of MiCA has a fundamental consequence: the license is born in one country, but can be deployed throughout Europe. The provider must have an entity with its registered office in an EU Member State, apply to the regulator of its home Member State and, if approved, activate the passport mechanism to provide services in other countries. This is what changes the scale of the case. We are not just talking about a national supervisor reviewing a specific file, but also that his decision may end up affecting users, competitors and regulators throughout the Union. Greece appears in this story because Binance channeled its request there. In its letter, the company says it submitted a complete application and worked for months with the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, the Greek regulator. He also maintains that, according to his understanding, the HCMC completed its review and considered that the application met the requirements of MiCA. Binance’s tone is not that of a company that wants to file a withdrawal, but neither is that of a company that can already show a closed authorization. In the letter, it maintains that it “remains committed to Europe and its European users,” and adds that it will continue to operate in accordance with applicable law. At the same time, it recognizes that its priority is to “minimize disruption and keep users informed.” This combination explains the ambiguity of the message: Binance tries to convey continuity, but leaves room for changes that it has not yet specified. Reuters put on the table the most delicate reading of the file. According to the agency, which cited two people familiar with the matter, Binance’s application to the HCMC was expected to be rejected, which would leave the platform without MiCA authorization that it needs to continue providing services in the EU under the new framework. Of course, Binance does not formulate it that way in its letter and the Greek regulator has not publicly confirmed that outcome. That is why it is advisable to keep the two layers separate: the official version of the company and the information attributed by Reuters. This is where ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authority, comes in. It is not the one who directly grants the MiCA license, a task that corresponds to the competent national regulator, but it does have a relevant role in supervisory convergence and in the coherent application of European standards. The concern is not abstract: ESMA has already indicated in 2025 problems in the authorization and early supervision of a crypto provider in Malta, detecting material issues that were not fully resolved and risk areas that had not been adequately assessed. While Binance tries to close its European footprint, some competitors have already begun to turn MiCA into a commercial argument. Kraken posted a communication in which it recalls that on July 1 it narrows the margin for platforms that do not have a MiCA license and encourages users to switch to “one of the oldest licensed exchanges in Europe.” Revolut has also played that card: in a message in X stated that it is authorized under MiCA and asked those investing in crypto to move to a “trusted partner.” Regulatory uncertainty has already become a battle to attract users. Images | Binance In Xataka | They were promised a bitcoin paradise and zero taxes for 120,000 euros. Today there is only one desert island on the verge of disappearing

Voyager 1 will reach a light-day distance in November, but this will be its last major record

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In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes into spacewith the aim of studying the outermost planets of the solar system. Both carried out their mission successfully, so they were entrusted with a new task: to become the first ships to travel beyond the confines of our solar system. They also made this check on its target list, always Voyager 1 slightly ahead of its twin. Now, it will also be the first to reach a new milestone: positioning itself at a distance of one light day from Earth. It has been known for a long time that this was his next challenge. Now, thanks to the statements that NASA has made to the media IFLSciencewe know exactly the date and time you are expected to achieve it. Goal almost achieved. According to NASA, Voyager 1 should reach the distance of 1 light day from Earth on November 18, 2026, at 10:16:07 UTC. The time could vary slightly, but in principle, according to calculations made by Voyager mission engineers, those are the predictions. Many achievements in its history. Voyager 1 was released in 1977. In 1979 he arrived in the neighborhood of Jupiter to observe and photograph it up close. Thanks to their work, two new Jovian moons and a thin ring around the planet were discovered. Then, in 1980, it arrived at Saturn. It also discovered a new ring and even more moons: a total of 5 satellites. Uranus and Neptune were left to its twin, Voyager 2, so after Saturn it continued its journey beyond the solar system, leaving the heliosphere behind in 2012. It then became the first human-made object to enter interstellar space. The keys to its maintenance. In these years, it has been necessary to turn off little by little many of the instruments of the Voyager probes to save battery life so that they can continue with their journey. For this reason, it has been several decades without taking images. The last was the famous pale blue dot, which was photographed on Valentine’s Day 1990. Thanks to these savings, it continues to send data regularly to Earth, although the further away it is, the more it costs. Energy that runs out. The Voyager probes they get their energy thanks to three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG), which convert the heat generated by the decay of plutonium-238 into electricity. This is what has allowed them to continue working for so long. In 2011, for example, the two probes they generated just under 270 watts, which is about 76% of the power they started with. Thanks to the shutdown of instruments, the gum has been stretching until today, with the possibility of breaking a new record next November. However, 0.8% of power is lost each year, so it is estimated that by 2030 they will no longer obtain enough energy to be able to capture data or communicate with Earth. They will continue to wander through interstellar space, but subdued and silent. And then what? It is estimated that Voyager 1 will take about 40,000 years to approach the closest possible star. It may plunge into another planetary system, which who knows if it will have life or not. If it has it, it will carry a message from Earth, since, like Voyager 2, it carries on board a golden record with greetings in 55 languages, along with music and 116 images and sounds of Earth. None of the engineers who wrote that message will ever know if anyone reads it. We don’t even know if humanity will still exist by then. But when we talk about space, uncertainty is often the norm. For now, it is better to think about the nearest horizon, which is the one in which Voyager 1 breaks one more record. There are only a few months left until he achieves it. Images | POT In Xataka | The rescue of Voyager 1 has begun. With 8 KB of memory, a programming language from 1957 and unparalleled lag

Spain has done its first major study on how many pets there are in the country. And he got a surprise

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Spain is mired in a demographic revolution silent. And he doesn’t even star in it the migratory flowneither agingneither population movements between cities or any other of the many trends that we have been noticing for years. They are promoting the authentic revolution the petsthe dogs and cats that live in our homes. We knew that in Spain there are millions and millionsbut the census carried out by the Government has revealed an astonishing reality: it is already easier meet animals than with Spaniards under 30 years of age. And everything indicates that this gap will continue to widen. How many pets are there in Spain? If you take a walk around your neighborhood (no matter where you live) it is quite likely that you will find people walking dogs or the occasional cat hanging out of an apartment window. We don’t say it. This is said by the multiple statistics that for years have been trying to clarify how many pets live in Spain. They all agree that there are many (many), but their ‘photo’ is not always the same. Although the Animal Welfare Law forces register with microchip to all the dogs and cats, to the shelters they keep coming animals that do not meet that requirement. The result is that it is very difficult to know exactly how many pets there are in Spain. The Companion Animal Identification Network (REIAC) have registered 10.16 million dogs, 967,800 cats and 52,055 ferrets, Anfaac (the association of feed manufacturers) speaks of 6.96 million of dogs and 4.93 million felines and Aedpac estimates that in total they live in Spain 28 million of pets, a figure that other sources round up to approximate 30 million. Year Cats Dogs Others Total 2021 4.58 million 6.89 million 1.81 million 13.29 million 2022 4.76 million 7.08 million 1.85 million 13.69 million 2023 4.97 million 7.28 million 1.92 million 14.17 million 2024 5.29 million 7.42 million 1.95 million 14.66 million 2025 5.62 million 7.56 million 1.99 million 15.17 million The data: 15.17 million. Some time ago the Executive decided to prepare a National Statistics on Animal Protectionan ambitious work that, among other issues, includes “the first official study carried out by the Government on the number of companion animals in our country.” The task has not yet been completed, but a few days ago the Ministry of Social Rights decided to advance some of its first conclusions. And one of them helps to once and for all settle the debate about how many pets live in our country. According to his calculations, in Spain there are 15,171,569a figure obtained after reviewing the regional records between 2021 and 2025. To be more precise, technicians have identified 7.56 million of dogs and 5.62 million cats. The list closes with other species that also live in Spanish homes, such as rabbits, birds, reptiles or turtles. The Executive estimates that in total there are 1.99 million. At the territorial level there are no big surprises, the communities with the most pets are also the most inhabited: Andalusia (3.26 million), Catalonia (1.99) and Madrid (1.89 million). year Population under 10 years old Population under 30 years old 2021 4.19 million 14.05 million 2022 4.07 million 13.99 million 2023 4.01 million 14.18 million 2024 3.94 million 14.30 million 2025 3.86 million 14.43 million Is it important? Yes. And not only because it offers us a new official reference on the number of ‘furries’ that live in Spanish homes. Statistics help to better understand what type of pets we have, which are the most popular and, above all, how their population evolves. Of all the possible readings left by the Government data, this last one is probably the most interesting: those 15.17 million pets represent 14.1% more than in 2021, when the census of companion animals totaled 13.3 million. What does it mean? This percentage shows a growing population (in fact it has been growing steadily, year after year) and explains why pet care has become such an attractive business, something that happens both in Spain and in other countries. The last example is left to us by insurance companies and venture capital funds, which they are betting for veterinary coverage policies for dogs and cats. In general, EAE Business School calculates that pets already generate a business of 5.77 billion euros per year and ‘pet-money’ grows at 8.3% and supports 75,000 jobs. Are there so many pets? Yes, and one way to appreciate it is to resort to comparisons. We knew that in Spain it is much easier encounter with pets than with small children, but the latest data published by the Government offers us another even more shocking revelation: in our country we already there is more pets than people under 30 years of age. To be precise, in 2025 the INE had 14,432,931 inhabitants between 0 and 29 years old registered in Spain. If we talk only about children under 10 years old, the count is 3.86 million people. What does that mean? That in Spain there are much more dogs or cats than children and, if we talk about pets in general, the population of pets almost quadruples that of infants. It’s nothing strange. In Asia there are baby stroller manufacturers that they have started to be interested for another business niche with much more promising expectations: dog strollers. Image | Mia Anderson (Unsplash) In Xataka | 93% of owners believe that sleeping with their dog improves their rest. Science has just proven that it is self-deception

Nolan has portrayed Antiquity without colors in ‘The Odyssey’. It is a major error that has been around since the 18th century.

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The new trailer of ‘The Odyssey’ by Christopher Nolan It has everything that is expected from the director: enormous ambition, armies of extras, a Trojan horse, a cyclops, and its share of controversy. Beyond the anachronistic armor, both this and the previous trailer have highlighted how the film is bathed in a color filter (or non-color, rather) that turns Ancient Greece into a twilight, joyless place. What is significant is that this is not an innocent choice. Color missing. The new trailer, which makes the visual muscle of the film very clear (four months of filming at sea, 250 million dollars budget) has unleashed opinions that speak of “lack of color“, or of a proposal “dark, dirty and full of black armor.” Nolan affirms which has sought a realistic approach to the Greek epic, with locations in Greece, Morocco, Sicily and Iceland, practical effects and without the artificial shine of the classic Hollywood peplum. However, its approach is also a visual convention. Dirty past. The phenomenon is more than studied among experts in historical representation. The blog ‘Tragedy and Farce’ analyzed it in depth in 2021documenting how historical cinema has come to systematically associate the past with dirty browns, metallic grays, and unpolished armor. The trend became so dominant that it ended up filtering into epic fantasy: the Gondor of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ works with a completely desaturated palette that contrasts with the vivid colors of the rest of the saga. The story. What is significant, as said the historian Patricia Gonzálezis that this is how a story is constructed: we are sent the message that the past was dark, brutal and primitive, and modernity consists of color and light. Going from black and white to technicolor, a bit in one inverted and less innocent version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The past is different from the present, it is described to us as distant and pre-rational, and at the same time it is romanticized in the military: man against the world, his own against what is foreign, the epic of noble violence. A message ideologically loaded to the brim, although there are authors like Nolan who, when adopting it, have no intention of launching an explicit political message. What archeology knows. Since 1981, the Liebieghaus Polychromy Research Projectin Frankfurt, analyzes traces of color preserved in classical sculptures and architectural fragments thanks to a combination of techniques including ultraviolet photography, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and chemical analysis of pigments. Their conclusions are that the marble and bronze sculptures were painted with bright reds, deep blues, greens and gold. His physical reconstructions were shown to the public for the first time between 2003 and 2004 in Munich, the Vatican and Copenhagen, under the title ‘Gods in Color’. Polychromy was not limited to sculptures. Clothes were dyed, walls were painted, weapons of the elite were decorated, tapestries told stories with intensely colored illustrations captured with complex and intricate techniques. It must be taken into account that the very term “polychromy” It was coined by the theorist Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy in 1814. from the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The origin of the problem. In the Renaissance, restorers convinced that the paint covering the sculptures was accumulated dirt removed it, and by the 18th century there were hardly any visible traces left. It was then, in 1764, that the German historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann published his ‘History of the Art of Antiquity’, which for generations established the canon of classical beauty. in itWinckelmann maintained that color contributed to beauty but was not beauty, and that the whiter the body, the more beautiful it was. Liebieghaus Polychromy Research Project Winckelmann and the neoclassicists who followed him built on that historical accident an entire aesthetic ideal, that of white marble as the pinnacle of civilization and art. Museums displayed the sculptures in their deteriorated state as if that were their original appearance. Today’s public, upon seeing the polychrome reconstructions of the Liebieghaus, reacts with discomfort, but in reality this rejection is the result of two centuries of conditioning. White history. The most important Nazi propaganda forum on the internet, Stormfront, uses images of the Parthenon as iconography, invoking a “white history”. Identity Evropa, an American far-right organization, uses classical white marble sculptures in its propaganda. “Molon labe”, the legendary roar of Leonidas at Thermopylae, is today the slogan of armed Nazi militias. Before all that, Hitler banned any representation of classical art other than white marble in Nazi Germany. Sparta and Rome serve to sustain racialized narrativesxenophobic and Islamophobic, with the whiteness of marble as a central element of the imagination. A gray, violent and militarized past fits perfectly into that story: epic, where the hard man prevails (hence the famous “Roman Empire” in which men, apparently, they can’t stop thinking), separated from the “soft” present… Nolan is not propagating Nazi ideas, of course, but his imaginary, absolutely contrary to historical reality (is there anything more luminous and colorful than the Mediterranean?) is born from these trends that date back to the 18th century. Therefore, the decision of filming in Western Sahara It is not only economic: it is necessary to erase the light of classical history. In Xataka | This song is so important in Nolan’s ‘Inception’ that Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack revolves around it

China has been patiently preparing for a major global energy crisis for years. And now it reaps its fruits

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The Third Gulf War is here and the global oil market looks into the abyss. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has unleashed an unprecedented logistical panic and has catapulted the barrel of Brent well above $100. The panic is palpable throughout the Asian continent: The Philippines cuts working hours, Singapore sends its office workers to telework and Thailand intervenes in diesel prices in desperation. Just a few thousand kilometers away, China observes the global chaos with an almost insulting coldness. The Asian giant has not been saved by providence, but by millimetric planning. Just as centuries ago it built a vast stone infrastructure to stop nomadic invasions, Beijing has been building an invisible Great Wall for more than a decade to isolate itself from fossil volatility. The seed of this resistance must be found five years ago. In 2021, during a visit to an oil field, President Xi Jinping ruled that China should keep the “energy rice bowl” firmly in its own hands. According to The Economisttransferring this traditional metaphor (historically used to appeal to food sovereignty) to energy, made clear a state obsession: the country was going to prepare tirelessly for the worst possible scenario. Is patience a good bet? There are several popular proverbs and sayings that say that whoever waits, victory will be sweeter. In the case of China it is a pure and simple pragmatic and geostrategic application. As we analyze in Xatakathis shielding is the direct result of the strategy “Made in China 2025” designed a decade ago. The Chinese government understood that dependence on foreign oil and gas was its greatest military and economic vulnerability. Mass electrification was not an environmental whim, but a matter of national survival. Today, China generates more than a quarter of its electricity with sun and wind, rewriting the world order and dividing the board between the old “petrostates” and the new “electrostates.” But while that transition is complete, Beijing has not neglected the fossil economy. The Chinese model puts raw resilience before the efficiency of Western markets, As a column points out Five Days. The best example is what happened last year. While global markets debated an alleged oil oversupply, China took advantage of the low prices to spend $10 billion buying heavily sanctioned oil from Russia, Venezuela and Iran; a crude oil that, in reality, I did not need immediately. The result of this silent hoarding is that today China has massive Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), estimated between 900 and 1.4 billion barrels. This mattress is enough to cover between 96 and 140 days of your internal demand without caring for a single drop from the outside. The shield in action This long-term preparation has allowed China to deploy an arsenal of almost immediate containment measures since the conflict in the Gulf broke out: Closing energy borders: The first lightning order from the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission was to demand from their state giants of refining (PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC) to immediately suspend gasoline and diesel exports to protect the supply of the domestic market. The “shadow fleet”: Despite the war and the blockade, oil continues to flow to China. Iran is exporting a daily average of 2.1 million barrels using a fleet of old oil tankers without tracking systems that operate outside the US financial system. Land alternatives: To completely avoid the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz, the Asian power is squeezing to the maximum the land pipelines that connect it directly with Russia and Kazakhstan. Renewable bestiality: This is your shield more impenetrable: The price of solar panels and electric cars does not rise when there is a war in the Persian Gulf. In July 2024, China reached its goal of 1,200 GW of wind and solar capacity, achieving it six years ahead of schedule. In addition, new energy vehicles have already exceeded 60% of total car sales in the country by the end of 2025. Megainfrastructures and market reform: To manage the intermittency of renewables, increased their storage capacity by batteries 75% in 2025. Furthermore, the political response does not stop, as detailed ChinaDailyhave announced that the National Energy Administration will launch urgent reforms ahead of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) to create a “unified national energy market” capable of managing the volatility of having so much green energy on the grid. The dominance of uranium: Faced with the need to fuel its 58 operational nuclear reactors and the 27 under construction, Beijing has budgeted about $16 billion for resource storage in 2026. This includes the exploitation of gigantic deposits in the Ordos Desert and the pioneering extraction of uranium from seawater. The small print However, China’s energy “rice bowl” still has cracks. To keep the system afloat, the country remains dependent on an immense, dirty safety net: the coal. In 2024, this mineral supplied 56% of its energy primary and, currently, they have more than 300 plants under construction. As emphasized a report of ChinaPower Projectdespite the pollution, the vast and abundant supply of coal offers Chinese policymakers a true final “safety net” against disruptions from other sources. But the real battle for survival is not only fought in the oil wells, but in the semiconductor laboratories. Although the country manufactured an astronomical 484 billion chips in 2024, still no access to the UVE lithography machines of the European company ASML. However, the Asian giant is finding cracks in the Western blockade. China already has two companies, SMIC and Huali Microelectronics, capable of producing advanced 7-nanometer chips using engineering techniques ‘multiple patterning’ using machines from previous generations. It is a more expensive and less efficient process, but it shows that sanctions only accelerate their quest for sovereignty. The next bottleneck to overcome is chemical. The country depends almost entirely on Japan (specifically from JSR Corporation) to obtain the hyper-specialized photoresist liquids needed in chip lithography. The new Chinese five-year plan has already set a five-year deadline to also break this Japanese monopoly. And while China weaves this net of absolute … Read more

We have been observing the snow of the northern hemisphere from space for 40 years. The conclusions of the latest major study are devastating

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As some older people around us say: winter is already it’s not what it was. As we move forward in the decade, scientific data paints an increasingly clear and disturbing picture of the amount of snow that has accumulated in some parts of our planet. And the images seem to leave no room for doubt, since they suggest that snow coverage in the northern hemisphere is constantly reducing, altering the seasonal cycles that govern our climate. The data. The last job we have had access to was published in January of this same year, and the conclusion they have drawn is quite devastating when pointing out that 24% of the regions of the northern hemisphere show a significant decline in the presence of snow, compared to a mere 9% that has registered an increase in its amount. How it looked. To reach these conclusions, researchers have not limited themselves to looking at the thermometer. They have turned to a gigantic high-resolution database that brings together historical data since 1980 with information on both snow and ice. Mathematical model. But the real advance in this case lies in the use of advanced statistics. And, expanding on previous research from 2023, they have applied a two-state Markov chain model, which in simple terms is a mathematical model that allows analyzing the spatial and temporal probabilities of snow persisting or disappearing in specific grids on Earth over decades. That is why we are facing one of the most rigorous methodologies that currently exist to understand snow trends, eliminating the “noise” of the precipitation that is coming in the coming months. Early spring. But… Where exactly is the snow disappearing? The Markov model reveals that the decline is not uniform, but there is an alarming pattern that directly affects our side of the globe: spring melt is coming forward dramatically in Europe and Central Asia. Right now we are seeing snow melting earlier, shortening winter temperatures and directly altering the water cycle, which is vital for agriculture and ecosystems during the warmer months. The consequences. But it is not something new, since previous works already warned of this loss of snow, which is a decline that not only affects water reserves, but also the ability of the Earth’s surface to reflect solar radiation. Something that is not nonsense, since less snow means more exposed dark land, greater heat absorption and, consequently, an increase in regional temperatures. A consensus. In addition to this study, in 2025, research was also published that analyzed possible biases in climate records. NOAA historicalconfirming that the decline in snow during autumn and winter is a real phenomenon and not an erroneous measurement. But it does not stop there, since the last Arctic bulletin painted a very extreme scenario, since, although there was above-average snowfall until May 2025, the decline during June was so rapid and abrupt that snow coverage was reduced to half of what it was 60 years ago. A mixed and volatile pattern that shows a climate system under stress. Images | Mathieu Odin In Xataka | Under the Canary Islands rests a 1,625 meter volcano: it has now begun to show signs of life after ten years of vigil

Taiwan has almost as many motorcycles as inhabitants and a major challenge: converting them into electric ones

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Taiwan has two records if we talk about mobility. It is the first country in the world in motorcycles per inhabitant. And it is the first country in the world in number of vehicles per inhabitant, as long as we remove from the equation San Marino, Guernsey (autonomous islands off the coast of Normandy that respond to the United Kingdom), the autonomous state of Jersey and Andorra, all of them spaces where, let’s say, they are used as monetary refuges. According to the data As collected by the statistics group within the United Nations, Taiwan has 999 registered vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants. But that data hides another record: almost 600 of those vehicles are motorcycles. This means that Taiwan, with its almost 24 million inhabitants, therefore has another almost 24 million vehicles. And the most recent data says that it also has more than 14 million motorcycles. The data reaches its extreme in Taipei, the capital, where there is a number slightly higher than the national average with 65 motorcycles per 100 inhabitants. Is it a lot? It’s a lot. To give us an idea, in Spain there are around 95 motorcycles (53 of them are mopeds) per 1,000 inhabitants, according to data from the European Union. The country with the most registered motorcycles is Greece, which reaches 251 motorcycles (150 of them are mopeds) per 1,000 inhabitants. A figure that doubles (by far) the Asian country. This congestion of motorcycles represents a problem for the State in environmental matters. And they want to change it by jumping to the electric motorcycle. A most ambitious challenge According to data from the Taiwan Ministry of Transportation and CommunicationsIn 2024, 14.6 million motorcycles will be counted. They are, therefore, a substantial part of the country’s carbon emissions. 55% of those recorded in Taiwan are produced by transportation. With the aim of converting the fully electric vehicle fleet by 2050the country has set various objectives ahead. The most ambitious is to prohibit the sale of non-electric motorcycles from 2040. Previously, the State has launched a campaign for customers to opt for this technology. To do this, they explain in Motorpassionthe State is giving huge sums of money for the purchase of electric vehicles. Any electric vehicle, whether motorcycle, car or truck, is taken into account in its plans to help with the purchase. But it is in the former where the discounts are most juicy because they can reach 3,300 Taiwanese dollars (NT$), about 95 euros in direct exchange, in a country where a motorcycle is around 900 euros. Those looking to change a car do have greater incentives, with discounts of up to NT$16,000 (about 460 euros). Although the state is putting pressure for motorists and drivers to change their vehicles, the results are being somewhat discreet. These subsidies have been active for three years and between 2022 and 2025 they have managed to remove from the market (to reach the maximum aid you have to scrap another combustion vehicle) just over 120,000 vehicles, adding all types of types and sizes. A figure that pales only with motorcycle sales, since each year about 700,000 vehicles of this type are registered on the market. That is, in three years the sum of motorcycles, cars and trucks replaced It barely exceeds total scooter sales by 5% in the same period of time. Getting the motorcycle market to switch to the electric market is key for the country. Not only because still the cheapest way to get aroundalso because it is key when it comes to reduce dependency that the country has from foreign oil. Having mobility that depends largely on renewable energies produced in the country itself is a significant step in its relations with the outside world. Photo | Faye Yu In Xataka | The first commercially ready solid state battery is here. And an electric motorcycle is going to take it

Who is Oesía, the Spanish technology company that has become the new major defense contractor

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Unless you closely follow the defense sector in Spain, surely the name Oesía will not sound too familiar to you. A few days ago, the company it was news because it will be in charge of providing “eyes” to the Pizarro infantry combat vehicles, and it is not the only defense contract it has recently won. What is Oesia?. It is a business group financed 100% with Spanish private capital, chaired by the Catalan businessman Luis Furnells, who in turn is the main shareholder. The company has taken an important turn in the last decade and has gone from offering consulting and digital transformation services to focusing on solutions and services for the defense sector through its different brands: Oesia Networks: is the original arm of the company dedicated to digital consulting and hyperautomation processes. Tecnobit: the jewel in the crown. It is the reference brand in optronics (infrared and night vision), tactical communications and simulation. Cipherbit: Oesía boasts that it is the first cybersecurity and secure communications brand certified by NATO. UAV Navigation: specialized in guidance, navigation and control systems for unmanned vehicles. Inster: focused on satellite communications on the move (SOTM) in land, naval and air environments. Who is Luis Furnells. He is a Catalan businessman and manager who has dedicated himself mainly to the technology sector. He has been in charge of the Oesía Group since 2012 and, since 2014, also of its subsidiary Tecnobit. On your resume We find companies such as BBVA, La Caixa and Telefónica, in which he served as Chief Information Officer. He also founded the consulting firm LUCARit, which was later integrated into Oesía. One of his recent objectives at the head of the group, embodied in the 2023-2025 strategic planwas precisely to consolidate its position as a reference company in the field of defense. And he is achieving it. Why it is important. Oesía, specifically its subsidiary Tecnobit, has been chosen by Santa Bárbara Sistemas to modernize the fleet of Pizarro combat vehicles. Tecnobit has also been selected for produce key components for the PAC 3 missileof Lockheed Martinone of the more advanced missile defense systems. Oesía will manufacture specialized wiring and harnesses, positioning itself as an important player not only in national territory, but in international defense programs. Oesía is not alone. The company is not alone in its entry into the defense sector. As they point out in Digital Economyone of the most important contracts they have signed with their subsidiary Cipherbit, was achieved through an alliance with Epicom, a company dedicated to the design of cryptographic and key solutions in National Security. Oesía owns 30% of Epicomanother 30% Indra and the remaining 40% belongs to the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI). cifras. He Rearmament report from the National Security Observatory includes the contract won as a result of the alliance between Cipherbit and Epicom, which is placed in 11th position with an amount of 167 million euros. Another Oesía contract of more than 25 million euros also appears in the same report. In the case of the contract with Santa Bárbara Sistemas to modernize the Pizarro tanks, we are talking about 264 million euros. According to Economía Digital, the awards to Oesía are of at least 192 million euros, almost what the company invoiced in 2024. Image | Army, Oesía In Xataka | A space war looms over our heads and Europe is the power that invests the least in defense technology

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

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

Aragón has just activated its second major data center project. The bet goes through a challenge that is difficult to ignore

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Aragón is going through a unique moment: in just a few years it has gone from competing to attract data centers to announce three mega facilities new ones promoted by Forestalia that aim to strengthen their position on the European cloud map. The announcement by the regional government comes in the midst of a race to attract technological investment, but also in a territory where the electrical network works to the limit and every great project depends on decisions that have not yet been made. The result is a scenario as ambitious as it is full of unknowns, which will determine the real impact of this expansion. How these digital complexes work. A data center is, in essence, a technological heart that stores and processes information for millions of users and companies. Every series that is streamed or every operation carried out in the cloud passes through servers that require stable power and constant cooling. That is why the choice of location is so relevant: electrical capacity and operational security are needed. Aragón has been gaining ground on that map and today is seen as a strategic option for new facilities. The project. The Government of Aragon has detailed that the Búfalo Project includes three data centers in Magallón, Botorrita and Alfamén, backed by an investment of 12,048 million euros. The deployment includes DCM Data, DCM Dédalo and DCM Blue, whose works would begin between 2028 and 2029 and will extend for approximately eight years. According to official estimates, the construction will generate about 30,000 temporary jobs. In the operational phase, each facility will add hundreds of workers, with a total that clearly exceeds a thousand stable positions. Aragón on the international board. The accumulated investments in data centers exceed 70,000 million euros and place the community in the same conversation as consolidated European hubs. According to the President of the Government of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, the computing capacity that is being configured rivals that of Dublin and Paris and aspires to approach that of Frankfurt. The regional Executive also states that the data that will be managed will have a European scope, from Germany or France to Italy and the United Kingdom, reinforcing the international dimension of the project. Distributed renewable self-consumption. The Government of Aragon presents self-consumption as a distinctive element of the Búfalo Project, since approximately half of the energy consumption will be associated with wind and photovoltaic parks powered by Forestalia. This volume of generation allows for a renewable supply, although it does not eliminate dependence on the general network, which will provide the rest of the energy. The underlying idea is to combine own generation with existing infrastructure to sustain large-scale facilities. Press to see the message in X The word “self-consumption” may lead one to think that data centers and renewable plants share the same physical space, but this is not the case. Forestalia is setting up parks in various regions of Zaragoza and Teruel, located where the natural resource is most favorable. The data centers, as we say, will be in Magallón, Botorrita and Alfamén, and the connection between both worlds is made entirely through the Red Eléctrica network. It is a distributed scheme that coordinates generation and consumption without a single energy campus. A network to the limit. Aragon produces more electricity than it consumes and exports about 54% of its generation, but that abundance contrasts with a distribution network that functions practically at maximum. A report published in September 2025 sets its occupancy level at 94.3%, well above the national average of 84.3%. This saturation leaves little room to incorporate large consumers such as data centers. The result is a paradox: available energy, but an infrastructure incapable of delivering it to all projects. Projects that have already reached their peak. The bottleneck is not a future hypothesis, but a reality that already affects several operators. According to Heraldothe data centers in the pipeline have requested more than 6,000 MW and only a part has firm access, with cases such as Vantage, which has 90 MW authorized despite aiming for 300. Microsoft also depends on tenders in saturated nodes. The Government itself recognizes that everything will be linked to Red Eléctrica’s planning and the decisions of the central Executive. Water, a debate that is still open? The cooling of data centers has generated concern in Aragon since Amazon asked for late 2024 48% more water for the complexes that already operate in the region. Ecologistas en Acción and the Tu Nube Seca Mi Río platform then warned of the water impact of these facilities in the midst of a structural drought. Azcón maintains that future Forestalia centers will use a closed circuit with “practically imperceptible” consumption and affirms that the debate “is over.” In any case, everything indicates that this matter remains under public scrutiny. To facilitate the path of the Buffalo Project, The Government of Aragon has declared the initiative as of Autonomous General Interest, a figure that allows procedures to be simplified and the different administrations involved better coordinated. This declaration speeds up procedures, but does not resolve the main point of friction: the available electrical capacity. Hence, the regional Executive insists on its willingness to work with the central Government and Red Eléctrica, the only actors that can modify the network planning. Real progress will depend on those decisions. The announcement of the three new data centers, together with the rest of the initiatives in the pipeline, places Aragón at a decisive moment to consolidate its presence on the European cloud map. The investment is notable and so is the promised employment, but much of the result will depend on decisions that are not entirely in the hands of the community. The region has shown intention and movement, although it remains to be seen what the real scope of this bet will be. Images | İsmail Enes Ayhan | Jorge Azcón (X) In Xataka | The European Commission’s pendulum with AI is real: it will sacrifice privacy to … Read more

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