money

the Spanish space startup grows with Japanese money

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PLD Space has closed a Series C round of €180 million led by Mitsubishi Electric. With this injection, the Elche company exceeds the 350 million raised in total and has a clear path to carry out the first demonstration flight of its rocket Miura 5 before the end of 2026. Why is it important. Spain has very few technology companies capable of raising this type of money on a global scale. PLD Space has not only achieved this, but has done so by attracting a top-level Japanese manufacturer that is not coming to make a financial bet but to secure access to launches for its clients in Asia. That difference between a financial investor and a strategic investor changes everything. Between the lines. Mitsubishi Electric has also signed an MOU with Lockheed Martin to collaborate on geostationary defense satellites. That the same week in which he signs that agreement he also leads this round in PLD Space is no coincidence. Japan is building a chain of access to space so as not to depend on anyone, and PLD Space fits as a provider of low orbit launches for the constellation of satellites that that ecosystem needs. For the Spanish company, this means support that goes beyond capital: it is a seal of industrial credibility. In figures: 180 million euros raised in Series C. More than 350 million in total accumulated financing. Planned capacity of 30 launches per year by the end of the decade. The Miura 5 can place up to 1,080 kg in low orbit. Target production: 4 rockets in 2026, 6 in 2027. The context. Europe has had the problem of access to space on the table for years. The delays of Ariane 6 and the dependence on American launchers have made it clear that the continent does not have a mature private alternative. He European Launcher Challengewhich calls for a test flight of a higher-capacity rocket before 2028, has acted as an accelerator for PLD’s roadmap. The company already designs the Miura Nextdesigned precisely to meet that institutional challenge. The big question. PLD Space has proven that it can raise money and that it can fly hardware. He Miura 1suborbital rocket, completed its first launch in October 2023. But the jump to orbital is different. Many launch startups have raised hundreds of millions and have not reached orbit. The real test begins when the Miura 5 takes off from Kourou, whose facilities should be ready in July. Until then, money buys time, but not guarantees. In Xataka | “We are the company that has developed an orbital rocket the fastest”: PLD Space, one step away from making history from Spain Featured image | PLD Space

Nobody wants to take up weapons, but they are making money selling them

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Europe has accelerated your spending in defense up to levels that had not been seen since the end of the Cold War, driven by conflicts on its borders and a growing strategic uncertainty. The reflection has been a global arms market that is experiencing one of its more expansive cycles in decades, with long-term contracts and industrial chains that work at full capacity. In this context of rearmament and international repositioning, some countries face to a reality that goes beyond the numbers. For example, Spain. An industry that shoots record numbers. They counted this week in Spanish that, at the end of 2024 (last year for which official data is available), the Spanish defense industry touched 7,000 million of euros in exports, 10.6% more than the previous year, consolidating a model in which almost 70% of the sector’s sales depend on the foreign market. Three large companies (Airbus, Indra and Navantia) concentrate more than 70% of international business, and if Rheinmetall Expal and ITP Aero are added, five companies account for more than 80% of exports. According to the Ministry of Defense, the bulk comes from international programs such as the A400M or the Eurofighter, with the aeronautical subsector representing almost two-thirds of the total, while conventional weapons and missiles are growing strongly. Spain maintains ninth place in the world as an exporter, with 3% of the global marketand although it has lost positions compared to competitors such as Italy or Israel, its absolute numbers continue to increase. Ukraine as a showcase and accelerator. The war in Ukraine has been a catalyst. Since 2022, Spain has authorized more than 910 million euros in sales of defense material to kyiv, with a special weight of ammunition and projectiles, including more than 130,000 155 mm. Added to this are battle tanks, armored vehicles, missiles and direct donations that include everything from Harpoon systems to medicalized armored vehicles. Only in 2023 exports to Ukraine represented more than 150 millionand in the first half of 2024 they exceeded 130 million, increasing the relative weight of kyiv within the export group. In other words, Spain not only participates politically in the European effort, but has become a relevant supplier in a high-intensity conflict that consumes ammunition at an industrial rate. The paradox of the empty uniform. It we count this week. While the factories work at full capacity and the international contracts multiply, the interest of the Spanish population in joining the Armed Forces does not live his best moment. The social distance from the military profession, demographic aging and competition in the civilian labor market contrast with the strength of the defense industrial complex. Those 7 billion of euros summarize an uncomfortable reality in Spain: because there may be a lack of hands to take up weapons, but they are making money selling them to the rest of the planet. The country participates in fighters, produces radars, large-caliber ammunition or naval systems for third parties, while the internal debate revolves around vocations, working conditions and professional attractiveness. A model with recruitment on the other hand. The analysis of Defense in Spain indicates that the strength of the sector does not rest on the size of the national army, but rather on its integration into consortia Europeans and global supply chains. Ukraine, India, Saudi Arabia, France, the United States and Germany are among the main destinations for Spanish material, which shows a geographic diversification that cushions any internal fluctuation. The industry acts as a technological engine and generator of qualified employment, but also as an actor fully inserted in a global market that is experiencing a rebound sustained by conflicts and geopolitical tensions. Between industrial power and social debate. Spain thus finds itself facing a strategic duality. On the one hand, it consolidates its role as a relevant actor in world trade of weapons and strengthens its position in key international programs. On the other hand, face a domestic debate about the link between society and defense that is not resolved with accounting balances. The paradox is no small thing: a country that escalates million-dollar contracts abroad while dealing with the need to make more attractive the uniform at home. And in this tension between global market and national commitment is drawn one of the quietest dilemmas of Spanish defense policy. Image | Seko Photography In Xataka | Europe has asked its military experts how to become independent from the US for the next war. The answer is déjà vu: the F-35 In Xataka | Spain’s main problem is not weapons, fighters or drones: it is the number of hands it lacks to use them

All the money in the world won’t satisfy AI’s RAM hunger

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There is no RAM for so much AI. At this point in the film, no one can ignore that we are fully immersed in a new component crisis. Unlike the perfect storm that shook the technology industry in 2020, the new crisis is due to something very specific: the voracity of data centers and the artificial intelligence. In recent weeks we have seen negativity everywhere, but now one of the main people responsible for the lack of RAM comes to say that things are not going to stay the same. They are going to get worse. 30% of the goal. Chey Tae-won is not just anyone. This is the CEO of SK groupone of the largest conglomerates in the world and a South Korean giant that controls everything from the energy industry to chemicals and telephony. In addition, it has SK Hynix, one of the largest manufacturers of memories from around the world. If there is an authorized voice in this crisisof course it is yours. And what did he say? Well, there’s still a RAM storm left for a while. In a recent interview, stated that memory supply will be more than 30% below AI demand for this year. That is, by turning all their production to high-performance memory for AI, completely abandoning the consumer sector, they will be far from be able to satisfy what companies like NVIDIA they are claiming. structural problem. As we say, we have been talking about the state of the industry for weeks, but now we understand the extent to which the consumer sector has taken a backseat to memory manufacturers. That “we have given everything and we are going to fall within 30% of the goal” is tremendously revealing and explains the reason why everything with a memory chip is rising in price. Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung are the three companies that lead production by memory. They make both consumer memory (that of the mobile phone, the PC, the routerTV or car) as a professional (high-bandwidth HBMs), but their production is not unlimited: if they want to increase performance in one type of memory, they must lower that of the other. And that’s what’s happening: the AI ​​business is memory hungry, and for every unit of high-bandwidth memory produced, several units of standard memory must be sacrificed for other devices. This creates a bottleneck and an “unprecedented” shortage, according to Micron’s vice president, as the AI ​​industry is consuming all memory production capacity, creating a tremendous shortage in the conventional branch. All sold. As consumers, buy an SSD, a RAM module and a Large capacity HDD is a luxury right now, but to those who control chip production, it’s going well for them because they are selling all production before starting to “print” chips. Chey Tae-won himself has commented that the profit margins on his HBM4 chips are stratospheric, around 60%. Micron has already commented that all of its HBM memory production capacity for 2026 is already sold, and These are statements similar to those of Western Digital a few days ago. This implies that they have already sold components that do not exist for graphics cards that do not exist and that will power data centers that do not yet exist. abandoning ship. Samsung, SK and Micron are expanding their production lines and opening factories, but getting clean rooms It’s a slow process for them to start making chips, and Micron’s new plants, for example, aren’t expected to start making RAM until 2028. And when they do, it’ll likely be memory for data centers, not consumer price relief. In the end, there are only a few suppliers for many manufacturers, and that has another consequence: there will be brands that they have to get out of the car. The CEO of the SK group has commented that “there will probably be PC and smartphone manufacturers that will end up abandoning their businesses”, but he has not been the only one. A few days ago, the boss of Phison, a company that makes memory controllers, pointed in the same line. And it is easy to understand: if a manufacturer with low volume costs much more for memory, it has two options: sell a PC/mobile with less RAM or sell that same product much more expensive. Neither is a good idea. The price of 32 GB of DDR5 RAM from Crucial. Micron’s Crucial no longer exists Not very hopeful forecasts. The big question is when this solution will end. From SMIC, the large Chinese foundry, it is estimated that storm remains for a while because everyone wants to build their infrastructure for the next decade over the next two years. There are analysts who estimate that manufacturers – such as those in the automotive sector – are stockpiling AI out of “panic” that it will run out and now HBM4 memory is being produced, but in a few years there will be superior technology that will make AI faster and more capable… and the industry will turn to it again if the bubble doesn’t burst first. Domino. Meanwhile, companies like TeslaIntel or the Japanese giant SoftBank They want to get fully into the DRAM market and the companies Chinese companies like CXMT have an opportunity to meet the demand for AI for devices such as laptops. And, although we now see how it has impacted the price of loose components, we have to wait to see what happens in already assembled devices. Lenovo has pointed that the price of laptops is going to rise, but there are also warnings about important price increases in mobile phones, above all in low and mid-range devices, where the price of RAM represents a large part of the product cost. As I have said before, we have to cross our fingers so that the mobile phone or PC does not break, since once it is time to change it, paying the price will not be something pleasant. Images | Xataka, Bananovaya In Xataka | We … Read more

Chargebacks are the silent hemorrhage of e-commerce. A Catalan startup is making money by covering it

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Yesterday Paco bought a product on Wallapop and received it. Then came the problem. Paco called the bank and lied saying that it was not the product he expected or that he did not receive it, thus managing to keep the product and recover his money. Free product for him, headache for Wallapop. This is where a promising Catalan startup called Kloutit comes in. Fictional situation, real problem. Paco does not exist as such and the situation is fictitious, but it is the reflection of a very palpable reality among e-commerce companies: many are affected to a greater or lesser extent by the so-called chargebacks or chargebacks. Kloutit has an AI to solve it. The Catalan startup Kloutit has created an AI tool to manage these chargebacks on e-commerce platforms. Founded in 2024 by Albert Algarra (CEO), Alexis Pairetti and Adrián Algarra, the company already has almost 200 active clients and operates in nine countries, as indicated in CincoDías. Among those clients are Wallapop, Cabify, Playtomic, Factorial, or TaxDown. A problem that they manage to mitigate. The phenomenon of chargebacks negatively impacts 30% of the gross operating profit (ebitda) of companies, according to Kloutit. However, thanks to their AI system, companies multiply the amount of money lost and later recovered by 5.5. Not only that: as those responsible for CincoDías indicate, “Reducing chargebacks not only protects income, but also improves the relationship with payment service providers, and avoids penalties for high ratios.” They may be legitimate, but they may not be.. Unlike a normal return in which you go to the store, deliver the product and receive your money back, in a chargeback the bank withdraws the money directly from the merchant’s account and returns it to the customer while it investigates what happened. Chargebacks typically occur in three cases: Real fraud: someone has stolen your card and made purchases, so you notify the bank indicating that it was not you, and the bank returns your money. Problems with service: you bought something that never arrived, or the product that arrives is broken or the service (hotels, flights) was not as promised. “Friendly fraud”: This is where the problem lies for companies, and it is the fictitious case we have described. A chargeback is not just about losing a sale. For a business it implies a double loss: both the product they already sent and the money from the sale. In fact, after the chargeback the nightmare begins, because the implications are several: Penalty: Banks charge a penalty fee to the merchant for each chargeback received regardless of who is right. Blacklist: If the store has many chargebacks, Visa or Mastercard can blacklist you and prohibit card payments. Expensive defense: defending against a chargeback is a cumbersome bureaucratic process: you have to demonstrate with evidence (delivery notes, screenshots, emails) that the customer did receive the service. AI vs. obsolete systems. The platform developed by Kloutit promises a much more effective alternative to traditional systems that they describe as obsolete: manual processes, a lot of time investment and disappointing success rates. The Catalan startup’s AI system promises to automate these processes and free teams from this burden. That they have more and more clients is a promising sign that they are doing something right. Images | Nathana Rebouças In Xataka | Online commerce was supposed to kill shopping malls. The reality has been just the opposite.

Video games have grown a lot this year. But the money goes to China, Roblox and the owners of mobile platforms

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The global video game industry had a turnover of around $185 billion in 2024 and continues to grow. But there is a catch: this growth does not reach the studios or the area that traditional players look at, those of the console wars and the old PC Master Race. Matthew Ball’s usual annual report leaves a less complacent diagnosis: revenue is concentrated in China, on platforms like Roblox and on the owners of mobile operating systems. The rest survive as best they can. The Old Times (2021): There is still talk about how great the year 2021 was for video games. It seems like it was yesterday when the pandemic (insert meme of Grandpa Simpson telling stories to the kids here) confined hundreds of millions of people to their homes, and games (mobile, console, PC, free, subscription) absorbed the benefits of that confinement. As Ball, CEO of Epyllion, analyzes in The State of Video Gaming in 2025the factors that drove that peak were an extraordinary sum of factors: mobile platforms, free-to-play models, games as a service, the cross play and new genres like battle royale and social play. Downhill. The flip side of that was a much bigger recession than expected: global spending on video games fell 3.5% in 2022 and barely recovered a few percentage points towards the end of 2024. According to the consulting firm MIDiA Research, the sector had enjoyed growth of 26.3% in 2020 and 9.8% in 2021, and the rebound was inevitable. According to Ball, the engines that had driven the industry between 2011 and 2021 stopped all at once: the smartphones They were no longer surprising with each interaction, social networks were paralyzed, the free-to-play was normalized. 6.5% of total gaming time in 2023 corresponded to new video games, says Ball, and only four titles shared half of that percentage. Layoffs in full force. He report also speaks how the sector’s layoffs since 2022 illustrate this adjustment: more than 44,000 jobs, 61% of them concentrated in North America. This does not mean that it is the end of the industry or that the same pattern is being repeated. crash 1983, as has been said (the industry is too diversified and globalized to repeat a systemic collapse of that magnitude). What we are paying is the cost of having built a structure designed for an industry in continuous growth during the pandemic. The Chinese monster. Ball puts on the table that global spending on video games grew by approximately $10 billion between 2021 and 2025. But… where did that money go? The report assures that to Beijing: about 4,000 million of that growth is from the Chinese market, and another 1,500 million are from titles developed in China sold in international markets. In total, Chinese publishers have racked up about half of global growth since 2019. And there are more data: Gamer spending in China reached $49.2 billion in 2024, with a base of 722 million active gamers, more than double the total population of the United States. China is already the first market in the world by income. Not foreigners. Very significantlythat market remains almost closed to foreign games. 84% of Chinese gamers’ spending goes on titles produced in China, and that percentage has increased, as unusual as it may seem: 20% of Chinese domestic spending goes on imported titles (a figure that also registered a decrease of 5% between 2023 and 2024). It is comparable to what happens with cinemawith local films devouring foreign ones at the box office. A situation favored by a combination of factors: First, the Chinese regulatory framework favors national titles through a licensing system; second, development costs are substantially lower than in the West; Finally, the work culture of the country’s studios allows for more intensive production cycles. You don’t have to dig far to find examples of great Chinese international successes: ‘Genshin Impact‘, from miHoYo, raised more than $3.5 billion in its first year70% outside China with a character design rooted in anime. ‘Honor of Kings‘, from Tencent, dominated the Chinese mobile market for years before making the international leap with adaptations of character names. AND ‘Black Myth: Wukong‘, developed with support from Tencent, sold ten million copies in its first three days launching in August 2024, betting on the opposite of assimilation: an unequivocally Chinese mythology without thematic concessions to Western taste. Roblox sweeps. The numbers sing: 70% of the growth of the video game market outside of China in 2025 was absorbed by ‘Roblox‘. Which is an infrastructure on which millions of creators build interactive experiences using the platform’s own tools. Players access it for free and spend real money on cosmetic items and access within these worlds, transactions that are carried out in Robux, the ecosystem’s virtual currency. Of every dollar spent,’Roblox’ historically retained around 70% leaving the creator with approximately 25 or 30 cents. In September 2024, ‘Roblox’ announced a new delivery model for paid games that increases the creator’s commission up to 70% on titles that sell for $49.99. What does this translate into? In 2024, ‘Roblox’ paid around $923 million to its creators (an increase of 25% compared to 2023), while its total revenue grew by 29% until reaching 3.6 billion dollars. Its intentions are colossal: CEO David Baszucki stated that the company’s goal is to capture 10% of the global video game content market. Some more questions. Just to finish outlining the portrait: ‘Roblox’ registers sustained net losses (a accumulated deficit of 3.5 billion) with the logic of the platform in the expansion phase, sacrificing immediate profitability. Some observers they point because ‘Roblox’ has become the video game equivalent of YouTube, a platform that extracts value from the work of its creators in the form of data, advertising and infrastructure. And one last thing: two titles on the platform (‘Blox Fruits’ and ‘Brookhaven RP’) each accumulate 60% of the monthly gaming hours of all of Electronic Arts. 30%. If the global video game market reached an all-time high in … Read more

If the question is how much money Ryanair can ask you for for messing up on a flight, the answer is: a lot.

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Making a mess on a plane is expensive, very expensive. At the beginning of the week, Ryanair fined one of its passengers a fine of 15,000 euros as compensation for damages and losses on a flight. The decision comes at the hands of the Dublin Court, and although the amount is one of the highest in recent years, it is far from being an exception. what has happened. According to Ryanair in his statementone of its passengers forced the plane he was traveling on to divert to Porto, after attacking passengers and crew on a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote. No specific details about the attack itself have emerged, but the Dublin Court has imposed a penalty of 15,000 in damages on the accused. The lawsuit was filed in January 2025, Ryanair is not fooling around. In this case, it was Dublin that imposed the amount of the penalty, but the airline has a rigid policy of sanctions for non-exemplary passengers. In June 2025, the company warned about fixed fines of 500 euros for any passenger expelled for misconduct before the flight. In the event that the flight has already started and results in a forced diversion, the policy is clear: legal persecution. It is not the first fine very high. Ryanair has been able to ban passengers for five years and obtain compensation for damages due to value of 3,000 euros on recent Berlin-Marrakech flights. He also managed to get sanctioned 2,000 euros to a passenger who decided to smoke on the plane. The measure fits within the framework of a company with a clear policy: squeeze every penny out of each clientwith a solid margin thanks to its aggressive strategies. The finer, fined. Ryanair has just received one of the highest fines in recent years (not the largest, estimated at more than 100,000 dollars and a lifetime ban by Jet2), but it is also the one that has the record of having suffered the highest fine to an airline by the Government of Spain. A profitable business model, focused on squeezing every penny from its passengers, and a clear policy regarding inappropriate behavior: pay. In Xataka | Spain and Ryanair are in a legal battle over the charge for hand luggage. Ryanair’s best ally: Europe

All Big Tech are betting the money they have and the money they don’t have on the future of AI. All but one: Apple

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650 billion dollars. There it is nothing. That is the total amount that Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are going to invest in data centers for AI. That amount of money is astonishing and is similar to the current GDP of countries like Argentina or Israel. But the curious thing is not only that: there is a Big Tech that is totally ignoring this fever to spend on AI as if there were no tomorrow. Apple against the current. The company led by Tim Cook is the only one of the group of large technology companies whose capex (planned capital expenditure) was reduced last quarter. Based on FactSet data compiled by SherwoodApple’s forecasts for that quarter were not to spend more, but attention, spend (quite a bit) less. The numbers don’t lie. According to the data provided by these companies, Amazon expects that in 2026 its capex reaches up to 200,000 million dollars. Google wants to go from 175,000 to 185,000 million. Meta estimates that the expense will be between 115,000 and the 135,000 million. And although Microsoft did not give a specific figure, it surely exceeds the $114 billion estimated by Wall Street. And Apple? Apple will not spend more, but 19% according to its latest estimates: about $12.7 billion. Amazon: +42% YoY (vs. previous year) Microsoft: +89% YoY Google: +95% YoY Goal: +48% YoY Apple: -19% YoY Cupertino goes from AI. While its competitors spent record sums last quarter (which ended December 31) on the purchase of material and properties linked to the AI ​​sector and data centers, Apple continues not to invest in this sector. It is something that makes it clear that the company seems to have definitively decided that this is not its war. Siri+Gemini is the best test. Confirmation of that “surrender” is in the recent announcement that Gemini will be the AI ​​on which the new version of Siri will be based. Apple’s new AI assistant is expected to hit the market this spring with at least some initial features, but the fact that it does so depends entirely on Google’s AI model makes it clear that Apple here prefers to delegate rather than invest to have its own foundational model. AI will be a commodity. Instead of participating in this costly war of language models, Apple is clear that AI is going to end up being a commodity, something that is going to become a basic standard technology like the PC, mobile phone or laptop is now. Model prices plummet as the capacity of those models grows, and benchmarks make it clear that no model is better than another for long. Apple as a gateway to AI. As usual, what Apple will do is take advantage of the fact that has the “gateway to AI. With 2.4 billion devices worldwide, it controls the most valuable distribution channel on the planet. It has the luxury of not making “the engine,” but rather acting as an avenue to bring AI to the masses. Here agreements like the one it has completed with Google are just the beginning. It doesn’t matter being late. It is something that is in the company’s DNA. He also did not want to fight the search engine battle, but it did not matter: he reached an agreement with Google, which has paid him billions of dollars for years to be able to put its search engine as the default engine on iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple prefers that others pave the way and absorb the costs of early learning. Then she usually arrives with superior integration and a refined experience (iPod, iPhone) or directly with deals like the one she completed in the search engine space. AI will be invisible and ubiquitous. Apple’s goal doesn’t seem to be to offer its own chatbot on the web, but to make AI invisible and ubiquitous. It doesn’t matter which model runs behind it, but simply that this AI works transparently for the user. And it does so, of course, seamlessly integrated into Apple services and applications. Privacy by flag. And of course, with that vaunted commitment to privacy that Apple always boasts of. Its Private Cloud Compute is the best proof of this. By not relying on advertising (hello Google, hello OpenAI), it is able to offer advanced features without collecting massive data from users. But there is risk. Still, the strategy has a critical risk: if AI models become a commodity and end up creating technological monopolies, Apple could be permanently at the mercy of its suppliers. If these competitive advantages end up being consolidated in the model layer – the one controlled by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google – and not in the integration layer – which is Apple’s – the dependence on third parties will be a dangerous strategic weakness. Room for maneuver. Apple has annual benefits close to 100 billion dollars, which gives it an enviable financial position to wait for this “hype” cycle to cool down. It is clear that there is an AI bubble and that bubble will probably end up exploding and leaving many victims. If it does, one of those that will undoubtedly have room to maneuver to survive will be Apple. Image | Xataka with Freepik In Xataka | China does not have a spending problem with AI. What it has is a huge income gap compared to its main rival

sport has been disguised as therapy to charge you more money

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There was a time when gyms smelled of liniment and rusty iron. Success was measured in guttural screams and soaked T-shirts under the military motto of the no pain, no gain. That era is dead. If you walk into a fashion studio today, you will smell like incense and see pastel colors. The industry has understood that to capture the masses it had to stop selling exhaustion and start selling “connection.” As explained by trend magazinesWe have entered the era of strong Elegance. This new concept, far from being a brand, is defined as a natural evolution of training “better, not more.” The goal is no longer to destroy muscle, but to “connect with your body” through softness and technique. It is the birth of Cozy Fitness or gentle training. However, behind this facade of Zen calm, the economic projections are dizzying. It is estimated that the global market for Pilates and Yoga studios will reach 520.61 billion dollars by 2035driven by a population that values ​​mental health over gross physical appearance. Redefining effort The paradigm shift is not accidental; responds to a post-pandemic demand for mental health. According to a report by Les Mills99% of respondents say they feel “happier” after training, and 42% prioritize exercise specifically to improve their mental well-being. This has caused low-impact disciplines, such as Pilates, to be the most booked class for the second year in a row. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that “soft” means “easy.” Specialized media They warn that disciplines like sweep (a fusion of ballet, pilates and yoga) generate a real metabolic and mechanical overload. By working with isometry and bringing the muscle to fatigue without heavy weights, strength and postural improvement are achieved. This is where the narrative turns perverse. Under the promise of “liberation” and “self-care,” the industry has commodified the management of the self. An in-depth academic analysis on the philosophical dimensions of medical sciences suggests that modern fitness It is a byproduct of neoliberal ideology. We are instilled with the notion of the “entrepreneurial self”: health and aesthetics become an individual responsibility for success or failure. Wellbeing is sold as a commodity, and the individual is forced into constant “self-optimization.” If you are not healthy and radiant, it is because you are not managing your body “company” well. This pressure manifests itself in new obsessions such as Protein Chic. We have gone from eating out of necessity to consuming protein-enriched products (even popcorn or water) as a status symbol. The protein shake has become in a religious ritual, a tool to feel that we have “fulfilled” the mandate of physical productivity. Furthermore, sport has become a class filter. Fashion competitions like Hyroxwhich combine running and functional exercises, have become at an exhibition of lifestyle where you pay a high registration fee (about 70 euros) to show that you can afford to suffer in a way cool and gamified. The drivers of change: loneliness, identity and fashion To understand how we got to this point, you have to look at who is filling the rooms. Generation Z has turned the gym into its new bar, desperately seeking a tribe instead of cold machines. A report from 2025 reveals that 36% of young people regularly go to these centers, not only for the physical, but to combat loneliness and find community. Their priority is belonging, which explains the mass exodus toward group classes versus solitary training. The large chains have read this emotional need perfectly and have changed their business model: they no longer sell an hour of exercise, they sell identity. The success of brands like Brooklyn Fitboxing, which expects to invoice 50 million eurosis based on gamifying that community. In the same way, Pilates Club has skyrocketed his income 60% in Spain by focusing on “operational quality” and selling the feeling of belonging to a select and exclusive club. This aesthetic obsession has permeated everything, even technology, which has abandoned crude plastic to disguise itself as high jewelry or become invisible. “Technological minimalism” is the new norm: bracelets like the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 They are now launched with ceramic straps to be worn as fashion necklaces, while devices such as smart rings or heart rate sensors Whoop they bet on “silent monitoring”. It is the triumph of constant but discreet data: the obsession with measuring the body 24/7 without looking like a cyborg. Where are we going: From aesthetics to biology The immediate future of the industry delves into this sophistication. Trends for 2026 point to ‘Body Literacy’: according to elleusers no longer want generic recipes, but rather understand their own biology, hormones and stress response. We move from aggressive “bio-hacking” to personalized and clinical understanding. In Spain, the market is entering a consolidation phase. According to reports from consulting firms such as BDOlarge operators will stop opening centers indiscriminately to focus on increasing the average income per customer (upselling) and offer comprehensive family services. The gym wants to be the center of the social life of the entire family. However, there are cracks in this perfect pastel world. While the sector premium talks about connecting the soul, the segment low cost go on being a battle of prices and efficiency, reminding us that “spiritual well-being” remains, in large part, an affordable luxury. Even technology is showing signs of exhaustion. Technology analysts They point out which devices like him Apple Watch They seem to have reached their ceiling in sports. They have become excellent “entertainers” of well-being (Wellness), but they lack the technical depth of a real coach, remaining on the surface of motivation with synthetic voices that congratulate you for closing rings. As Ale Llosa, founder of one of these new success methods, summarizes, in Vogue: “Soft is fashionable, but without strength there is no resilience.” The question we have left, as we close the locker room locker, is whether this new era of fitness is really making us freer and stronger, or if it has simply built us a prettier, … Read more

Google has borrowed money to repay in 2126. AI is already financed with debt for a century ahead

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Alphabet has just closed the largest debt transaction in its history: $20 billion in bonds. And it is preparing something even rarer: an issue in pounds that includes a 100 year bond. Expires in 2126. Why is it important. No major technology company has issued a centenary bond since IBM in 1996. That Google is doing it now says a lot about the scale of investment AI requires. And that this race is financed with wild debt. The background: A bond is borrowed money. The company pays periodic interest and returns the principal at maturity. The routine is terms of 5, 10 or 30 years. The extraordinary thing is to ask for money from a century into the future. Investors lined up: demand exceeded 100 billion, five times what Google was asking for. Alphabet planned to raise 15 billion, but raised the offer to 20 billion due to the flood. Between the lines. A century-year bond is a statement of intent: “we are building infrastructure that will last generations.” Google is thus conveying that AI is not a three-year fad or something that we will forget after the puncture, but something that will transform the economy in the long term like railways or electricity did. Yes, but. Michael Burry, the investor who anticipated the 2008 crisis, has issued a warning that has gone viral: the last technology company that issued a centenary bond was Motorola in 1997. And according to him, that was “the last year in which Motorola mattered.” In 1997 it was a top 25 company in the United States, but a year later, Nokia overtook it and then the iPhone, Android, Chinese manufacturers arrived… and now, in the hands of Lenovoit barely fits into the top 10 mobile manufacturers. Burry asks: is this trust or the gesture made right at the top, before everything changes? The figures. Alphabet’s spending on infrastructure this year may reach, according to figures published by the companyat 185,000 million dollars. More than the previous three years combined. They are data centers, chips, computing capacity for AI… The five other large companies that have increased their capex (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle; Apple has reduced it) issued 121,000 million in bonds last year. Four times more than the annual average for 2020-2024. Main winner? Google, without a doubt. Issuing very long-term debt locks in favorable interest rates for decades. If they go up, Google already has its financing. If they go down, you can buy back the debt sooner. Plus, the interest is deductible, so it’s cheaper than using your own cash. And it does not dilute shareholders. Win-win-win. What is happening. The era in which technology companies grew solely by turning to their profits is over. The enormous expense required by the infrastructure for AI makes them use financial instruments that until now they had barely needed. They are no longer software startups. They are the largest infrastructure builders of the 21st century. And they need a lot of capital. The big question. Is giving bonuses for a century vision or overconfidence? Probably both: What is certain is that technology companies now compete in the debt markets like banks and large industrial companies. And that defines what our industry has become. In Xataka | The intellectual luxury of our era is sustaining our attention, AI is making it worse Featured image | Mitchell Luo

The Auto+ Plan comes with less money, more demands and a key question to resolve

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Announced for January 1, it was finally in February 2026 when the Auto+ Planthe new aid system for electric cars with which the Government tries to promote the sale of cars with a Zero Emissions label, whether electric or plug-in hybrids. The new aid system comes with important new features, both in the amount that can be obtained and in the way that aid is delivered. Now, in addition, where the car will be made will be taken into account in order to qualify for the maximum possible deduction. This is all that needs to be taken into account. This is what the new aid for electric cars is like After a month of uncertainty, the Government has approved new aid for electric cars that relieves the MOVES III Plan and solves some of the problems that have been dragging on for years. The program has an amount of 400 million euros so, for now, it will only be available until this fund runs out. In it, as we will see, vehicles manufactured in Europe and those with the lowest price are rewarded. And to receive the maximum discounts it will be necessary to overcome different key points. What must be clear is that from the Ministry of Industry and Tourism has not been clarified exactly when the aid will be delivered to the client. The promise was that the discount would be applied at the time of purchase, eliminating the waits of up to 18 months who have come to live with the MOVES III Plan. However, this seems to be up in the air. And in its explanations, the Ministry points out that the aid “will be carried out in coordination with the Autonomous Communities and that “dealers, points of sale and renting companies will be able to help process aid requests” but nothing is specified about what will be delivered at that time. It must be taken into account that The concessionaires already indicated that they were not willing to advance the aid money. First of all, the basic points that must be clear are the following: The aid takes into account all purchases made from January 1, 2026 so those who have purchased an electric car in the first month of the year will be able to have access to them. Aid is only provided for purchases of Zero-emission vehicles. Aid is only provided to passenger cars (M1) whose maximum amount before the application of VAT is 45,000 euros. N1 vehicles (vehicles intended for the transport of goods that do not exceed 3,500 kg) have no purchase limit to receive aid L3e, L4e and L5e vehicles (mopeds) may not exceed 10,000 euros before taxes to receive aid. L6e and L7e vehicles (quadricycles) have no purchase limit to receive aid. The maximum aid for a car will be 4,500 euros. The brand will have to offer a minimum discount of 1,000 euros. It is not clear when the aid will be delivered to the client or how long it will take for the client to receive it. Once this is understood, the next thing to understand is that the maximum amount of aid is only received if a series of conditions are met. requirements. Thus, depending on the car purchased, percentages of the maximum amount will be covered and, therefore, only by meeting all the requirements will we be able to receive the maximum money delivered by the State. Category Maximum aid amount Vehicle type Percentage received based on price Manufacturing Tourism (M1) 4,500 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (2,250 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (1,125 euros) Maximum of 45,000 euros before taxes: Up to 35,000 euros: 25% of the maximum aid amount (1,125 euros) Between 35,001 and 45,000 euros: 15% of the maximum amount of aid (675 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (675 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (450 euros euros) Vehicle (N1) 5,000 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (2,500 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (1,250 euros) No maximum limit: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (1,250 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (750 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (500 euros) Moped (L3e, L4e and L5e) 1,100 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (550 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (275 euros) Maximum of 10,000 euros before taxes: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (275 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (165 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (110 euros) Quadricycle (L6e and L7e) 1,500 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (750 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (375 euros) No maximum limit: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (375 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (225 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (150 euros) Therefore, now to be aware … Read more

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