part

Get four months free of one of the best VPNs on the market just for being part of Xataka Xtra

by

At Xataka we are not only passionate about technology: we are obsessed with understanding how it impacts us on a daily basis. That is why we have launched Xataka Xtraour community for readers who want to go one step further. And since we want to make being part of this worthwhile from minute one, we will tell you one of the advantages you get with Xtra: four free months of NordVPN for all subscribers on one- or two-year plans. We don’t want this to be a discount code and that’s it. We want to take the opportunity to explain to you why in 2026 a VPN is no longer a mere addition for people jealous of their privacy, but rather a basic tool for anyone who uses the internet. It’s not just hiding your IP (that’s the least of it) You probably associate using VPN to bypass geoblocks for certain services and applications. NordVPN has more than 9,000 servers in 111 countriesso this does it very well, but it does much more: Malware Protection: NordVPN is not just a VPN. Its function Threat Protection Pro It analyzes the files you download and the websites you visit in real time. Not only does it protect you from viruses, it blocks intrusive trackers and ads before they load. Post-quantum security: We already know that quantum computers will have the ability to break any encryption that exists to date, present and past. NordVPN already implements post-quantum encryption for when that time comes. This is important because it provides protection so that your current data cannot be decrypted even with the technologies that are to come. Extra layer against phishing: Many security breaches occur due to theft of credentials or phishingso having extra protection against these types of attacks comes in handy. Compatible with 10 devices: With a single account you can protect your mobile phone, your laptop, your partner’s and even your Smart TV, as it allows up to 10 devices to be connected simultaneously. NordVPN 76% discount on NordVPN (this offer does not include the 4 months of Xataka Xtra) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Why we choose NordVPN At Xataka we try to avoid marketing promises and always look for support in data. And in that NordVPN gives us a lot of confidence: they have just overcome your sixth independent “zero records” audit (no-logs) conducted by Deloitte. This implies that one of the world’s largest auditing firms has gone into the kitchen of its systems—interviewing employees and analyzing each server—to confirm that NordVPN does not track, collect or store anything you do online. Whether you choose NordVPN or any other VPN service, we highly recommend making this one of the basic requirements you ask for. It is important because in this sector there are many companies that claim to protect your privacy but then end up selling your data. With this independent audit, NordVPN opens its doors to demonstrate that they deliver what they promise. It is a transparency that gives us a lot of peace of mind. We are waiting for you at Xataka Xtra In Xataka Xtra We want to build something different: more closeness, exclusive content and advantages that really add to your digital life. This collaboration with NordVPN is just the beginning. Yeah You join today with an annual or two-year planyou take those four extra months as a gift to start browsing as you should: quickly, safely and without anyone tracking your steps. In Xataka | What is a VPN connection, what is it for and what advantages does it have?

3.6 million people watched the Goya gala. Only a small part went to see the nominated films

by

The gala of the Goya 2026 has scored a 26% screen share, its best figure since 2020 and the second highest since 2010, in a context of television consumption down. Paradoxically, this massive attention contrasts with a box office that remains stagnant and with an audience that prefers to see Spanish cinema on television platforms and events rather than in theaters. Technology and new consumer habits explain this gap. The figures. The broadcast of the gala on RTVE’s La 1 brought together an average of 2,396,000 viewers and reached a 26% share. In his analysisVertele emphasizes that linear television consumption has been significantly reduced in the last decade, with fewer people watching DTT at the same time than in 2010. That the gala reaches percentages comparable to fifteen years ago in an ecosystem fragmented by streaming and delayed viewing platforms suggests that the Goya remains an event capable of bringing together a mass audience in real time, in the style of a sporting event. These good figures are part of five consecutive years of growth for the gala in audiences, with an increase of 1.6 share points and 56,000 viewers compared to the 2025 edition. However, the majority of the films that competed for the award that night had not managed to recover their investment in theaters. Less box office. According to the official data published by the ICAASpanish theaters closed 2024 with 72.9 million spectators and a collection of 484.6 million euros, figures that represent a 5% decline in attendance compared to the previous year. The share of national cinema within this shrinking market was around 18.65%. But that percentage is not sustained by the auteur films that dominate the Goya nominations, but rather the exact opposite: family comedies and commercial thrillers. This can be applied to the big winners of this editionwhich we summarize in this table. All of them enjoyed subsidies between one million (except Sorda, with 800,000 euros) and 1,200,000. That is to say, they are films highly valued on the awards circuit, rather than by the general public. In this way, the market bifurcates, and the cinema that really fills theaters, such as the family comedies by Santiago Seguraare left out of the Goya. QUALIFICATION BUDGET COLLECTION SIRAT 6.5 million euros 2.87 million euros Maspalomas 5 million euros 716,000 euros Deaf 2 million euros 735,000 euros Sundays 4.7 million euros 3.7 million euros dinner 5 million euros 716,000 euros The captive 9.8-15 million euros 5.2 million euros lto Spanish exception. It is not something that happens in all countries: in France, the eternal model in which we want to see ourselves, French films raised 44% of the year’s box office. But at the same time, the three most watched French titles of the year (a comedy with disabled actors, an epic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas and a romantic drama) are films that also aspire to the Césars, their equivalent to our Goyas. Subsidies are also comparable in quantitybut here the number of releases has skyrocketed (168 in 2016, 364 in 2025), while the collection has decreased (from 111.5 to 85.6 million in the same period). And yet… the Goya audience demonstrates every year that there is interest in the industry. There is a potential audience that debates whether ‘Sirat’ deserved to win more awards than ‘Los Domingos’, but they did not go to the cinema for the premiere of ‘Sirat’. The hinge of the platforms. Three weeks after its very limited theatrical release, ‘The Snow Society’ landed on Netflix: in its first eleven days accumulated 51 million views and closed the first half of the year with 103 million views, becoming Netflix’s third most viewed film globally. The fact that he had that success right after leaving the theater sums up the problem. In October 2025 Netflix advertisement that they would spend one billion euros on Spanish production between that year and 2028. All this in Tres CantosNetflix’s largest production space in the entire European Union. Since its arrival in Spain, Netflix has produced more than a thousand titles with Spanish teams, generating 20,000 jobs in the sector. Amazon Prime Video follows a similar logic, although with less weight in its own original production. The money from the platforms has allowed Spanish cinema to produce on a scale outside the traditional financing system (subsidies, investment from traditional chains). For this reason, and in the face of competition from platforms, which produce and release almost immediately in their space, in 2022 the Spanish exhibitors They formally requested a minimum window of one hundred days between the theatrical release and the arrival on platforms, shorter than the windows in France (15 months) and Italy (3 months). At the moment, there is no regulation and each window is negotiated separately. The power of the Goya. However, there is a Goya Effect at the box office. Last year, when ‘El 47’ and ‘La infiltrada’ won the award for Best Filmthe two tapes their box office skyrocketed by more than 70%. It is something that carries lifetime happening with the Oscars, but here we do not have the muscle of international Hollywood distribution. In Spain, ‘Los Domingos’ continues in 50 cinemas and ‘Sirat’ in 35 throughout Spain. It is insufficient for them to experience notable growth. But these are the highest grossing ones: the Goya, their audience proves it, they generate real interest, but the majority of the winning films, such as ‘Sorda’ or ‘Maspalomas’, are already streaming. The impact of the awards does not benefit the box office because there are no open avenues to do so. In Xataka | Santiago Segura is so clear about his success that with ‘Torrente Presidente’ he is trying something: without a trailer or a pass for critics

If the question is who is going to illuminate part of the new A-5 tunnel, the answer is simple: the sun

by

He burial of the A5 continues its course. It is one of the most ambitious works in the recent history of the Spanish capital and, after months of headaches, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is still a way to go, but the light thing is quite literal if we take into account that, in the surface park, there will be enormous pergolas that will not only serve to provide shade. They will be the battery of the tunnel. The pergolas. From the beginning The project took into account the installation of an infrastructure that would allow the use of sunlight to power the tunnel through which the vehicles will circulate. The idea with this burial is to create a large green area of ​​80,000 m2 that, in addition to trees, will have another solution to shelter pedestrians: eight pergolas to combat the sun and rain. They won’t be the only thing they will do. As the Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility area of ​​the Madrid City Council has commented to ABCall of them will have photovoltaic panels that will total 1,055 panels for a nominal power of 437 kW and an annual production of 561 MWh. It is the equivalent of the annual consumption of 200 homes in Spain and the energy that will power the installations of the underground section. We will see when the works are completed, since the Madrid City Council already calculation a production of 1,158 MWh per year. Geothermal. All the pergolas will not be the same and the panels will be installed in the most optimal way possible to meet this estimated production, but it is not the only system planned to supply the park facilities with electricity from renewable sources. An example is the Ángel González Municipal Public Library, located at one end of the project. Currently, and as detailed the town hall, the thermal installation compose of a 285 kW boiler and a 220 kW chiller. In their place, two 150 kW heat pumps will be installed and will employ low temperature geothermal energy to create a water circuit tempered at a constant 25 degrees. It is a form of renewable energy that takes advantage of the constant heat of the shallow subsoil to air condition buildings and produce hot water. Undertaking work to switch to low-temperature geothermal is a complex and expensive process, but on the scale of the A5 underground, it makes a lot of sense. In this way, a pump will exchange heat with the ground to extract ground temperature in winter and, in summer, transfer heat from the building to the subsoil and, thus, cool the library. All this without local combustion. Mountains in the capital. And since we’re talking about renewables and reusing, it’s curious what they will do with some of the land they are excavating. Instead of having to manage it as waste, in part of the walk will be created three artificial hills. It is a good way to take advantage of surplus land, but it will also have a useful function. They will house thousands of trees that must be relocated due to current works, but, in addition, each of the hills will have a purpose. One will be a park with picnic areas and biodiversity areas, another will house a skatepark and another will become a viewpoint. Let them finish now…That is the feeling of the neighbors who have been enduring headaches from noisebut also an urban ‘Mario Kart’. Because it is very good to undertake works that use renewable energy to solve specific problems, but it is normal that there are those who are choking on these works. In the end, it is not easy to cut one of the access arteries to the city for almost two years to bury 3.2 kilometers of a highway on which 80,000 vehicles circulate a day. There is less left until the end of 2026… Images | MadridMadrid City Council In Xataka | Madrid wants to put 110,000 tons of weight on the M-30. And the challenge is not technical: it is not to collapse the road

part of the Mac mini will be manufactured in the US

by

It’s not every day that Apple can announce that one of its products will begin manufacturing in the United States. The company, whose supply chain has been supported for years in Asia, has confirmed what part of mac mini will be produced in Houston later this year. We are not talking about the iPhone or its best-selling laptop, but rather its most affordable desktop computer, a model that, according to estimates by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, represents less than 1% of total sales. Still, the movement is symbolic and comes at a time when domestic manufacturing is once again at the center of the industrial debate in Washington. The announcement is specific. Apple will begin producing the Mac mini at a facility in north Houston later this year. Manufacturing will take place at a plant operated by Foxconn, the same industrial partner that already assembles the company’s advanced AI servers there. “Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing and we are proud to significantly expand our presence in Houston with Mac mini production beginning later this year,” said Tim Cook in the official statement. The company presents the move as an expansion of its industrial presence in Texas and as part of its commitment to strengthen operations on US soil. What’s in Houston. The complex in the north of the city is not starting from scratch. Over there Foxconn It already assembles the advanced servers that Apple uses for its artificial intelligence services, including equipment that incorporates logic boards produced on site and shipped to data centers within the United States. The campus will have two buildings: one operational for servers and another, described as a large warehouse, which will be converted into about 220,000 square feet of space for the Mac mini. The pressure and the tariffs. The step is part of Apple’s commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, a promise the company made following President Donald Trump’s threats to impose a 25% tariff on products manufactured abroad. As we can see, these types of spending commitments occurred in a context of pressure to increase domestic investment, in exchange for tariff exemptions. Limited movement. Sabih Khan, Apple’s chief operating officer, explained to The Wall Street Journal that production in the United States is designed to cover local demand as the line gains capacity, but that thousands of units will continue to be manufactured in Asia. Additionally, the Mac mini represents less than 5% of global Mac computer sales and less than 1% of total sales, according to estimates by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. And something very important: there is also, for now, no plan to move the manufacturing of the iPhone to the country, the product that really supports the bulk of the business. Texas was already part of the map. Before the Mac mini, the Mac Pro had been the flagship of Apple computer manufacturing in the United States. Since 2013 it has been assembled in Austin and in 2019 the company reiterated its commitment to that facility, relying on American suppliers and a tariff exclusion for certain components. More than a radical change, the decision represents a calculated adjustment. Apple expands its manufacturing presence in Texas with a product of moderate scope, in a context in which supply chains remain international. Images | Apple In Xataka | NVIDIA was founded by three engineers, but only Jensen Huang remains CEO: “I wish I had kept some shares”

We have found an ancient bone in Córdoba. Some believe it is part of Hannibal’s war elephants.

by

What the hell is the bone of an elephant that lived more than 2,000 years ago doing in a Córdoba site surrounded by ammunition for catapults and arrows like those used in the scorpions? The question arises, but it is what a team of researchers who have just signed have been guessing for years. a fascinating article in one of the most reputable archaeological magazines in the world. In it they slip that this mysterious proboscis bone unearthed by pure chance in Andalusia could be neither more nor less than the first test direct from the war elephants employed by the Carthaginian general Aníbal Barca. What is this bone? A question similar to that must have been asked. towards 2019 archaeologists who, during a emergency excavation to expand the Provincial Hospital of Córdoba, they found a peculiar bone fragment. The piece was not larger than a baseball (measures between 15 and 8 cm), preserved its porosity and peeked out from under what looked like a ruined adobe wall from the 3rd century BC, which probably facilitated its preservation. That archaeologists unearth a bone during a tasting (even a millennia old one) has little to offer. In this case, however, the fragment held several surprises. The first, its age: 2,250 years. The second (and this is where things get interesting) is its origin: the bone is neither more nor less than the carpal bone of an elephant, something like part of the ‘wrist’ of a proboscide that for some mysterious reason ended up in the Iberian Peninsula. “He has enormous interest.” The discovery was so exciting, opening up such promising scenarios, that in 2023 it already generated interest outside the academic circuit. In September of that year Rafael Martínez, professor of Prehistory at the University of Córdoba recognized to The Country the expectation around the bone. “It is of enormous interest given the practical absence of remains of elephants from a pre-Roman context in Europe, excluding ivory objects that were subject to trade and import,” he said enthusiastically. “In any case, this discreet bone can be interpreted as proof of the presence of these animals in the area of ​​current Córdoba between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC” By then the professor went one step further and ventured a fascinating hypothesis: “It could belong to the period of the Public Wars. It could be the first elephant discovered by Hannibal’s troops, but it cannot be certain.” There were still many questions on the table. For example, its chronology: it was estimated that the animal died between the end of the IV and I BC, a long period that left several possibilities open. Did the bone belong to a Punic elephant or was it more correct to frame it in times of Julius Caesar? Hunting for answers. The bone may be small, but scientists have not had an easy time analyzing it. To begin with, it has been difficult to specify its species. After a detailed examination they concluded that it must be a large specimen, larger than female Asian elephants. Specifically, they think of a Loxodonta pharaoensis (the Carthaginian elephant) an African subspecies extinct in Roman times. Maybe the name doesn’t tell you much, but they are animals. used by Hannibal for his passage through the Alps. The other great unknown. Once the species was clarified (more or less), another unknown remained: its antiquity. The bone was a challenge because it did not contain enough collagen and had not fossilized. That did not prevent a study from ending up revealing that the fragment dates from between end of the 4th and beginning of the 3rd BC Live Science It even goes further and precise that the extract in which the fragment was found (part of a fortified Iberian town known as oppida) can be dated approximately 2,250 years ago, at the beginning of the 3rd BC It is a key fact because it takes us back to a time before the founding of the Roman Cordoba and the turbulent times of Second Punic War (218-201 BC), when Carthage and Rome struggled to dominate the Mediterranean world. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Are there more clues? Yes. And they are just as interesting. Not only was the bone found at the site, protected by a demolished adobe wall. Archaeologists also discovered more than a dozen of bolaños, small projectiles that were used with catapults, and part of what appears to be a spear. They are clues that help complete the story and help to better understand the site, such as recognize researchers in Journal of Archaeological Science Reports. “The level of destruction fits well within an emerging pattern of events associated with the Second Punic War, some of which are attested in literary sources and some of which are not, spanning both siege warfare and open battlefield contexts,” they explain in statements to Phys. Why is it important? Because of the implications it has. In your article Martínez and the rest of his colleagues recall that the discovery seems “intimately linked to the events of the Second Punic War in Hispania” and slips a key idea: “This may represent the first known anatomical element of an elephant used by the Punic troops in this war in Europe.” If they are correct, we would be looking at a first-class find: the bone of one of the elephants of Hannibal’s troops in the Second Punic War. Is it so relevant? “It could be a historical milestone. There is no direct archaeological evidence of the use of these animals,” clarify Martinez to Live Science. The march led by Hannibal through Western Europe in his attack on Rome and the use of elephants as “war machines” during the Punic Wars it is a very popular episode, but direct and palpable evidence is not abundant. The episode of passage through the Alps We know it thanks to historians like Polybius or Titus Livy, but the strongest archaeological evidence today is traces. That … Read more

The special effects of 2025 are worse than those of 2010. And part of the blame lies with us viewers

by

When James Cameron released ‘Avatar’ in 2009, the film industry contemplated what seemed the future of visual effects. The film set a technical standard that, paradoxically, today’s cinema not only has not surpassed, but often does not even reach. The problem is not technological: software tools have advanced exponentially since then. But the industry has evolved in a way that everything looks worse than before. The sooner, the better. It is not necessary to go to the undisputed peak of the digital image that represented Cameron’s movie. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ featured Davy Jones and his beard of tentacles, one of the best live-action CGI integrations ever seen. ‘Interstellar’ featured the participation of astrophysicist Kip Thorne for their spatial sequences. It is enough to compare the photorealistic texture of Na’vi or Jones with the plasticized finishes of Marvel or DC to see that something fundamental has changed in the way of producing special effects. The common denominator in all of them was time. In this analysis about the visual effects crisisit is explained that the productions of that decade had post-production calendars that ranged between 18 and 24 months. ‘Avatar’ He had two full years for the effects phase. Its consequences have started from comparable times. The spectacular images in ‘Inception’ of the city folding in on itself, another milestone of the era, took months of planning. Luxuries that are practically unthinkable today. Increasingly. The problem is the quantity. The latest studies indicate that while a commercial film from 2010 contained approximately 600 shots with visual effects, current productions usually exceed 3,000 shots. This 400% increase has not been accompanied by proportional budgets or calendars. Quite the opposite: hasty effects, poorly worked compositions and a digital homogenization that detracts from the personality of the images. Tremendous expectations In your situation analysisTreehouse Detective explains the case of the prequel to ‘The Thing’, which in 2011 remade John Carpenter’s 1982 classic. The special effects team Studio ADI, led by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., built physical creatures with animatronics and prosthetics over several months of pre-production. After test screenings, Universal Pictures made a decision that Gillis would rate how devastating: Almost all practical work was replaced by CGI in post-production. Audiences expected to see digital effects in a science fiction horror film and considered practical effects “old-fashioned.” Paradigm shift. This case illustrates a profound cultural shift in expectations. During the 2010s, CGI went from being an exceptional tool for what was thought unattainable with practical effects to becoming the standard. The irony is that the greatness of films like ‘Alien’ or ‘Jurassic Park’ (where CGI was mixed with practical effects) was built precisely on the tangibility of their creatures. But the industry, and with it the audience, developed a dependence on digital finishing that is associated with prestige and quality, regardless of whether the final result can be improved with traditional effects. The economy of effects. The proliferation of streaming platforms has radically reconfigured the economics of special effects. Films produced directly for Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney+ operate with significantly lower budgets than productions destined for cinemas, while the public maintains their visual expectations. This impossible equation has put pressure on the entire FX production chain. The era of auctions. The contract awarding system has evolved towards an auction model that prioritizes cost and speed over quality. The studios put projects into competition between multiple effects companies. The one who offers to complete the job in less time and for less money gets the contract. This process creates a competitive spiral in which small studios accept unsustainable conditions in the hope of maintaining their position in the market. Studies that close. It is a system that sometimes has extreme consequences. ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ case: after the public’s rejection of the character’s original design, Paramount ordered a complete redesign. Moving Picture Company, the studio responsible for the effects, had to redo hundreds of shots without a deadline extension or significant additional budget. The studio closed its Vancouver headquarters shortly after, with multiple sources indicating that the project had contributed significantly to their financial problems. It is not an isolated case: Rhythm & Hues, winner of the Oscar for the effects of ‘Life of Pi’ in 2013, declared bankruptcy weeks before the awards ceremony. The company had agreed to complete the job at a loss to maintain its reputation, a pattern that media outlets such as VFX Voice have documented. Visual effects artists and technicians frequently operate in crunch to meet deadlines that were unfeasible from the beginning. The lower union rate In the visual effects sector, unlike other technical departments in film, it leaves these professionals without protection against abusive working conditions. The causes. The deterioration in the quality of the special effects does not respond to a single cause, but to pressures from two opposite directions. Movie studios have optimized their production structures to maximize profit margins, outsourcing visual effects work to companies competing in a wild race. The public has developed inflexible expectations about the omnipresence of CGI, rejecting alternatives. As technology advances, the time and money available to apply it decreases. Just compare budgets: ‘Avatar’ operated on a total budget of $237 million, of which a substantial portion was allocated specifically to technological development and visual effects over several years. Meanwhile, an MCU production distributes a similar budget among multiple items (salaries, marketing) while compressing post-production calendars to just six or eight months to meet immovable release dates, established years in advance. In Xataka | Either CGI designers get their act together or our televisions will continue to put their movies on the ropes

Bad Bunny deleted his Instagram after the Super Bowl. Everything is part of a larger project

by

On Sunday, February 8, 2026, Bad Bunny starred in an unprecedented milestone in Super Bowl history by becoming the first solo Latin artist to star. the concert-show during the intermissionin a performance almost entirely in Spanish that reached more than 100 million viewers. Just hours later, the Puerto Rican artist deleted all of his content on Instagramleaving their more than 51 million followers in front of a completely empty profile. The avalanche of speculation has been immediate. What was seen? Bad Bunny’s approximately 13-minute concert turned the intermission into a visual love letter to Puerto Rico. The artist started walking through sugar cane fields, crossed a Puerto Rican street fair and incorporated La Casita, the iconic traditional Puerto Rican pink house that has become a distinctive element of his concerts. The fluidity of the camera, the variety of topics included, the surprise appearances of Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, or guests such as Pedro Pascal or Jessica Alba stood out. The irony of the scenario. The choice of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, as the setting for the largest celebration of Latino culture in the history of the Super Bowl takes on an ironic dimension in the context of 2026: California is going through one of the most intense episodes of immigration enforcement in decades. Immigration arrests in San Diego they shot up 1,500% compared to the previous year. For this reason, the political context surrounding the performance was especially tense. In October 2025, when the action was announced, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared on a conservative podcast that ICE would be “everywhere” at the Super Bowl and that “only law-abiding Americans who love this country should attend.” The Trump administration had intensified raids in Californian cities while the Puerto Rican artist publicly expressed his fear that “the damn ICE could be outside” his concerts, which is why he canceled several on the US mainland and focused on his residence. Bad Bunny closed his performance with a bright sign that read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Beyond music. ‘‘I should have taken more photos’, the artist’s latest album, has been described as “a cry of resistance” for Puerto Ricans everywhere: it is about preserving a culture in danger of disappearing. It was recorded entirely in Puerto Rico with collaborators exclusively from there. The 13-minute short film that accompanied the release of the album explores themes of loss, displacement and the fading of cultural identity. The project’s mascot is an endangered toad. And songs like ‘What Happened to Hawaii’ address issues like gentrification. This political charge is not new in the artist’s career. In July 2019, interrupted his European tour to return to Puerto Rico and join the massive protests demanding the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. In 2020, made visible on ‘The Tonight Show’ the murder of Alexa, a Puerto Rican trans woman. The Super Bowl performance was not an isolated event but the continuation of a narrative meticulously constructed across multiple platforms. The visual coherence (La Casita, the flags, the aesthetics) are the constant reminder that each performance is a chapter of the same project: pan-Latin representation in times of adversity. The strategy continues. The emptying of Bad Bunny’s Instagram profile just hours after his performance at the Super Bowl is not a break with his communication strategy, but rather its confirmation. In 2022, before the release of ‘A summer without you’, used the same tactic to generate expectation. That album would become the most successful Spanish album in history. In 2023 repeated the procedure after their world tour, announcing a period of hiatus. The difference in 2026 lies in the political context surrounding the gesture. While previous wipes functioned primarily as a prelude to new musical releases, this one comes on the heels of the most politicized performance of his career, which has included criticism of trump and threats from Secretary Noem. Unlike similar maneuvers that they already did Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, with this Bad Bunny continues with the construction of his transmedia project, whose next step is a world tour that will take the message to Australia, Japan or Spain, among other destinations. Each platform (the album, the stage, social networks) becomes a chapter in a story about Latin identity that transcends the merely commercial. In Xataka | Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

Europe produces more clean electricity than fossil electricity for the first time. The hard part starts now

by

For years, the European energy transition advanced without completely displacing fossil fuels. Last year marked that turning point. According to the report European Electricity Review 2026wind and solar generated 30% of EU electricity in 2025, surpassing coal, gas and oil combined for the first time, which fell to 29%. As Dr. Petrovich explains by Emberwe are facing record growth. It is not normal to go from a 20% to 30% quota in just five years, but the numbers are there. The energy map is changing: there are now 14 EU countries where wind and sun generate more than gas or coal. In this scenario, Spain, Greece or Hungary already play in the league of solar powers. Beyond statistics. The milestone does not imply that Europe has left fossil fuels behind or that gas has disappeared from the system, but rather that it changes the hierarchy of the electricity mix. For the first time, variable renewable energies come to occupy the center of the electricity mix, while fossils are relegated to a technical and security support role. According to Emberrenewable energies as a whole contributed 48% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, practically half of the total, a figure that remained stable even in a year marked by adverse weather conditions, with less wind and less rain than usual. Coal, the most polluting fuel in the system, continues its withdrawal. In 2024 it fell to 9.2% of the European electricity mix, a historical minimum compared to the almost 25% it represented a decade ago. Gas, for its part, rose slightly compared to 2024, although it is still 18% below its 2019 maximum, confirming that its role in the system is increasingly residual. This rebalancing has consequences that range beyond the energy mix: Dependence on imported fossil fuels continues to be the main source of price instability and strategic vulnerability in Europe, even outside the climate debate. Five years that changed everything. The sorpasso – as it has begun to be called in the sector – is not the result of a mild winter or a stroke of meteorological luck. It is the consequence of sustained growth, especially in solar energy, during the last decade, accelerated very notably in the last five years. According to the reportsolar generation grew by 20.1%, this being the fourth consecutive year with increases of more than 20%, an unprecedented growth rate in European energy history. In absolute terms, solar reached 369 terawatt hours (TWh), more than double that of 2020, and the annual increase in 2025 alone is equivalent to the electrical production of three French nuclear reactors. A dizzying growth. This expansion responds mainly to the installed capacity. In 2025, 65.1 GW of new solar power was added in the EU, distributed almost equally between large plants and self-consumption on rooftops. All community countries increased their solar production, and in several of them—Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands—the sun already provides more than 20% of national electricity. As for wind power, although more affected by the weather conditions at the beginning of the year, it remains the second largest electricity source in the EU, with 17% of the total, above gas. The system, therefore, begins to rely structurally on variable renewables, something unthinkable just a decade ago. The reverse of success: when gas continues to set the price. Despite the historic advance of wind and solar, 2025 made it clear that gas continues to have a disproportionate weight in the European electricity system, especially in price formation. According to the think tank, gas-fired electricity generation increased by 8% in the EU, mainly to compensate for the drop in hydroelectric energy caused by the drought, and this greater use of gas raised the electricity sector’s import bill to 32 billion euros, 16% more than the previous year. The impact was especially visible in the electricity markets. Ember detects that price spikes They are concentrated in the hours with the highest gas use, while the hours with abundant solar and wind tend to make electricity cheaper. In 21 European countries, wholesale prices rose in 2025, driven almost exclusively by these fossil time slots. This is where the paradox of the current system: although gas no longer dominates by volume, it continues to set the marginal price of the market at critical moments. In other words, despite the oversupply, the price structure continues to be conditioned by fossil fuel when there is a lack of wind or sun. The new energy frontier. Ember’s report devote an entire chapter to what it considers the next big front of the transition: storage and system flexibility. Without these pieces, he warns, the sorpasso runs the risk of remaining a statistical victory. This was one of the large deficits of the European transition: investing massively in generation without doing so at the same pace in networks and storage. Batteries are now emerging as the piece that connects renewable success with stable prices and security of supply. Last year, the EU exceeded 10 GW of large-scale batteries in operation for the first time, more than double that of 2023. In addition, there is a portfolio of projects that could raise that figure above 40 GW if fully implemented. The first signs are already visible in countries like Italy, where batteries have begun to cover part of the demand during peak gas hours, reducing prices and displacing fossil generation. Physical bottlenecks: European infrastructure. It is not just a question of how much energy is generated, but where it enters and how it circulates within the continent. Europe has reduced its direct dependence of Russian gas, but continues to face physical limitations in terminals, transportation networks and cross-border connections. This substitution of Russian gas has been slowed by the slowness in the construction of critical facilities, such as regasification terminals and high-capacity networks, and by the insufficient interconnection between national electrical systems. This bottleneck explains why countries with abundant renewable production, like Spain, often cannot easily export that surplus, or why the European … Read more

It is now possible to book a hotel stay on the Moon for $250,000. Building it is still the complicated part

by

The Moon has returned to the center of the board and, this time, not only as a symbol of the past. The conversation is no longer just about missions and flags, but also what kind of activity could be sustained there if access becomes more frequent. On that horizon a broader idea begins to appear, that of a future lunar economy, with services and infrastructure yet to be invented. And among all these possibilities there is one that is disconcerting from the start: tourism, the promise of changing traditional vacations for a stay away from Earth. Landing the proposal. What has been put on the table is not a ticket or a travel date, but the option of entering into a process to reserve a future place in something that does not yet exist. GRU Space has opened an early access application program to participate in its first lunar missions, a pre-filter that, if passed, allows you to move to the deposit phase and maintain a position in the queue. There are still no assigned rooms or a closed calendar for guests, and the company presents the process as a way to select participants and check their ability to travel, not as a direct purchase of a stay on the Moon. Money rules. Booking is not cheap, nor is it definitive. The first step is a non-refundable $1,000 application fee. If the applicant is selected, GRU Space offers two deposit options, $250,000 or one million dollars, which can be recovered at any time from the first 30 days and which would be applied to the final price if the hotel accepts guests. That price, the company itself warns, has not yet been set and will probably exceed ten million dollars, a useful reminder that here the easy thing is to sign up and the difficult thing is to materialize the trip. A huge ambition with a minimal structure. GRU Space is, for now, a small company with a very big speech. Its founder, Skyler Chanrecently graduated from Berkeley and has explained that for much of 2025 he was practically the only full-time employee, a context that helps understand the early nature of this initiative. The company has secured seed funding, but its current scale does not correspond to that of a consolidated industrial organization. It rather fits a startup trying to turn a long-term vision into an executable plan. The Moon as a destination, not as a simple stop. In GRU Space’s approach there is a recurring idea: space transportation is necessary, but insufficient. The company defends that the bottleneck is in habitability, in having structures where people can stay without continually depending on the ship that took them there. Under this approach, the hotel is not presented only as a tourist whim, but as a use case that would force us to solve problems of daily life outside of Earth. His argument is that such learning, if it comes, would serve as a basis for broader infrastructures. The calendar that the company publishes is carefully staggered and full of conditionals. In 2026, it plans to review applications and profile the first participants, and then, in 2027, assign invitations linked to missions and stays through a selection mechanism and private bidding. The next milestone is in 2029, with the sending of a construction load to the lunar surface as a demonstration of preparation for subsequent phases. In its technical roadmap, the deployment of habitat and systems arrives in 2031 and the “first hotel”, as such, remains for 2032, leaving the tourist premiere for the end of a chain of steps that, on paper, should go well consecutively. From inflatable habitat to lunar construction. The project does not start with a permanent hotel, but with progressive technical demonstrations. GRU Space first proposes validating the deployment of inflatable structures and their behavior on the Moon, a way of testing without carrying the weight of a traditional construction from minute one. If that phase works, the next step would be to manufacture construction materials directly there, using the lunar soil itself as raw material, through geopolymer processes that, at least in their early stages, depend on activators brought from Earth. The idea is to reduce dependence on mass shipments and move towards more solid structures, designed for a more stable occupation. The target audience for GRU Space is not limited to the eccentric traveler with a huge bank account. In his approach, tourism acts as a catalyst for the broader economy, a way of introducing private clients into an environment dominated until now by state programs. The idea is that these first users help pay for infrastructure that can later be used for logistical, scientific or industrial activities. It is a bet to create demand where it does not yet exist, with the risk that the market will not materialize as they hope. The project leaves a clear feeling: the simple part is measuring interest and capturing early commitments, the complex part begins later. Turning an idea into functional infrastructure on the Moon means depending on launchers, technologies still in testing, and impeccable execution for years. In this context, talking about reserves serves to test the market, but it does not clear up the central doubts. The question is no longer whether there are people willing to pay, but whether everything else will arrive on time and as promised. Images | GRU Space In Xataka | We already have an official date for the United States’ return to the Moon: it is imminent and mired in a sea of ​​doubts

a good part of its billion in revenue comes from the only market that still goes to the movies

by

If we are ever going to have a negative answer to the question of “Can James Cameron stop killing it at the box office?” It certainly won’t be in the short term. ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ has once again swept theaters, and although perhaps a couple of aspects of the triumph need to be pointed out, it is indisputable that we are facing a new success: it has already exceeded one billion dollars. The figures. The third installment of ‘Avatar’ has reached 1,083 million dollars at the global box office after 18 days in theaters. The figure is divided into 306 million dollars in US territory and 777.1 million in international markets, confirming the traditional foreign dominance of the franchise created by James Cameron. The milestone comes slightly later than its predecessors (‘Avatar‘He achieved it in 17 days and’The sense of water‘ in just 14), which makes us wonder if ‘Fire and Ashes’ will manage to replicate the extraordinary long-term performance of its predecessors, which remained in first place at the box office for seven consecutive weekends. Gear change. The rhythm of ‘Fuego y ash’, as we have commented, contrasts with that of its predecessors. The 2009 film ended its run with a historic gross of $2.9 billion, while ‘The Sense of Water’ ended with $2.32 billion. Both films demonstrated exceptional resilience, remaining at number one in the ranking for seven uninterrupted weeks, an increasingly unusual phenomenon in the streaming era. The big question now is whether ‘Fire and Ash’ will manage to join the exclusive club of 2 billion movies. The first indicators suggest a decrease compared to the second installment, which in turn had already experienced a drop of 580 million compared to the original. If this trend is confirmed, ‘Fire and Ash’ would be the first ‘Avatar’ installment to stay below the two billion threshold, which could redefine the commercial expectations of the franchise, which as we already saw It is not enough to be one of the hits of the year to be profitable. The importance of China. As has been usual in the franchise, the success of ‘Fire and Ash’ depends largely on the foreign market: for example, in this installment 71.7% of revenue comes from outside the US: China leads the list with 138 million dollars, followed by France with 81 million, Germany with 64 and South Korea with 44. Only in China, the third ‘Avatar’ got the best premiere of the saga in the countrywith $57 million in its opening weekend. The IMAX format was crucial: generated 23.5 million dollars23% of the total Chinese collection. A success that is more significant considering that the Chinese market has remained practically closed to foreign productions in recent years. By the way, has already been dethroned. Disney sweeps away. One more year, this is not news, but let’s confirm the Disney’s absolute dominance at the box office. This third ‘Avatar’ is also the studio’s third film to surpass $1 billion this year, following the live-action remake of ‘Lilo & Stitch‘ (1,030 million) and ‘Zootopia 2’ (1,420 million, at the moment). That is, more than $6.58 billion at the global box office, a figure that has not been reached since before the pandemic. And without the need for Marvel (with three premieres that did not reach the expected figures nor the collections of other times) nor ‘Star Wars’. No other study has managed to produce a single billion-dollar movie since 2023 but it is worth remembering, of course, that Disney has not been short of failures at the box office: ‘Snow White’, ‘Tron: Ares’ and ‘Elio’ were well below expectations, which poses a paradox. Disney scores the biggest hits and the main failures of the year, making it clear that Disney has the blockbuster formula, but its brand is no longer infallible. Prudent Cameron. Despite the success, James Cameron maintains a cautious stance on the continuity of the saga. Before the premierealready said that “first, we have to make money from this. We each have to prove this absurd business case again.” Cameron recognizes that the industry has changed and that the theater market is going through a moment that makes any forecast possible. As revealedwould call a press conference to reveal the complete plots of ‘Avatar 4’ and ‘5’ if they were not finally made. Another option would be to novelize the scripts, a project for which he maintains a certain enthusiasm. In Xataka | James Cameron has committed to the 48fps format for ‘Avatar 3’. Many viewers find it disturbing

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.