problem

Are they still a problem or is it in the past?

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There was a time when buying an OLED TV was a leap of faith. With your purchase, you got the purest blacks on the market, infinite contrast and enviable response speed, but also a hidden passenger: the fear of burn-in or screen burn-in. The truth is that taking a TV home paying 1,000 euros and leaving with the thought that the channel logos or the HUD of your favorite video game would be burned into the screen forever, was a real and justified concern. However, there has been a lot of rain since the first generations of organic panels. Even so, in full 2026this is a doubt that can be raised by users and the question “Is it still the burned “A real danger to fear or has it become a myth of the past?” is mandatory. We are going to try to answer it throughout this post. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links The first thing that must be made clear is an uncomfortable truth and that is that, physically, the risk of burning will never be zero. This is because the OLED panels They use organic compounds that degrade with continued use and the emission of their own light. Thus, it can be said that burning is not a technical failure, but rather uneven wear. If a group of pixels (the logos of a channel, for example) works at 100% brightness for thousands of hours While the rest varies, those pixels will age sooner, lose light strength and generate the much-feared “ghost effect”. The new WOLED, QD-OLED and Tandem OLED panels have made it possible to avoid this problem Now, laboratory physics is one thing and real life is quite another. The current panels have little or nothing to do with those of five years ago. For example, the WOLED panels latest generation with microlens array (M.L.A.) allow much more light to be projected towards the viewer without the need to overheat the organic pixels. For their part, the panels QD-OLED (which are the alternative to Samsung and Sony) have matured in thermal management and subpixel distribution, which drastically reduces heat stress, which is the true catalyst for burn-in. Furthermore, although it is true that they have begun to emerge especially in tablets and monitors for productivity, the technology Tandem OLED (which consists of stacking several emitting layers) has shown that spreading the work reduces the current density per layer, pointing to greater longevity than any previous OLED panel Software is important too Much of the current miracle comes not only from chemistry, but from the brain of the television. The current compensation algorithms They are sophisticated and very effective. For example, there are some technologies or functionalities that prevent burn-in on televisions. These are: PixelShifting: imperceptibly shifts the image by a few pixels so that the hard edges do not always wear out the same emitters. Detection of static elements: The processor locates a floating logo or sports scoreboard and dims its brightness independently without you noticing. Confidence in the industry is such that most major manufacturers already include natively three year warranties that explicitly cover the burn-in. This was something unthinkable a few years ago. What is clear is that no brand would be stuck with replacement costs if return rates for this problem remained high. For whom is burn-in still a risk? Can almost completely forget about burning if you give it normal use or mixed (that is, you use the TV for movies, series, streaming and various video games). On the other hand, there are very specific user profiles for which OLED is still not the ideal option due to burn-in and these are the following scenarios: If you are going to buy television for a bar or business in which you will be tuning into the same news channel with a bright static banner non-stop. If you are going to use the screen exclusively as an office monitor in clear modewith identical static windows for 10 hours a day and the brightness at 100%. Some OLED TVs that may interest you If you are thinking of making the jump to an OLED panel, these are some of the models that we recommend. LG C5 55 inches (869 euros in PcComponentes): This LG C5 It is a benchmark within the brand’s televisions. Its refresh rate is 144 Hz and it has a 40 W speaker system compatible with Dolby Atmos. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Sony Bravia 8 II 55 inches (1,799 euros in MediaMarkt): this QD-OLED TV from the Japanese firm stands out, in addition to its image excellence, for its XR processor with Artificial Intelligence. comes with Google TV and support for cinema formats such as Dolby Vision & Atmos and IMAX Enhanced. In addition, it is perfect for gaming, since it has HDMI 2.1 ports at 120 Hz, so you can make the most of the PS5For example. 55″ QD-OLED TV – Sony Bravia 8 II, XR Processor with AI, Smart TV (Google TV) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links What is clear is that in the middle of 2026, the nightmare of those burned is something that belongs to the past. Today, you can buy an OLED TV to enjoy it and not to suffer for it. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Jose Antonio Carmona (Xataka Home) In Xataka | Best televisions in quality price. Which one to buy and seven recommended 4K smart TVs In Xataka | Best sound bars in quality price. Which one to buy and seven recommended models from 140 euros

Apple is preparing glasses to respond to Meta’s Ray-Ban. The problem is a wall called ‘privacy’

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John Ternus is the new CEO of Apple and, although he will officially take office next September 1 coinciding with the presentation of the iPhone 18 Procomes to office with a task. On the one hand, the highly rumored foldable iPhone that we should see next to the iPhone 18 Pro and that it would have a very similar format to what was seen in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. On the other hand, the new Apple glasses. We are not referring to a new version of the VisionProbut rather one more product to carry on a daily basis with which they will compete, directly, against the Ray-Ban by Meta. However, there is a major challenge with this product: privacy. Because Meta’s glasses have been sailing seas of controversies with privacyuser recordings that They are not so private either the use that is made of this type of device, and if a company does not want to have anything to do with controversies, and even less related to privacy, that is Apple. All of this is forcing them to think very hard. What strategy do you want to follow with these glasses? that can pay for the losses of another team: the AI ​​team. Let’s go with the story because it’s pretty cool. Apple glasses and the privacy problem A few months ago, our colleagues at Applesfera already said that reputable sources from both the sector in general and Apple in particular they pointed to a delay in the apple glasses. Mark Gurman, in Bloombergassures that the device was planned for sometime in 2026, but in the end it will end up arriving at the end of 2027 with a presentation at WWDC 2027. That extra time will allow developers to create apps for a new type of wearable that aspires to be an Apple Watch, but in the form of glasses. It will also give more time for the company itself to deal with the privacy issue. We have recently seen several controversies related to Meta glasses in this area and, although Meta has not responded to some of those controversies, yes he has taken measures patching user manipulation and preventing the glasses from recording if they detect that the LED that works as a ‘snitch’ when we record is altered. According to Gurman, the glasses are codenamed ‘N50’ and Apple has put several of its teams to work (engineering and marketing among them) to refine not only the product, but the message around the privacy of the new device. It is, according to the Bloomberg journalist, Apple’s main priority for these glasses due to user concerns and the public and legal scrutiny in this regard. Distrust has already led both states and private entities to prohibit them in some spaces (such as swimming pools, gyms or schools, for example) and, although cell phones capture images of higher resolution and quality, wearing a camera on glasses feels more stealthy, like a quieter capture device. Apple knows that many eyes will be on this issue when it introduces the device, so it is working to emphasize not only the areas in which its glasses differ from the rest, but also why the user (and society itself) can trust it. The idea is that this device is a mix between AirPods and Apple Watch with access to Sirimusic playback, calls and information, and Gurman points out that a solution to the privacy issue would be to eliminate cameras or directly prevent the user from capturing content. Smart glasses without a camera is not that strange. Xiaomi has some and there are brands with products like this that, precisely, rely on this improvement in privacy as a marketing weapon. Bloomberg claims that Apple would be proposing glasses without a camera, but also one with cameras and sensors, but that they would only be used for the AI ​​to see the world around the user and obtain information about objects and places that would later be transferred to the user through Siri. There are two problems. The first is that, if privacy were not an issue and in an ideal world, glasses with a camera are extremely useful for recording family moments and creating hands-free content, so eliminating cameras would send those who want that to the competition. The second is that Gurman claims that Apple does not currently trust its AI enough for that to be the main selling point for a totally new product. Obviously, It is a thorny and difficult issue to address. for an Apple that is about to enter a period of celebration (with the rumored 20th anniversary iPhone), but that has several hot potatoes as potential price increases (even more) due to RAM crisis and totally new products for them like these glasses or the foldable. Many possible crises to face if something goes wrong, so it is logical that they want to tread carefully. In Xataka | With the Vision Pro, Apple created a product with revolutionary potential. He then abandoned him to his fate.

Earth’s water is running out of oxygen. And that’s a problem

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We tend to relate oxygen with the air we breathebut the reality is that it is also an essential component of all the waters on the planet, from oceans to rivers and lakes. That is why the call just made by a team of scientists from the University of California San Diego is so important. In a recently published study, they show that the dissolved oxygen in all these waters is plummeting and that this could have disastrous consequences. For this reason, they point out that it would be advisable to establish aquatic oxygen as one of the factors that can become points of no return in the decline of our planet. The pace is alarming. According to these scientiststhe rate at which aquatic oxygen levels are falling is very alarming. It is due to several reasons. For a start, may be a consequence of excess nutrients known as eutrophication. Fertilizers, for example, are very rich in nitrogen, which is one of the most important nutrients for algae growth. When these proliferate too much, they cloud the water and prevent sunlight from adequately reaching aquatic photosynthetic organisms. This is the first cause of the decrease in aquatic oxygen levels. On the other hand, when these algae die they fall to the bottom and are degraded by bacteria that consume a lot of oxygen. There we will have even less. On the other hand, hot water dissolves less oxygen than cold water. And we already know how much the planet’s water is warming lately. Finally, changes in water movement and ventilationfor example by the construction of dams, can hinder the distribution of oxygen in the water. The consequences. Decreased aquatic oxygen levels are detrimental for many reasons. To begin with, living beings that breathe directly in water can clearly suffer the consequences. This ranges from microscopic organisms to fish and the sharks. However, even marine mammals, which come to the surface to breathe, suffer the consequences of this deoxygenation, as their prey relocates and their habitats are damaged. On the other hand, many chemical processes that help regulate the climate on Earth suffer the effects of aquatic deoxygenation. This is the case of the carbon cycle, for example. The nine planetary limits. The planetary limits are nine scenarios with thresholds within which humanity can continue to develop without there being an imminent danger to the planet. Once they are exceeded, it is assumed that the point of no return The deterioration of the Earth is very close. These limits are established for climate change, biosphere integrity, land use change, freshwater use, biogeochemical fluxes, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone layeratmospheric aerosol loading and new entities, formerly known as chemical pollution. For each of these contexts, there is an established limit that should not be exceeded. However, according to the last review of their status, The threshold has already been crossed in seven of them. Aquatic oxygen as the tenth planetary limit. The authors of the study just published point out that aquatic oxygen should also be considered a planetary limit. Their levels are declining dangerously and action must be taken on the matter as soon as possible, as they affect ecosystems and the climate very directly. If this “title” were given, perhaps we would be more aware of its evolution and we could take action on the matter in time. For now, it’s just a proposal. However, given what we have seen, it is something that should be taken very seriously. We talk about forests as the lungs of the planet, but we cannot forget the aquatic lung. After all, that is where life first emerged. Images | Magnificent In Xataka | Three days and above the 95th percentile: AEMET’s golden rule for declaring a “heat wave” in Spain

We have been using DEET to repel mosquitoes for years. The only problem is that, done poorly, it’s their favorite food.

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DEET is one of the ingredients most used in mosquito repellents. That makes us think that, as its name suggests, it repels these insects. He doesn’t like it. However, according to a new study published by Virginia Tech scientists, under certain circumstances, that same substance could become an attractant for mosquitoes. These circumstances, basically, are what occur when we apply repellents without reading the label. Today is a good day to start reading it. From repellent to attractant. These scientists they saw DEET generally repels mosquitoes. However, when they smell it while feeding, it can be associated with a reward. Something like what happened with Pavlov’s dog. When I heard the bell that was normally associated with mealtime, I would start to salivate. If mosquitoes smell DEET while feeding on blood, the next time they smell it they will associate it with food. And of course, they love that. A painful experiment. The experiments that were carried out for the publication of this study consisted of two phases. First, mosquitoes of the species Aedes aegypty in a cage connected to two bottles, one with clean air and one with DEET. Inside the cage there was a feeder with blood, from which they could have fed in two circumstances. First, with access only to the clean air vial and then with the DEET vial open, since the second vial was opened while they were feeding. In the second phase of the experiment, one of the researchers put his two arms into the cage, one with DEET and one without, and waited to see the behavior of the mosquitoes. Those who had blood-fed only with clean air went only to the arm without DEET. However, those who ate under the influence of DEET they preferred the arm with the repellent. just a little. In reality, the repellent effect of DEET is a reality. At adequate doses, it continues to repel mosquitoes. What has been seen in this study is that it becomes an attractive when they smell it in the background while feeding. Therefore, the problem is allowing them to feed while they smell it. A person who has too little, either because they have not applied enough repellent or because they applied it a long time ago, may not adequately repel the insect. It reaches your skin and feeds on your blood, while smelling a remnant. This remnant generates the aforementioned reward effect and, then, little by little you may stop disliking it. If every time we smelled the garbage they gave us 10,000 euros, would we still find it unpleasant? The importance of reading the label. Not all mosquito repellents have the same concentration of DEET. Therefore, you do not always have to apply the same amount or reapply at the same time. It is important to read the label, because if we use too little repellent or do not reapply it when necessary, we can generate the effect that was seen in the study. It’s not entirely clear. It should be noted that all this is not safe. This was seen in laboratory experiments. For now, it cannot be known if in reality, with DEET included in commercial repellents and mosquitoes flying freely, the same will happen. Furthermore, in the experiment the mosquitoes began to smell the DEET while they were already feeding whereas in real conditions the smell would be there from the beginning. More studies will have to be done, perhaps again with painful consequences for researchers and volunteers. Meanwhile, when in doubt, remember to read the labels carefully. Oh really. Images | NIAID In Xataka | Mosquitoes attack me in summer and I tried these TikTok tricks to get rid of them

Albacete offers up to 500,000 euros for hunting rabbits. The problem is what to do with them afterwards.

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Spain, rabbit landtoday he pays to get them off his back. When the Phoenicians set foot on our coasts, they saw ears and burrows before cities and that is how they named the peninsula, i‑spn‑yaa curious place name that ended up as Hispania. Or so the theory goes, one of many. Now Albacete has set up a subsidy system so that hunting societies contain an overpopulation that destroy their crops. The real problem is not only about how many are killed, but what is done with them afterwards and why the model produces plagues again and again. A plague that concentrates. The province of Albacete is experiencing a paradox that is actually repeated throughout half the country. On the one hand, the wild rabbit is listed as an endangered species in many habitats; on the other, it is a plague on agricultural strips and on the margins of large infrastructures. In Castilla-La Mancha, hundreds of thousands of rabbits are estimated to be captured each year; only so far in 2026 are they talking about 603,000 copiesand 30% of them leave the fields of Albacete. The regional administration has been chaining “hunting emergency” resolutions for years. That is, we seek to find the key between a balance of fauna and environmental regulation. And, at least in La Mancha, Albacete, Cuenca and Toledo, they have not been able to find it. Because more than a homogeneous explosion we are talking about hot spots next to roads, railway lines, intensive irrigation and protected spaces where the rabbit finds shelter, food and the absence of predators. How the half million works. This is not the wild western. Let no one expect an envelope for each animal killed. The Albacete Provincial Council has announced a line of subsidies amounting to 500,000 euros aimed at local non-profit hunting societies. Of course, based in the province. Each entity can request up to 9,000 eurosonly once, for a specific project linked to wild rabbit damage control. The money is processed electronically, through the provincial electronic headquarters, between July 21 and August 10, 2026; The companies justify the actions until October 31. And this shock plan does not clash with other aid: the call makes it possible to make this aid compatible with other public lines, as long as they are aimed at the same purpose. Because? Because it fits with the four million euro regional plan for rabbit overpopulation. Is it necessary to kill? In the past, this “social hunting” received local and even private help from crop protectors. Now alternatives are being sought: the village clubs insist on fencing, hunting nurseries and management of water and food points for wildlife. That is, it should be financed around the infrastructure around the rabbit and the verb “kill” is the last option. And if there is only one alternative, killing will always be that savagery that no authority should authorize. The dominant model continues to be intensive hunting, with a shotgun, ferret and nets in extended periods thanks to the emergency declarations from some regions. In Aragon and Castilla-La Mancha, this shock works in the short term: in Aragon, between 2019 and 2021, a control plan eliminated 1.8 million rabbits in 125 municipalities. Despite the 18 measurementsIn Castilla-La Mancha, more than 46% of the territory is affected by this plague, “which translates into some 364 municipalities with direct damage.” Save them to kill them. WWF and other research teams have been pointing out for years that mass hunting reduces damage during the campaign, but the following year the effect fades and the population grows again. If there is shelter and food, there is overpopulation. And the problem comes from afar, from the dynamics of crops with larger and more homogeneous farm surfaces, with less mosaic of crops, fewer boundaries and less presence of natural predators. The ancient stone walls served as homes, but also as regional limiters. Now the rabbit runs free in no man’s land. Associations like PACMA they add also another nuance, remembering that the Generalitat of Catalonia authorized the release of more than 12,000 rabbits from hunting farms to repopulate hunting reserves in 2021, and that the same administration later declared the hunting emergency and the use of biocides such as aluminum phosphide. Inflate the population first and then resorting to massacres when the population overflows is, to say the least, counterproductive. What do you do with so much rabbit?. The great unknown is the same as always. The emergency resolutions and the regional shock plan already include the possibility of marketing the meat of captured rabbits, as long as they are immediately slaughtered and delivered to authorized wild game handling establishments with health guarantees. This is the responsible thing to do, not leave them stranded. own manchego plan document It contemplates the “useful and sustainable management” of these catches: human consumption, recovery of scavenger fauna, transfer to areas with a rabbit deficit and regulated marketing. What’s more, for the farmer or hunter to get paid it is not enough to kill, he must communicate the actions 24 hours in advance to the administration, comply with the conditions of the emergency resolution and then justify expenses on fences, piles and others. Foxes and eagles, off or out of coverage. Ecologists in Action denounced the Albacete Agriculture Delegation itself, which authorizes controls on predators such as the fox in the midst of a rabbit plague (and Spain needs them, just like the wolves). This, according to estimates, reinforces the ecological imbalance and leaves the farmer with fewer natural allies on the field. The rabbit right now is halfway between resource and waste, subsidy object and marketable piece. Kill them and leave them for the scavengers? It could be dangerous from an environmental point of view. And even more so if they eat animals with myxomatosis. Kill them and eat them? It depends on the market: the price of the piece has fallen in recent months. This is also a symptom that the agrarian structure has a … Read more

For years, “fecal doping” has been a problem in elite sport. Now science wants to democratize it

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In 2019, a team of scientists from Harvard University monitored the bacterial flora of 15 Boston Marathon runners during the week before and after. They made many discoveries, but one was especially interesting: after the competition, everyone suffered a significant increase in bacteria of the Veillonella genus. It was already known that exercise alters the microbiota And, in fact, it wasn’t particularly surprising that these bacteria (which break down lactic acid and therefore reduce fatigue) were in there. What they wanted to discover was something else. Therefore, they took samples of this flora and introduced them into mice. The result was a very significant increase in physical resistance. Since then, there are people trying to take advantage of this. The treasure hidden in the intestine. Now a team from France has studied the intestinal microbiota of elite athletes with high aerobic capacity (footballers and cyclists). The central idea was to see if there were differences in the composition of the flora and its functionality compared to non-athletic people. The first surprise is that the more sports the subjects did, the lower the diversity of their microbiota. And I say that it is surprising because, as Rosa del Campo tells us through SMC Spain“this is associated with an unhealthy condition.” However, in this case it seems that “it is justified by the specialization of these bacteria in the intestine.” That is, by subjecting the microbiota to more demanding environments, it self-regulates to optimize itself. However, as he says the researcher at the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, that is not the most interesting thing. “The most striking thing is when they evaluate the ability to reproduce this in mice.” What have they done? They have taken very sedentary and very athletic people and “have transplanted their feces to mice for several days.” The result shows that “the aerobic effort capacity in mice is conditioned by the microbiota.” Because? Although the research is still somewhat preliminary, everything seems to indicate that “it is fundamentally due to glycogen consumption, good sugar control and production of short chain fatty acids.” What implications does this have?? Well, it seems like quite a few. It must be remembered that for years the anti-doping agencies working to fight against microbiomic doping. In fact, everything seems to indicate that the “fecal transplant“It is a common practice in certain elite sports environments. But the question, as always, is whether this can be scaled. If we can begin to intervene in the microbiota on a massive scale to improve the health of broad layers of the population. For years now, the probiotics boom has caught big pharmaceutical companies on the wrong foot and has flooded the market with pseudoscience. However, and although it is true that in recent years Doubts have arisen about how much health we can achieve through the stomachOr, the possibility is still on the table. Image | Julien Tromeur | Miguel Amutio In Xataka | This pill is shit but it can save your life

Spain seems to have solved the problem of aid for the purchase of electric cars. It only took seven years of chaos

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The aid to buy an electric car is chaos. They should stop being so soon. Very soon, in fact. Or, at least, that is the (umpteenth) promise that the Government has made in this regard. He announced it in the Council of Ministers, confirming that the presentation of the bases to receive the Auto+ Plan is just around the corner. This is what we know. What has been announced. He Auto+ Plan It should be up and running in the next few days or, at the latest, a few weeks. That is what has been announced in the press conference of the Council of Ministers where the first details have been given of how aid for the purchase of new completely electric vehicles should be unblocked. In the statement before the media, however, no more details have been clarified than those that were offered in February 2026 when the project was already late compared to the promises. That is to say: the aid will take into account the cost of the vehicle, its place of manufacture and the origin of its batteries. What did we know? Last February, The Government confirmed that aid for the purchase of electric cars They will be delivered as follows: 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) In 2025 it has already been promised that these aids would be direct at the time of purchase. That is, the customer would leave the dealership without the obligation to advance the aid and waiting to receive the money in their bank account. The claim is recurring since 2019 when the first MOVES Plan was approved but that promise disappeared with the extension of the MOVES III Plan and it was said that it would be active with the application of the Auto + Plan. The deadline for this Auto+ Plan to come into force was January 1, 2026. However, weeks before it began to work, The dealers already indicated that they were not willing to advance the aid. Not, at least, if they had no guarantee of receiving the money within a reasonable period of time. So, who is going to provide the aid? It is something that is yet to be confirmed and that we will not know for sure until the aid bases are officially published, which should happen in the coming days. In Xataka we have contacted Ganvam (National Association of Vehicle, Repair and Spare Parts Sellers) who claim to have no confirmation of how this aid will be delivered. From Faconauto (Federation of Automotive Dealer Associations) yes, they have assured us that the aid can be obtained at the time of purchase but that the more specific details will arrive when the bases are presented. A loan that was a matter of faith. The intention, therefore, is that the customer can finally leave the dealership being very clear about the price of the car. The concessionaires’ employers assure us that there is no signed commitment of the time that the State will have to deliver said aid and that this is something that we will only know when the bases for the aid are published. Until now, manufacturers have been advancing help with an interest-free loan for 12 or 18 months (depending on the brand) in the hope that the client would receive the money before the bank received the payment of that fee, which can reach up to 4,500 euros. That is to say, it could be the case that the client ran out the deadline … Read more

Europe has a problem with the size of its cars: the "carspreading" threatens to devour thousands of parking lots

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New cars sold in Europe they are a little longer every yeartaller and wider. The phenomenon already has its own name, “carspreading”, and according to a new report from the environmental organizations Transport & Environment (T&E) and Clean Cities, if this trend is not stopped, it will have direct consequences both on road safety and on the parking available in our cities. We tell you the details. What is happening. The report, published by T&E and Clean Cities, has analyzed the evolution of the size of new cars sold in Europe from 2000 to today, and has projected two possible scenarios until 2040: one in which growth continues at the current rate, and another of “adequate resizing”, in which specific policies return the average size of vehicles to the levels they had in 2015. The difference between both scenarios is, according to the authors, alarming. In detail. The data show The average length of a new car increases by 1.2 centimeters each year, while its height and width grow by 0.5 centimeters each year. The height of the hood, which is precisely a key element that directly affects pedestrians and cyclists in the event of a collision, also rises at the same rate. If nothing changes, the study estimates that the average height of the hoods in the entire European vehicle fleet will reach 86.2 centimeters in 2040. All this despite the fact that, as the same report emphasizes, families are becoming smaller and cars transport fewer people on average than before. In Xataka Michael O’Leary, Ryanair: "Von der Leyen is very good at giving speeches, but he is useless in boosting competitiveness in Europe" Why it is important. As highlighted in the study, andThe size of cars has a direct impact on the chances of surviving a crash. The higher the hood of a vehicle, the greater the risk that the impact will occur on the victim’s torso or head rather than the legs. According to figures collected in the study, an increase of 10 centimeters in the height of the hood increases the risk of death for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists by 27%, and up to 81% in the case of children. If the current trend continues, the report estimates that in 2040, 40% more child pedestrians could die on European roads than in a scenario in which cars are limited in size. The key figure. Comparing both scenarios, T&E and Clean Cities they estimate that the difference in the number of deaths of vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and people with mopeds) could reach 400 additional deaths per year in 2040 in the European Union and the United Kingdom. Adding the intervening years, between 2026 and 2040 this accumulated difference would amount to 2,500 adults and 79 additional children who died, according to the report. And parking is not spared either. The other major effect of “carspreading” is the loss of street parking spaces. The study predicts that European cities will lose between 8.5% and 14% of their surface parking capacity by 2040 if the size of cars continues to grow uncontrollably. London and Berlin could lose around 100,000 places each, while Rome would lose around 95,000. In the case of Madrid, the loss could reach 41,000 places, according to the report’s calculations. In Xataka Omoda and Jaecoo already sell more cars than Citroën, Nissan or Ford in Spain. And they are very clear that their secret is not the price Between the lines. “Many automakers have followed a strategy that prioritizes larger, more profitable vehicles over smaller models,” explains Isabell Büschel, director of T&E in Spain, pointing out that “our roads are increasingly dominated by huge off-road vehicles that pose a physical danger to other users.” From the United Kingdom, the T&E director in that country, Anna Krajinska, sums it up as a “market failure.” “The result is a double harm: city councils are forced to redesign streets around larger vehicles, sacrificing parking capacity, public space and safety,” he continued. Not everyone sees the problem the same way. Edmund King, president of the British Motor Association (AA), nuanced to the BBC that, depending on the design, some large cars can be safer for both occupants and pedestrians, so he considers it “too simplistic to assume that larger cars are always more dangerous.” For his part, Mike Hawes, head of the British manufacturers’ association SMMT, argued that it is the consumers themselves who, with their purchasing preferences, end up influencing the design of vehicles. What organizations ask for. T&E and Clean Cities they claim European regulators several measures to stop this trend: A limit of 85 centimeters of bonnet height and 192 centimeters of width for new cars, applicable to approvals from 2033 and to all sales from 2036. Tax reforms that penalize the purchase of large vehicles. An update to Euro NCAP protocols to assess the visibility of young children from the driver’s seat. Changes in municipal parking rates depending on the size and weight of the vehicle. In Xataka César Franco, engineer: “We have preferred to inaugurate over conserve. Nobody applauds that a bridge is still standing” Along these lines, Carmen Duce, coordinator of the Clean Cities campaign in Spain, point to experiences such as that of Paris, which “is already considering differentiated rates for parking”, as the type of measures that, in his opinion, “must be taken urgently to guarantee a fairer redistribution of public space.” And now what. The report comes precisely at a time when the European Union maintains as its objective its “Vision Zero” strategywith which it aims to eliminate road deaths by 2050. The distance between that objective and the current trend of growth in the size of cars is, according to T&E and Clean Cities, increasingly evident. Lucien Mathieu himself, a T&E analyst, poses it as an open question that regulators and manufacturers will have to answer in the coming years: “Where do we stop?” Cover image | Aditya Rathod In Xataka |Good news, Michelin has finally … Read more

The municipality of Cuenca is perfect to see the eclipse: the only problem is that it is an incomprehensible gibberish

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Could you draw the map of your town or city from memory? Well, now imagine that it breaks into two pieces, and that to get from one to the other without leaving your own municipality you have to cross half a mountain range. Come on, you have to stick a piece of cellophane on it as if it were a bridge and overlap parts. That is Cuenca every day: a city council that governs 911.6 square kilometers distributed like someone bursting a vase against the map of Castilla-La Mancha. A Rorschach test that falls apart in the hands of more than one property registrar. Was it so difficult to do things well? An empire made of grass, stone and mountains. It seems not. Only thirteen municipalities of the 8,119 that Spain has exceed the size of Cuenca capital. The largest is Cáceres; Within the region itself, Almodóvar del Campo and Albacete also win. But more than 80% of that territory is forest. It is, by far, the municipality with the most forest mass in Spain and is at the top in Europe, a title that many sources mistakenly attribute to Geneva. Not in vain does it pour water into two different seas: the Júcar, which crosses the territory up to five times, dies in the Mediterranean. The Cuervo and the Escabas, tributaries of the Tagus, flow into the Atlantic. The Spanish territorial organization, based on the assignments of 1833 by the “reformist” absolutist Javier de Burgos, is based on municipalities linked by proximity to the nearest province. The objective was clear: that no town would take more than a day’s work to reach its provincial capital. Cuenca thought otherwise. The forum that started it all. Guilt is medieval.In 1177 Alfonso VIII gave the newly conquered Cuenca its entire territory.. We talk about mountains, pastures, rivers, salt mines and mines. The limits, for another day. In the mid-18th century the city already controlled more than 208,000 bushels of pasture, a third of the entire mountain range. Neighboring towns, starting with Huélamo, had been trying to find land for generations: lawsuits with Beamud in 1750, boundary disputes with Valdemeca, illegal crops in the Cuenca pastures of Valduerguinas and El Codorno to prevent the capital’s flocks from grazing there. And so, crumb by crumb, in 1804 Huélamo and Tragacete fought over the same usurpations as their grandparents. The historian José María Sánchez Benito, who has dedicated a good part of his work to the territorial articulation of the Land of Cuenca in the Late Middle Ages,documented how the Cuenca council itself actively decided which villages retained population status and which were declared depopulated. And this implies direct fiscal and territorial consequences: the village without sufficient population lost its territory to the neighboring town with more weight. The current map, according to their work, is a scar from centuries of small administrative wars. The fight continues. That habit of discussing every meter has not died. Cuenca and Albarracín (Teruel) have been litigating since the end of the 19th century over El Entredicho, a 2,000-hectare mountain at the very source of the Tagus River. We count it in 2024: The National Geographic Institute ruled in favor of Albarracín, the Ministry of Territorial Policy ratified the decision, and Cuenca appealed to the National Court, where the case remains open. Elena Camacho, head of the Territorial Delimitations service at the National Geographic Institute, explains the dilemma of the mess: when the first official boundaries were drawn at the end of the 19th century, “they went to the priest, who was generally the one who knew how to write, and they asked him to draw a map of what his town was like.” That sketch, made without instruments or GPS, is the legal basis that is still being discussed today by civil engineers, lawyers and two entire autonomous communities. 180, 130 or 60 kilometers? The figures vary depending on who calculates them: some speak of 180 kilometers in a straight line between the extreme north and the south, and almost 300 by road; others, more conservative, lower it to just over 60. The real record for municipal remoteness in Spain is held by Almería, whose term includes the island of Alborán, 92 kilometers from the coast. And although the exact figure for Cuenca is disputed, what no one disputes is that it takes more than half a day by car to cross the municipality from end to end without leaving it. What’s more, we can even consider “islands” in its strict sense. Among tiny towns, with their own town hall, completely surrounded by the municipality of Cuenca, stands outVega del Codorno, which only has a border with Cuenca. In almost 33 km² it has just over 140 inhabitants. HE split from Tragacete less than a century ago. Before they were Vega del Codorno de Abajo and de Arriba. Tragacete, in turn, also borders only Cuenca. Poyatos would limit the same if it were not for a strip attached to it, Huerta de Marojales, which belongs to Cañizares—a municipality with which it does not even border. And Buenache de la Sierra and Palomera share an enclave without being the same town. Crazy. An eclipse to make peace. What is clear is that Spanish geography will do its thing again, in a good way, on August 12, 2026. The city of Cuenca will be one of the few Spanish provincial capitals within the band of totality of the first visible total solar eclipse on the peninsula. In more than a century. And it will look luxurious. The total phase will arrive at 20:32, last between 54 and 56 seconds, with the Sun just 6 degrees above the horizon to the west-northwest, and will set shortly after, at 21:09. We will have to look for a clear viewpoint on that side – the Serranía has plenty; The mythical ones are the Ventano del Diablo, near Villalba de la Sierra, and Castillo de Cañete, less crowded, higher, better for many. Any … Read more

Wanting to avoid fires in Oviedo, the cleaners have encountered another problem: the Civil War

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If we believed that Spain had already cataloged every last vestige of the Civil War, bad news. Artillery corners still pop up like mushrooms in autumn. Scars of a territory that reminds us of a broken country. Imagine the look on the faces of the city hall’s cleaning professionals when they put the brushcutter where it didn’t belong. Imagine the face of the municipal crew of Oviedo: cleaning any path in the municipality of El Campón in the middle of July, the machine trips over reinforced concrete and an embrasure from 1937, hidden under the ferns for 89 years. Anyone who knows Mount Naranco is not surprised. Those who only follow guided routes, tourist plates and school manuals, will be amazed. A front under the bushes. The archives say that Oviedo endured a republican siege in 1936 which ended up breaking towards October. So, Naranco was filled with trenches to watch the steps towards Grado. In El Rebollal they counted thirteen positions: two for machine gun, eleven for rifle. Campo Cimero has thirty-one, distributed in four arches towards the northwest, the largest defensive complex in Asturias. To cite an example, in Ayones the nest preserves its original geometry: seven sides on the outside, cylinder on the inside, built in 1937 by the Republicans. And of course, the undergrowth does not erase these structures, rather it preserves and contours them. And except for the nationalist constructions of Pando, almost everything preserved in this area—Rebollal, Campo Cimero, Fitoria, Ayones—is republican. Spain’s wounds. Although no one has the exact figure, the BunkerAtlas portal has registered and geolocated 192 positions. It is more of a sample than an official census, of course. Madrid concentrates almost 19% of what is catalogued; Catalonia is around 16%; Navarra 12%; Aragon 11%. And almost six out of every ten registered structures were built during the Civil War, by both sides. Only in Madrid have they documented more than 2,000 fortifications in a hundred municipalities, about 500 concrete; The capital already has 531 inventory tokens between Casa de Campo, El Pardo and Ciudad Universitaria. In the Pyrenees, the Franco regime designed Line P: ten thousand bunkers planned along 500 kilometers of border. Luckily the work stopped with less than half built, about 4,000, and became obsolete around 1980. Multiply that by each front—Ebro, Jarama, the Oviedo fence itself—and the real figure is surely around tens of thousands. Most remain under brambles, awaiting clearing. Who decides what is saved. Spain catalogs this heritage since the Historical Memory Law of 2007, expanded by the Democratic Memory Law 2022—revised March 2026—. Both require identifying and protecting these remains, and in some cases opening them to the public. The problem, as always, is one of resources: inventorying thousands of kilometers of trench costs money that does not always arrive, and each recovered nest depends on a city council, a memory association or a forestry crew that stumbles upon it. Present over past, as always. Let’s think about The Carmen of the Martyrsthe most beautiful garden around the Alhambra, which stands above the old Corral de los Cautivos, where Christian prisoners spent the night in Arab dungeons. After the Civil War it served as a residence for young people. In 1970, a hotel project razed a good part of the historic forest, until neighborhood protests stopped the work. Or the Turó de la Rovira. Everyone knows it as the Carmel Bunkers, although the name is a historical error: there was never a bunker or underground shelter there. What the Republic installed in 1938 was an open-air anti-aircraft battery, four 105 mm Vickers cannons, to stop the bombing by Italian aviation over Barcelona. When the war ended, the Republican army disabled the pieces and withdrew, leaving the concrete empty. Today is the most photographed sunset in Barcelona, ​​a nest of tiktokers. The other urgency: summer rules. The reality is that the vestige found in El Campón responds to a key action and none of this should stop the clearing. On the contrary. The summer of 2026 is already the worst start in the historical series: June closed with 90% more burned area than the average of the last twenty years, and quadrupled the data for the same month in 2025. The Almería fire devastated nearly 6,600 hectares, with projections that are close to 7,000. The European Union launched its largest historical firefighting deployment and it is not easy to suspect that it is still insufficient. Perimeter clearing responds to the law. Although the hoax that environmental regulations prohibit cleaning the mountain circulates every July; Neither the 2030 Agenda, nor the European Green Deal, nor the Forestry Law prohibit clearing. They demand it, with an annual plan. Memory and prevention do not compete. All you have to do is notify Heritage, let the nest breathe for a while in the sun and then decide what to do with it. The Civil War remains buried in half of Spain; chainsaw is just what is needed to clear brush and clean up against the spread of fires. Image | Flickr (Diego Valera) In Xataka | In 1938 Spain was divided in two. So two “Gordos” were delivered from the Christmas Lottery

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