proves

The owner of Mercadona believes that in a few years kitchens will disappear from homes. The consumption of precooked foods proves him right

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The forecast sounded so far-fetched, it clashed to such an extent with the gastronomic tradition of Spain, that it generated a considerable stir. Just a year ago, during the presentation of Mercadona’s accounts, Juan Roig surprised by predicting death (almost) imminent of domestic kitchens. “I said it and I maintain it: in the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens,” cried the businessman. In the future imagined by Roig we go from making our own food in the vitro at home to taking it already prepared from supermarkets, which have become an absolute reference for food. The sector data They confirm that, no matter how dystopian Roig’s prophecy sounds, it seems to be coming true. A percentage: 3.8%. Spain is a benchmark for the Mediterranean diet. But also, and increasingly, a country of families who are no longer willing to spend hours and hours in the kitchen. That’s what it suggests at least. the last balance of the Spanish Association of Prepared Meal Manufacturers (Asefapre). According to the data of the sector, in 2025, ready-made foods “reinforced their weight in the shopping basket”, with an increase in consumption of 3.8%. In total, 715,052 tons of prepared meals were sold, “a new record,” recalls Asefapre, which consolidates the trend of the last decade. Translated into hard and fast euros, sales rose to 4,309 million, with an annual increase of 5%. A figure: 18 kilos a year. To give us an idea of ​​what this growth means, Asefapre calculates that last year each Spaniard ate on average about 18 kilos of prepared dishes. As a reference it is almost the same amount of fish products that we Spaniards consume in our homes (another thing is the restaurants) throughout 2024. The difference between precooked and fish is that the demand for the latter takes time to increase. low hours (both fresh and frozen) while the former grows at a good pace. The latest balance sheet of the employers’ association reflects an annual increase of 4.7% in the consumption of prepared foods, a growth rate that comfortably exceeds that of food as a whole (0.6%). What do we eat? Asefapre segregate your data of sales, which offers us an interesting vision of what exactly we Spaniards consume. The cake goes to “refrigerated” products, with a sales volume of 330,602 t shipped in 2025, 5% more than the previous year. In second place are “frozen products”, with sales that amounted to 297,023 t (+2.5%). The “dishes prepared at room temperature”, very common in some supermarket chains, are quite far behind, with 87,426 tons sold, but they leave an interesting fact: their demand grew by 4.1%. From pizza to potatoes and pasta. If we go down to detail we see that what we Spaniards like most (at least it is what we demand most) are pizzas, the leading producer in the sector with a sales volume that amounted to 131,600 tons. They are followed by frozen potatoes, with 98,056 t, and pasta-based dishes, which totaled 72,405 t. The three categories grew, with sales increases ranging between 2.6 and 7.2%. Beyond the Spanish market, one fifth (21.4%) of the industry’s production ends up being exported. More than just strategy. At this point the question is obvious: Why do we buy more and more pre-cooked foods? What leads us to feed ourselves with prepared dishes, whether frozen, refrigerated or food sold at room temperature ready for consumption, like what Mercadona offers in its supermarkets? The answer is complex. On the one hand there is the sector’s strategy, which has increased and perfected its range of products, adding foreign dishes that aim in part at the growing population immigrant living in Spain. Beyond the efforts of the industry, the increase in consumption of prepared dishes also responds to profound changes at a social and cultural level. They increase the single-person householdsit gets complicated conciliation between professional and family life and even change the kitchen structure in the houses. Also our way of thinking, as Asefapre herself remembers: today it no longer ‘squeaks’ at us that they serve us a pre-cooked dish on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve or that in families there are no longer people willing to lock themselves between the stoves. Of new grandmothers and homes. “Grandmas are not like they used to be and prefer to go walking with friends, do pilates or travel,” he reflected during the presentation of the balance sheet the president of Asefapre, David Aldea. It is not the only cultural change he cited. Added to this are others, such as the fact that it is increasingly easier to find “homes with fewer members” or homes in which the space dedicated to cooking has been reduced to a minimum. The trend seems to confirm Roig’s prediction, which a year ago I already confirmed the good progress of Mercadona’s business line for ready-to-eat dishes, launched in 2018. “It is profitable and continues to grow.” Images | Andalusian Government (Flickr), Mercadona and Asefapre In Xataka | Mercadona has grown so much in Spain that for the US it is no longer just a supermarket chain: it is a “cultural phenomenon”

the new promise that a Singapore company proves

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There are short journeys that, even today, continue to depend on slow ships or air infrastructure that does not always make sense. In that middle space, a Singapore-based company has started to test a different alternative: a vehicle capable of moving at high speed without completely taking off from the water and without needing an airport. This is not an experimental concept, but rather an industrial program with a calendar, partners and routes being studied for 2026. What type of vehicle is it exactly? The proposal is specified in the AirFish Voyagera device developed by the Singaporean company ST Engineering AirX that does not quite fit into either the boat or airplane categories. It is a type vehicle wing-in-ground (WIG) that moves just a few meters above the surface thanks to the so-called ground effect, an aerodynamic phenomenon that compresses the air between the wing and the water, generating additional lift and reducing resistance. This principle promises to reach speeds of around 185km/h, and reduce resistance compared to conventional maritime options. The project advances. The public presentation took place at Singapore Airshow. According to the company, the vehicle is in the process of classification with Bureau Veritas since 2024, an international classification and certification society that must validate its safety before any regular operation, and whose resolution is expected in mid-2026. In parallel, the company has closed agreements with maritime transport operators to start services from the second half of that same year, always conditional on regulatory approvals. The first specific route on the map. The most immediate agreement places the operational debut on the route between Singapore and Batam, in Indonesia, where the operator BatamFast plans to use a unit of the AirFish Voyager. ST Engineering places this start in the second half of 2026. It is estimated that the vehicle could complete this journey in around 25 minutes thanks to speeds, well above the usual times of conventional ferries. If this schedule is confirmed, the connection would become the first commercial route in the world operated with WIG technology. The next deployment front is in India, where the operator Wings Over Water Ferries has announced its intention to lease and commission up to four units of the AirFish Voyager from the end of 2026. The initial strategy targets coastal states with strong tourism and regional transport demand, including Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In addition to the operation, the agreement contemplates exploring local assembly, manufacturing, training and maintenance capabilities, in line with the industrial initiatives promoted by the program. Make in India. The regulatory and technical barrier. Beyond speed or agreements with operators, the determining factor continues to be the certification framework. The company proposes that the AirFish Voyager be governed by maritime standards, a decision that would reduce infrastructure requirements and facilitate its integration into existing coastal routes using conventional port facilities. However, as we say, you still need to complete your certification process, an essential step to start providing any commercial service. Images | ST Engineering AirX In Xataka | The Strait of Malacca is not enough: China’s new obsession is to prevent the US from confiscating its ships

We believed that no open model could outperform GPT-5. A Chinese startup proves us wrong

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A Chinese startup called Moonshot just launched Kimi K2 Thinkinga gigantic open model with a trillion parameters that has done something that seemed almost impossible: surpass the best proprietary models from companies like OpenAI, Google or Anthropic. If we thought that “Open Source” models could never compete with GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro or Claude, we were wrong. what has happened. This “AI laboratory” had already announced Kimi K2 in July with that gigantic size of one trillion parameters, but now they have released the “Thinking” version with that same size (32 billion active parameters, Mixture of Experts architecture). According to those responsible, the model is capable of maintaining stable use of agentic tools over between 200 and 300 sequential calls. Or what is the same: it can chain long sequences of actions autonomously and apparently without error. The best of all is not that: it is that it surpasses GPT-5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5 in various tests and costs much less than those models. The benchmarks. Those responsible for Moonshot explained how Kimi K2 Thinking achieves the highest scores in Humanity’s Last Exam (general knowledge, 44.9%) and BrowserComp (agent browsers, 60.2%). He is almost at Claude’s level in the SWE software development test, and is also almost the best in another of those benchmarks, LiveCodeBench v6. It is true that in some tests still slightly behind of its “western” rivals, but the achievement is spectacular. More benchmarks. Those responsible for Artificial Analysis have shown their first conclusions after evaluating it with various tests. Thus, they highlight its behavior in agentic tasks that simulate that the model is acting as a customer service agent. In this test it obtained 93% of the maximum, surpassing all its competitors by far (GPT-5 Codex High obtained 87%, for example). They will do more tests, but for now the prospects are fantastic. And on top of that, cheap. On CNBC indicate that training the model cost $4.6 million, a ridiculous figure considering that training proprietary models like GPT-5 It cost about 500 million dollars according to estimates. Using the Kimi K2 Thinking API is also very affordable: $0.6 per million tokens in and $2.5 per million tokens out. GPT-5 Chat costs $1.25/10 respectively, while Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3/15 respectively. The details. The model makes use of an INT4 quantization to improve its efficiency without compromising the precision and quality of its responses. Its context window—the “size” of the data we can enter when making prompts—is 256k, a relatively modest figure for large models but still notable. And as a good open model, we can download it to use locally… if we have a real monster at our disposal. The model weighs 594 GB, and for example joining two Mac Studio M3 Ultra It is possible to make it work locally relatively smoothly at about 15 t/s. Alibaba is behindyes. Although the model is developed by an independent startup called Moonshot, this firm has been financially supported by Alibaba, which is becoming an absolute powerhouse in this field. Already not only conforms with developing its own models, which are outstanding (Qwen is the clear example), but is also financing the development of other models such as Kimi K2/Thinking. China and its love for open AI models. During the last few months we have seen how China dominated in the field of open AI models —not “Open Source”—. The Asian giant has adopted an overwhelming philosophy with increasingly better models but which until now seemed to be several steps behind the large proprietary models of OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. This is no longer the case. The race is lively. This achievement represents a new vote of confidence for the open models coming from Chinese companies. It is true that they are huge and that makes it very difficult to use them in practice by end users, but they present an interesting alternative for companies. Image | idnaklss with Midjourney In Xataka | There are many “internal” races within the greater AI race. And Alibaba is winning Open Source

The US already proves its new “Airplane of the Last Judgment”. His role is to keep the command chain even in a nuclear scenario

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The most resilient aircraft in the United States has just written a new chapter in a story that started half a century ago. The Air Force and Sierra Nevada Corporation They have launched the First flight tests of E-4C SAOC, direct successor of the E-4B Nightwatchthe family of “Final Judgment” that guarantees the continuity of command even in the worst scenario. Recently, a giant based on a Boeing 747-8he first took off from Dayton, Ohio, opening a trial campaign that will last in the coming months and that opens the transition to a more modern fleet. With this step, the North American country begins to replace flying bunkers that approach at the end of its useful life. It is not a new concept: we talk about the evolution of a system that combines government continuity, safe communications and nuclear deterrence. The SAOC program, with a contract of More than 13,000 million dollars Awarded in 2024, it is a change of method in the Pentagon: for the first time, the original manufacturer of 747 does not lead the integration and responsibility falls to a company specialized in large conversions, which has brought together first level partners to build the most advanced command plane of its time. That inaugural flight is the first step of a decade of work to deliver a platform capable of continuing to operate when everything else fails. A new chapter for the most strategic plane in the United States The SAOC (acronym for surviving Airborne Operations Center) is the most ambitious Air Force project to reinforce its network of Nuclear control, control and communications. Its mission is clear: to ensure that, although the strategic centers on land remain unused, the country’s leadership can coordinate a military response and Maintain control of the armed forces from the air. It is no accident that these aircraft are known as “final judgment planes”: they are designed to be the last resort in a scenario where everything collapses, operating as a true flying pentagon. The first generation of this platform, the E-4B Nightwatch, entered service in the seventies on the basis of a Boeing 747-200. Currently, the United States maintains four units Active, all deployed in the Offutt Air Base, Nebraska. Despite their robustness, the passage of time passes by an invoice: each plane has decades in service, the spare parts are increasingly difficult to get and Its availability is barely 55%. Keeping these giants operational is a expensive task, and the Air Force plans to remove them at the beginning of the next decade. The renewal is already underway. Sierra Nevada has received four of the five Boeing 747-8i acquired from Korean Air, and in them are applied deep modifications. Dayton, Ohio, and Wichita, Kansas They concentrate the Conversion and test operationswhich will be extended at least until 2026. This staggered plan will allow the new aircraft to enter into service while the E-4B begin to withdraw, always maintaining an operational nucleus that ensures the continuity of government. A E-4B Nightwatch currently operational The technological jump is evident. The 747-8 is the last large commercial aircraft of four engines made in the United States, with greater fuel capacity, more efficient engines and a broader fuselage than its predecessor. These characteristics make it the ideal base for an airplane that needs to sustain prolonged operations with refreshing in flight. The 747-8 cell also provides growth margin to integrate advanced communications, reinforced armor and redundant systems, all designed to survive electromagnetic pulses or cyber attacks. E-4B Nightwatch Decades of antiquity in flight At an industrial level, the program also makes a difference. Although Boeing remains the original 747 manufacturer and provides structural support, this time does not lead the project: the Air Force opted for an open data model to ensure that the government owns the design and can modify it in the future without depending exclusively on the OEM. Boeing It was out of the bid in 2023 after disagreements on the terms of the contract and data rights, which opened the door to Sierra Nevada Corporation as the main contractor. The company, known for its high complexity projects, has formed a team with giants like Lockheed Martin, Collins Aerospace and Rolls-Royce to create an unprecedented platform in the military. His role in recent history reinforces the need for this investment. E-4B have participated in critical events: from government continuity exercises to emergencies such as September 11, 2001 attackswhen at least one of these aircraft took off to provide safe communications in the middle of chaos. These aircraft have routinely accompanied the Secretary of Defense on International Travel, remain on alert during presidential speeches to Congress and act as a support network when national security protocols are launched. In the popular imaginary they appear little, but their mere existence is part of the United States deterrence strategy. The E-4C SAOC is, more than an update, a long-term bet. The contract signed with Sierra Nevada is It extends until 2036which reflects the magnitude of the technical challenge and the necessary time to complete the conversion of the aircraft, certify and deploy them fully. With this plan, the United States ensures that the most critical piece of its system of Nuclear control and control It will remain in force for decades. Although many details, such as the exact equipment of antennas and systems, are still classified, what is already underway is a clear message: the ability to direct the country in a global crisis depends on a strategic investment that seeks to always have a command center in the air. Images | Sierra Nevada | Balon Grayjoy | Defense Department In Xataka | Aviation enters a new era: seats are no longer tarified, emotions are tarified

Tired of accidents with wild animals, Galicia has had an idea that already proves on its roads: Flasehar Jabalíes

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The data is not too updated by the DGT but the last counts leave no doubt: animals are a danger on secondary roads. According to traffic datain 2022, 35,661 accidents were counted with animals involved in them. In them, 505 people suffered wounds of diverse gravity and two people died. The problem is especially serious in some autonomous communities such as Castilla y León, where wild animals They often cross the road and put themselves at the driving of the vehicles. According to data from the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memoryanimals are involved in 61% of accidents produced on roads in this region. Nor Galicia is left behind. If Castilla y León is the region most affected by this problem and represents 27% of accidents with animals that occur throughout the country, Galicia occupies the second positioncovering 17% of accidents of this type. To try to minimize this problem, the Xunta de Galicia has launched a system to try to prevent animals from crossing the road. The system has been launched on a Lugo road. Attention, loose wild boar In its official statement, the Xunta de Galicia is clear about what animal is one of the main causes: the wild boar. It was expected not to be a kangaroo, as has been seen recently crossing an Oia road. In recent years, Galicia coexists with a problem of wild wild boars. According to figures collected by The voice of GaliciaThis animal caused a total of 4.6 million euros in material damage in 2024. This figure takes into account the total expenditure that the region had to disburse both compensation and prevention. In this last game you can frame the system that is already being tested in “the LU -540 road (Viveiro – Cabreiros)between kilometric points 37+340 and 39+520, a stretch close to the intersection with the AG-64 “, explain from the regional government. The tested system lifts a virtual fence on the road when cars pass through it. That is, when the system detects that a vehicle is active active light alerts with flash and sound alerts oriented to the outside of the road. Thus, it is about deter the animal from crossing the road at that time and redirecting it away from the road. Using movement sensors, the system is activated by sections and is off if there are no cars in motion. When a vehicle passes, it activates the system as it advances the road. From the Xunta they also point out that the system is autonomous of the general network since it uses solar panels and batteries to stay active both day and night. This is only one of the interventions that, according to the Xunta, have been carrying out in recent years to reduce road accidents caused by the appearance of wild animals. They point out that they have worked reflective prisms and wolf synthetic urine on other roads to scare away wild species. In addition, in recent years it has been insisted on the importance of ecoducts or creating a “Green Bridge Network”. These uplinks are designed so that animals can cross large roads without leaving a natural environment. On the A-8 road as it passes through Kobaron and Montaño, close to Bilbao, There are already two approved. Photo | Nagy Szabi and Max Saeling In Xataka | What does the Animal Welfare Law say about how to take your pet in the car: obligations and fines

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