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Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, is building a huge space telescope. The question is not how, but why

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If someone today wanted to build something like a new Hubble, it would make sense to think of years of reports, reviews and committees before the first piece of hardware is even manufactured. However, that logic has just been broken with an unexpected announcement: Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, and his wife Wendy have put on the table his own money to power not one, but four telescopes, including a large-scale space observatory. The move not only challenges the sector’s inertia, but raises a question deeper than budget or technology: what exactly is a former Silicon Valley executive pursuing by wading into the heart of modern astronomy. This is a project promoted by the Schmidt Observatory System, it seeks to cover everything from the deep sky to the detailed study of transient phenomena. A change of model. Currently, telescopes are generally in the hands of public agencies and academic consortia. Building ever-larger mirrors and then putting instruments into orbit turned astronomy into a matter of national budgets. The Schmidts’ entry into this arena suggests that, with new technologies and another way to finance risk, that historic balance could be starting to shift again. Risk, speed and open science. The approach behind the observatory system is not to compete with space agencies, but to cover the space left by their own processes, which are long, conservative and highly conditioned by public budgets. The Schmidts seek to finance concepts that have already been imagined by the scientific community, but that rarely overcome the barrier of official financing due to their level of risk or the deadlines they require. The piece that gives meaning to the whole and that really makes the difference is Lazulithe only one of the four projects that will leave Earth. It aims to cover a wide range of science, from transient events lasting minutes or hours to the detailed study of exoplanets, with a level of flexibility that large public observatories cannot always offer. Further, more agile. One of the clearest breaks between Lazuli and Hubble is where it will operate and how. While NASA’s telescope orbits about 500 kilometers from Earth, Lazuli will be placed much further away, in an elliptical orbit that should give it a clearer view and allow for fast and continuous data linking. Lazuli Space Observatory In the official description, Schmidt Sciences frames this operation in a “lunar-resonant” orbit. Added to this is a larger mirror, 3.1 meters compared to Hubble’s 2.4 meters, and an observation philosophy designed to react quickly to unexpected phenomena. One platform, several instruments. Lazuli is designed as a unique platform that integrates three instruments designed to cover everything from wide-field observations to the detailed study of exoplanets and transient phenomena. Wide-field optical imager with high cadence for photometric time series, 30′×15′ field of view and filters between 300 and 1000 nm Integral field spectrograph continuously covering 400–1700 nm, optimized for stable spectrophotometry and rapid sorting High contrast coronagraph to directly observe exoplanets and circumstellar environments, with contrasts of 10⁻⁸ and up to 10⁻⁹ after processing The era of array telescopes. Argus, DSA and LFAST They are not traditional telescopes, but rather distributed systems that take advantage of recent advances in computing, storage, and automated analysis. Instead of concentrating everything in a single structure, they distribute the collection of light or radio signals among tens or thousands of modules that are then digitally synchronized. This modularity aims to accelerate deployments and opens the door to observing the sky almost in real time, something fundamental for the astronomy of fleeting events. Render of the Argus Array (left), Deep Synoptic Array (right) Argus Array will bring together 1,200 optical telescopes in Texas to observe the northern sky almost continuously, with the idea of ​​being able to “rewind” what happened minutes or hours before an event such as a supernova. DSA, in Nevada and under the direction of Caltech, will deploy 1,600 radio antennas to map more than a billion sources and update its view of the sky every fifteen minutes. LFAST, for its part, will be installed in Arizona as a system of 20 80-centimeter mirrors aimed at large-aperture spectroscopy and the search for biosignatures, with a prototype planned for mid-2026. What the Schmidts have launched is, at its core, an experiment on the scientific system itself. Lazuli and his three colleagues on land aim to show that it is possible to build large-scale observatories more quickly and with an openness of data that does not always fit into traditional models. Whether that vision materializes will depend on factors yet to be determined, such as the final contractors, real costs or the feasibility of the schedules, but if it goes well, the impact will not only be measured in new discoveries, but in a new way of deciding what science is done. Images | Village Global | Schmidt Observatory System In Xataka | China has just resolved one of the biggest doubts about going to Mars with the birth of six space mice

If the question is why today’s songs are so simple, science has the answer: because we are.

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I belong to a generation that screamed singing Queen songsLast in line or Extrememoduro that they sounded on a cassette. Therefore, it has not gone unnoticed by me that, in the last five decades, music has changed. The letters they have become simplermore repetitive and loaded with negative emotions or stress. This shows it a data analysis about more than 20,000 songs that occupied the Billboard Hot 100 between 1973 and 2023 published in the magazine Scientific Reports. This phenomenon does not just happen. In reality, it is our own reflection, and the result of profound social transformations, of how we feel, consume and live our lives. A study that traces an underlying trend. He study Conducted by researchers at the University of Vienna, it has analyzed the lyrics of popular American songs over a period of five decades, measuring three key variables: presence of stress-related vocabulary, general emotional tone (positivity or negativity) and lyrical complexity based on repetition metrics and word variety. The result has led researchers to be able to affirm that, from the seventies to today, the use of words associated with stress has increased, the proportion of positive expressions has fallen and the structures of the letters have been simplified. What does it mean that they are “simpler”? According what was published by Forbesthis pattern is also seen in other investigations that compare songs from different genres over the years and their conclusions are the same: the lyrics of current songs tend to repeat more simple phrases, express intense emotions (such as anger or sadness) directly, and use fewer metaphors or complex images than in the past. Saying that the songs are simpler does not only mean that they are easy to remember, but that their lexicon and structure have been losing richness and complexity. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great tradition of American song.” With all the respects to Bad Bunnybut I don’t see him as a candidate for the 2026 Nobel Prize due to the depth of his lyrics. The algorithm enjoys it. In technical terms, letters that are repeated frequently and use less distinctive vocabulary are more “comprehensible” for algorithms that measure textual complexity. Not only does this make it easier for them to stick in the listener’s head (raise your hand if you’ve never woken up with a catchy song in your head), but it also responds to how we consume music today. In times of streaming and algorithmic listscatchy and repetitive themes compete better for attention. The change in music has occurred in parallel with the rise of rapid consumption platforms and more fragmented forms of listening. The artists they don’t even play it anymore releasing a good album. Not even with a single, but they compete in a context where the first chorus decides whether the listener continues or skips to the next song. That competition for attention It explains the rise of simple structures and quick hooks, but it also influences the type of emotions that predominate in the lyrics. A mirror of our collective anxiety. According to the conclusions of the University of Vienna study, the greater presence of terms associated with stress, anxiety or conflict is correlated with emotional state of society. As diagnoses of anxiety and depression increased in the population, an increase in negative language in cultural works has also been detected. This does not mean that music causes these states, but rather that it turns them into a space of expression. As and as I emphasized Patricia L. Sabbatella, professor of music at the University of Cádiz, “Music is part of everyday life, fulfilling different uses and functions ranging from entertainment, social cohesion, communication, emotional expression and regulation to learning, relaxation or entertainment.” Therefore, this transformation responds to the function of music as a barometer and emotional regulator of society. It is his reflection and at the same time his therapy.. “Surprisingly, social shocks like COVID-19 coincided with attenuations rather than amplifications of these trends, indicating a preference for emotion-incongruent music,” the researchers noted. What music tells us about ourselves. Although the average negativity and stress has increased, it does not mean that all music is gloomy or empty of meaning. There are artists and songs that challenge these trends. What the study indicates is the dominant pattern, not that all music is like this. One of the conclusions of the study is that if popular songs are now, in general, simpler, negative and stressful, it is because this phenomenon appears as a reflection of societies with accelerated rhythms, high levels of anxiety and a relationship with digital culture that favors the immediate and emotionally intense. Music is not the cause, but it is a sensitive mirror of how we feel and how we communicate. In that sense, understanding these changes not only helps explain why a hit from the seventies sounds different from the current onebut also what kind of roles music plays today. In Xataka | Angie Corine has made a name for herself in the Spanish rap scene with an unexpected commercial twist: she is right-wing Image | Unsplash (Eric Nopanen)

If the question is whether we will be able to buy a cheap combustion car in 2035, we already have the answer: no.

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The European Commission has presented its proposal for lighten emissions obligations for manufacturers in 2035. It is the confirmation that, if finally approved, Germany has won. And the country has gone on its own in its pressure on the European Union but, in addition, the new proposal reflects the true concerns of its industry. To better understand what has happened, we must remember. In 2022, The European Parliament approved the ban to sell cars that emit CO2 in 2035. The objective was reduce emissions by 100% pollutants target of 2021 and, therefore, that eliminated the possibility of selling any car that used this technology. That is to say, Europe had to jump to the electric car whether it wanted it or not. Some time later, with Germany and Italy putting pressure, the possibility was approved for cars sold from 2035 onwards to use combustion engines powered by efuel. These are synthetic fuels that, supposedly, during their production capture the same or greater amount of CO2 than that emitted by the exhaust pipe. If this is true, the car would be carbon neutral. With the wording that the car must be neutral in carbon emissions, the door was also open to the use of hydrogen cars (both in fuel cell as in format hydrogen combustion). These cars are also carbon neutral for the same reason, but along with their water vapor they do expel certain particles that are harmful to humans such as NOx or fine particles. At the time, the European Union kept a letter. The objectives could be revised and this This is what the European Commission has done. This has approved a proposal that has to be ratified by the European Parliament and the States (Council of Europe). Although it is not, therefore, official, it does anticipate that we will see changes in the rule. This regulation has several key points: The carbon emissions target is reduced from 100% to 90% compared to 2021 figures. The door opens to create a category that has become popular as eCarsmall electric cars (less than 4.2 meters), with their own regulation that will count as 1.3 cars when calculating the fleet’s emissions. The objectives of reducing emissions by 55% in 2030 are postponed to 2032. In those years, a space opens up in which manufacturers will have to comply with the proposed objectives by the end of 2032, with an average of those three years. A measure similar to the one that has been opened in the period 2025-2027. And this completely defines which cars can be sold. The data As we said, Germany has gotten away with these pressures. And in recent days we have seen two clearly differentiated fronts. Spain and France were willing to maintain regulation just as it was. Another group, cwith Germany in the leadproposed the revision of the objectives but the country, however, did not sign the letter of the six dissident countries in which Europe was asked to reverse its environmental policies regarding automobiles. Now, with the requirements that are proposed by the European Commission We know that, if it is finally approved, cars with combustion engines will continue to be sold. But as long as the average fleet of cars on the street guarantees that 90% reduction in emissions, which in practice leaves sales in a vast majority of electric cars punctuated by pure combustion vehicles. It must be taken into account that reducing CO2 polluting emissions by 90% compared to 2021 means that the fleet average will not be able to exceed 11.6 gr/km of CO2 (in 2021 it was 116 gr/km). That implies a ridiculous consumption of just 0.5 l/100 km of gasoline. A figure that is almost impossible to achieve for a specific car. Until now, plug-in hybrids were around 1l/100 km and CO2 averages of 50 gr/km in their official approvals. An already very high figure but will rise with the entry of the new calculation system multiplying the record in CO2 emissions. To compensate for this, a car only has one option left: increase its battery. The intention for 2035 is that plug-in hybrids will have a lot greater electrical autonomy. To give us an idea, the plug-in hybrid with the greatest autonomy on the market right now is the Lynk&Co 08 with 200 approved electric kilometers. Despite everything, Its CO2 emissions remain at 23 gr/km of CO2. That is, they double the maximum allowed in 2035. With this data, the company has to sell one electric car for each of these plug-in hybrids to be right within the limit of permitted CO2 emissions. But, in addition, Homologation criteria will be much stricter from 2028. So much so that a plug-in hybrid car that in 2021 registered around 50 gr/km of CO2 is expected to exceed 120 gr/km of CO2 with the new approval. Therefore, Lynk&Co should sell more than two electrics for each plug-in of the aforementioned Lynk&Co 08. The other option for an electrified vehicle with a combustion engine is the extended range electric vehicle. This type of car is, in practice, a plug-in hybrid but its combustion engine is designed for emergencies. So far we have seen cars like the Mazda MX-30 sold under this name but, in reality, they have a 50 liter fuel tank. What will have to arrive will be more similar to the first BMW i3 REX (the version with range extender) whose tank was 9 liters and, therefore, it was designed for an emergency. Expensive, very expensive Taking all this into account, it is clear that emissions obligations have been relaxed but it is still essential for manufacturers to continue selling a large number of electric vehicles. In practice, the best news for them is that 2025 fines postponed to 2027 and, therefore, they have two more years to comply with the obligation to place the average of emissions from its fleet at 93.6 gr/km of CO2. The plan was to fine 95 euros for each gram exceeded and … Read more

This graph shows per capita coffee consumption and leaves us with a disturbing question: what is happening in Luxembourg?

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Be it for your energetic effectsby its benefits in the body or even for their psychological effectscoffee is the second most consumed beverage in the world. Is one of the engines of the economy of countries like Colombia or Brazil, as well as a thermometer of global economic health. Coffee culture continues to expand, and in this graph we can see which countries whose inhabitants drink the most coffee every day. There is only one question: what about Luxembourg. Europe >> others. Despite not being producers (although climate change may change that sooner rather than later), Europe gives the rest of the world a review of coffee consumption. Including powers like Brazil, Costa Rica or Colombia. The top 10 positions in coffee consumption correspond to European countries, and except for Greece, which has managed to sneak into the TOP, they are all northern countries. Outside of that ranking we find a country that may be unexpected: Lebanon. Then we have Brazil, Canada and another string of European countries. But if there is a proper name on this list, it is Luxembourg. Luxembourg has a trick. Visual Capitalist has created the graph taking the data from Cafely. After an impressive display of figures, they detail that they have taken data from sources such as the International Coffee Organization, as well as from Wikipedia to calculate per capita consumption and from global surveys of more than 4,000 people. All this has led them to calculate that Luxembourg drinks coffee. And a lot. That each person, on average, drinks 5.31 cups a day seems outrageous. It does not reach worrying levels of caffeine consumption (There are drinks that are not coffee and have much more caffeine), but it is a fact that draws attention. However, there is a trick: Luxembourg’s per capita figure is explained because almost half of those who work in the country live abroad and drink coffee on the road, as well as to stay awake, and although they are not the country’s population, that consumption has been taken into account for Luxembourg’s totals. 5.31 coffees a day implies 118,227 cups that each person drinks throughout their life, and is well above other countries: Cups consumed throughout life Money spent throughout life Luxembourg 118,227 425,618 Finland 83,939 335,756 Sweden 58,612 216,863 Norway 58,159 255,900 Austria 45,198 149,153 Denmark 44,676 241,250 Swiss 42,318 211,591 Netherlands 39,854 123,548 Greece 37,449 116,092 (27) Spain 23,988 46,057 (28) Costa Rica 22,229 56,683 (39) venezuela 12,844 20,423 (41) Colombia 12,264 13,981 a fortune. The average price per cupFurthermore, it is not cheap at all. Not counting atrocities that can be paid in countries like Japan (it is not a product either and transportation is expensive) or Dubai (because… it’s Dubai), the average price of a cup in northern European countries is quite high. Contrast with the average price as we go down to Portugal, Italy or Spain. And more interesting than the average price of a cup It is the account of the money we spend on coffee throughout our lives, which we can also see in the table above. The great absentee. It may be striking that countries like Mexico have a consumption of just 0.29 cups, but along with Guatemala, Argentina or Peru, it is one of the countries with the least roots in coffee. For example, it esteem that each Mexican consumes 2.1 kilos of coffee per year, while Colombians increase the figure to 4.2 kilos. But the big absentee on this list is… China. The Asian giant is not a traditional coffee consumer, but things are changing. There is not only multitude of cafes and chains like Luckin Coffee that are present practically on every corner of a big city, but they are leading the greatest growth in the region in opening of new brand cafes. And they are not only emerging in the region: China is taking over tons of coffee from Brazil due to a market that is growing at double-digit speed since 2010, with a growth annual average of more than 20%, which is well above a world average that barely reaches 2% But anyway, there is no one to blame Luxembourg. And if at some point they blame you for drinking a lot, you can now say that you are trying to raise the average for your country in this curious competition. In Xataka | The latest craze for weight loss is adding mushrooms to coffee. Science is not clear that it is a good idea

The question is not if we are going to miss out on seeing Eurovision, but where we are going to see Eurovision

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RTVE had spent weeks threatening to do it if Israel continued among the countries participating in Eurovisionand has finally carried it out, breaking a streak of 65 uninterrupted participations since 1961. However, this goes beyond a mere refusal to continue broadcasting the final: there are many interests behind this decision and they will be unleashed from now on. The most obvious: who broadcasts Eurovision now? Spain breaks the deck. RTVE leaves Eurovision 2026 given the refusal of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union, organizer of the event), to veto Israel, with 738 votes in favor compared to 264 against and 120 abstentions. The vote did not actually address the expulsion of Israel, but rather the approval of new measures on transparency in televoting that, in practice, allowed the country to continue. Spain thus joins the pressure front in which the Netherlands (AVROTROS), Ireland (RTÉ) and Slovenia are also active, and the measure is total: there will be no candidate in Vienna and no live signal of the final One of five. Spain thus becomes the only member of the Big Five (a group formed by the largest financiers of the event along with France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) to abandon ship. The impact in figures of this decision is direct: each country of the Big Five (which enjoy automatic access to the final without going through the semi-finals) contributes approximately 350,000 euros annually to the festival, a sum that the EBU will lose from the Spanish coffers and which is much higher than the 30,000-50,000 euros paid by the smaller nations. Furthermore, it happens at a delicate time: Moldova had previously justified withdrawing by citing “unsustainable costs.” On the other hand, Germany threatened to leave if Israel was expelled, evidencing the internal fracture. Spain thus becomes the first member of the Big Five to withdraw for political reasons, establishing a precedent that could encourage other countries to follow in its footsteps. Together, these five states provide the broadcast with some thirty million viewers. That is to say, as the press has commented, it is an unprecedented decision that turns this into “the biggest boycott in the history of the festival” Who broadcasts now? RTVE’s renunciation of broadcasting rights raises an unprecedented question: can other Spanish television stations broadcast the contest? We must take into account decades of institutional blockages by RTVE. FORTA (a federation that brings together twelve regional television stations) has been trying to join the EBU for thirty years without success. “RTVE’s authorization is a necessary condition, and it repeatedly denies our entry,” declared its general secretary in 2020. Even so, the EBU statutes allow multiple members per country, as is the case with private channels that gained access (SER and COPE on radio). In 2014, when Spain was absent from Junior Eurovision, the European organization contemplated Atresmedia or Mediaset assuming participation, but the EBU Steering Group rejected the proposal. Now, the EBU technically could sell the emission rights to other Spanish channels, although it would require, again, the approval of RTVE. There is a precedent for all this hustle and bustle in Germany: the ARD that represents the country is, precisely, a consortium of regional television stations, similar to the FORTA model. Boycott, something remains. Boycotts are not new to Eurovision, although we have never witnessed one of this magnitude. In 2009, Georgia left after refuse to modify his song ‘We Don’t Wanna Put In‘, considered critical of Putin. In 2017, Russia was unable to participate in kyiv after sending Julia Samoylova, banned for performing in Crimea. The closest precedent was in 2022, with the Russian expulsion for invading Ukraine. Arab states historically avoid the contest due to the Israeli presence: Morocco only participated in 1980, when Israel did not attend. Türkiye left in 2013 alleging unfair behavior by the Big Five. International reactions. Israeli President Isaac Herzog celebrated the decision that Israel remained in Eurovision as a sign of “solidarity” between nations, while the Foreign Minister he wished for “a fall from grace” of all those who have participated in the boycott. An opinion against the boycott that has found echo in countries like Austria: Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, for example, insisted in that the contest “is not an instrument for sanctions.” In Xataka | After the Eurovision controversy, thousands of people asked themselves an old question: what is Israel doing in a “European” contest?

If the question is why we buy a home in Spain, mortgages have the answer: to invest

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In the middle of the debate on the weight of speculation in the Spanish real estate market and with the Catalan Government immersed in the debate Regarding whether or not it should put limits on the purchase of housing for investment purposes, the sector has come across data that adds even more fuel to the fire. According to a study carried out by the Financial Users Association (Asufin), the 47.7% of the mortgages signed are aimed at acquiring homes for investment purposes. That is to say, the idea of ​​those who take mortgages is not to convert houses into homes, but to put their savings in a safe security in search of good returns. What does the study say? The report by Asufin is just that, a report with its biases and limitations prepared based on a survey with 1,301 interviewees and data from different official sources, but it still offers an interesting ‘photo’. And a resounding conclusion: among those who go to the bank in search of financing to buy a home, there are many more people with an investment mentality than there are families looking for a home in which to settle. What figures do you use? The study concludes that only 15.9% of the new mortgage holders will convert the home into their first residence. Another 18.5% are looking for credit to get a second home that they will dedicate to personal use and 17.9% intend to change their usual residence. The photo is completed with the 47.7% that we mentioned before: buyers who knock on the doors of banks in search of credit to purchase a second home as an investment. The size of this last percentage is not surprising if we take into account that the price per residential square meter has been climbing for years (both in the purchase and rental markets) and there are those who estimate that buying an apartment for rent offers returns of more than 6% (either even older), significantly above what more traditional investments guarantee. Why do we buy houses? Asufin’s study has given rise to another interpretation that shows us more clearly what percentage of buyers go to the real estate market with an investment mentality, not in search of a home. If what we are talking about is the reasons that lead buyers to consider requesting a loan, investment is the main motivation 65%. The data shows that brick is still seen as a refuge value. And so, recognizes the associationleads to “the cycle of buying to rent or saving value to sell more expensively continuing to significantly stress the market.” It’s actually nothing new. Previous studies Asufin itself already reflected that more mortgages are requested to invest than to buy homes. Does the report say anything else? Yes. It confirms the low flow of new housing entering the market, that today the cheapest option is fixed mortgages and that foreign buyers they account for a total of 14%although the data varies depending on the region and the market segment we are talking about. For example, in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands they account for almost 30%, while there are half a dozen autonomous communities in which foreigners do not even reach 4%. Another interesting reading is that credits take up a considerable part of the finances of Spanish households. To be more precise, the average mortgage payments are already They represent 35% of salaries, a percentage that rises to 40% if we talk about the segment of young buyers, between 25 and 35 years old. However, the Asufin data show a slight change in trend, with a clear decline in the percentage of buyers who go into debt to buy second homes for investment purposes. Although they continue to represent an important part of the pie (47.7%), at the beginning of the year they represented 56.2%. Image | Ján Jakub Naništa (Unsplash) In Xataka | Buying a house is already an impossible mission for many young Spaniards. So his parents donate it to him

To the question of what sense it makes to compete with Google, OpenAI or Anthropic in AI, Mistral has an answer: small and local models

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French startup Mistral AI Mistral 3 has been launcheda family of 10 open source artificial intelligence models that represent its most ambitious commitment to date. The Parisian company, which is often considered the main European hope in the development of AI, seeks to differentiate itself from the large American technology companies by betting on flexibility and deployment in all types of devices instead of raw power. Under these lines we tell you all the news. What Mistral has presented. The Mistral 3 family includes a flagship model called Mistral Large 3, with 675 billion parameters, and nine compact models grouped under the name Ministral 3 (in three sizes: 14,000, 8,000 and 3 billion parameters). All models are released under Apache 2.0 license, allowing unrestricted commercial use. The large model also has multimodal capacity, being able to process text and images. It is also multilingual, with a special emphasis on European languages. On the other hand, small models can run on devices with just 4 GB of memory, making them perfect for modest laptops, mobile phones and embedded systems without the need for an internet connection. Why strategy matters. While OpenAI, Google and Anthropic focus on increasingly powerful and closed systems with agentic capabilitiesMistral has focused on the breadth and scope of its models, efficiency and what its co-founder Guillaume Lample calls “distributed intelligence.” According to declared told VentureBeat, the company believes the future of AI is defined not by scale, but by ubiquity: models small enough to run in drones, vehicles, robots and consumer devices. The economic and practical argument. Lample explained It means that in more than 90% of cases, a small, specifically tuned model can get the job done, especially if it is trained with synthetic data for specific tasks. According to Lample, this is not only cheaper and faster, but it eliminates concerns about privacy, latency and reliability. The company also has teams that work directly with customers to analyze specific problems and fine-tune small models that perform specific tasks. This, above all, can attract companies that become frustrated when choosing the best possible model for a specific task and, if it does not perform adequately, they end up giving up. Europe is lagging behind. If we talk about innovation and technology around AI, we do not hesitate to say that Europe is leagues away of what companies in the United States and China are offering. This is why Mistral AI advocates a different approach in which it prioritizes massive deployment in devices and the flexibility of its smaller models. The capacity offered by open models can be a great asset to continue betting on these technologies. In China, for example, the open models of DeepSeek, Alibaba or Kimi are emerging widelyabove in certain tasks even competitors as large as ChatGPT. Lample explained that most leading Chinese models are exclusively text-based, with separate image processing systems. For this reason, they also want to opt for a multimodal approach. A complete ecosystem. Mistral no longer only offers language models. The company has built an entire ecosystem that includes Mistral Agents APIwith connectors for code execution, web search and image generation; Masterlyyour reasoning model; Mistral Code for programming assistance; and AI Studioan application deployment platform that also has analytical and logging capabilities. Furthermore, his assistant Le Chat It has incorporated a deep research mode, voice capabilities and a list of more than 20 enterprise integrations. Thus, in addition to its model offering, the company can provide other companies with a whole layer of personalized products and services, with the aim of being their main source of financing. Digital sovereignty. Although Mistral is often characterized as Europe’s answer to OpenAI, the company prefers to consider itself as ‘a transatlantic collaboration’. Its CEO, in fact, is in the United States, has teams on both continents and trains these models in collaboration with American teams and infrastructure. However, its positioning as a defender of European digital sovereignty has earned it strategic partnerships with the French army, the country’s employment agency, the Luxembourg government and various European public organizations. The European Commission presented in October a strategy to promote European AI tools that provide security and resilience while boosting the continent’s industrial competitiveness. Offline capabilities for democratization. The use cases that Mistral has designed for its small models include, above all, local applications, such as factory robots that use sensor data in real time and without relying on the cloud, drones in natural disasters or rescues that operate offline, and smart cars with functional AI assistants in remote areas. Lample stood out that there are billions of people without internet access but with laptops or cell phones capable of running these small models, which he considers potentially revolutionary. Additionally, by running on the device, these apps preserve the privacy of user data. Real “open source” debate. Not everyone celebrates Mistral’s approach. Some critics question his decision to opt for models’open weight‘, that is, free to access but providing less information about their code than truly “open source” models, which provide the code and training data necessary to train a model from scratch. Andreas Liesenfeld, assistant professor at Radboud University and co-founder of the European Open Source AI Index, declared to the Financial Times that data at scale is the missing key in the European AI innovation ecosystem and that Mistral does not contribute to that at all. The long-term strategic bet. Lample recognize that their models are “a little behind” the most advanced closed systems, but argued that the important thing is that “they are catching up quickly.” Time will tell if Mistral’s approach to low-cost, versatile models with local applications ends up working for them to end up positioning themselves as one of the great European bets on AI. Cover image | Mistral AI In Xataka | China already has an army of 5.8 million engineers. His new plan involves accelerating doctorates

If the question is whether they can geolocate you during your work day and use it to fire you, justice leaves no doubt: yes

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Know that your company knows where are you every minute of your workday can generate discomfort and even doubts about its legality. However, the courts have been clarifying this area for some time. A recent ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias does so with unusual forcefulness. The case involves an elevator maintenance technician and an application time control which recorded, in addition to his schedule, the exact point from which he clocked in. What seemed like a routine tool ended up becoming the key to a disciplinary dismissal which today is fully validated by justice. Schedule control with advanced features. As detailed in the sentence issued by the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias, a maintenance employee of an elevator company used a time control application installed on the corporate mobile. His function was simple: mark the beginning and end of his day and do it from the place where he attended to each incident. The company distributed the routes on a daily basis and registration had to be done at the customer’s location, not from another point. However, the employee’s workday began to show strange patterns. In one month, the company detected up to 11 outbound signings made from the employee’s home and coinciding with work hours. The record indicated that, instead of closing his last intervention from the customer’s location, the technician finished his day on time, but already at home. Notices, warnings… and a disciplinary dismissal. The company did not act immediately. Before the dismissal, he issued several internal warnings to the worker and reminded him of the operation of the application, pointing out the irregularities detected and reminding him the obligation to sign from each real location. Even so, the signings from home continued, so the company interpreted that the agreed working day was being breached. Finally, he proceeded to the disciplinary dismissal, considering it proven that the technician ended his day prematurely and from a place outside the workplace. The Social Chamber of the TSJA confirmed the decision of disciplinary dismissal and validated the use of geolocation as evidence. What the law says. The TSJA ruling is based on the article 20.3 of the Workers’ Statutewhich specifies “the employer may adopt the surveillance and control measures he deems most appropriate to verify compliance by the worker with his or her work obligations and duties.” Therefore, and given the mobility nature of the position, the time control system with geolocation was justified. In addition, Organic Law 3/2018 on Data Protection (LOPDGDD) specifically regulates geolocation systems. Your article 90 requires clear information about the existence of these systems, their purpose, the scope of the processing and data protection rights. In this case, the app was corporate, the device belonged to the company, the worker knew how it worked, and the application only recorded the location when the application was opened. Taking all these regulations into account, the TSJA considered that the company acted within the law and used a proportional tool, linked to strictly labor purposes and correctly communicated to the employee. Time nuances. He Workers Statute It also precisely delimits when the day begins and ends. Article 34.5 establishes that “working time will be calculated so that both at the beginning and at the end of the daily shift the worker is at his or her workplace.” This is where we have to differentiate workplace and job position. It is not a minor nuance: effective working time begins when one is operationally available to perform the assigned functions. This does not mean that the employee must arrive at the workplace at the agreed time, but rather that he must be at his workplace at that time. If there are 10 minutes from the company entrance to your position and you arrive at the work center at your agreed time, you would be arriving 10 minutes late. The same applies at departure time. That employee must remain at his position until the agreed time, and then collect his things and leave the company. If you are leaving the company premises at the agreed time at the end of the day, you would be leaving 10 minutes early. The only exception to the rule: there is no job to go to. The Supreme Court has recognized a relevant exception: When the company does not have offices, premises or any physical space where workers can start their day, the employee’s home can be considered a valid starting point for the day. This doctrine applies especially to completely decentralized companies whose workers only move from client to client. In these situations (well accredited and exceptional), the travel time from home to the first client can be counted as workbecause the home assumes the function of the only available operating point. But as long as there is a work center or a clearly defined place where the activity can begin, this exception does not apply. Clocking in from home, as in the case of the Asturias elevator technician, is not justified and is a non-compliance with working hours. In Xataka | Breakfast and the first 15 minutes of entry are work: the Supreme Court sets the limits of time control Image | Unsplash (Kevin Grieve)

If the question is why we continue to be drunk on airplanes, the answer is simple: because it is a business.

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We may all be more sensitive to flying from 9/11 attacksbut so is the feeling that every time there are more altercations inside airplanes with a common denominator: the alcohol. Scenes of drunk passengers causing delays, fights, vomiting or even attempts to open doors in mid-flight they are already part of the collective imagination of air travel. The question is almost obligatory: is there really no solution? An increasingly visible phenomenon. They remembered on CNN the recent case of the man who, completely intoxicated, forced to evict a plane in Chicago after vomiting during filming is just one example among hundreds of incidents documented year after year. In the United States alone, a review of more than 1,600 reports from the federal system revealed an incontestable pattern: alcohol in almost all levels of bad behavior, from arguments and disobedience to physical and sexual attacks. And although public perception confirms the problem (more than half of passengers in the United Kingdom claims to have dealt with with drunk travelers), there is still no consensus on how to stop it. Safety in the air. Plus: cabin crews operate in a space that is, by definition, a metal tube thousands of meters above the ground. They are the ones who must manage both the emotional tension of passengers and the consequences of alcohol mixed with fear of flying, long delays or increasingly narrow cabins. Without the ability to expel anyone mid-flight and with companies that do not always support their decisions, the attendants become in the first and last containment line. Although they receive de-escalation training, they face a type of passenger that did not exist a decade ago: the traveler who mixes alcohol with medications, stimulants or recreational substances, generating episodes of aggressiveness that are difficult to predict and control. Distribution of blame. And here comes the crux, because no one wants to assume the root of the problem. Airlines blame airports for allow consumption unlimited in bars and restaurants prior to boarding, pointing that they hardly sell alcohol on board, especially on short flights. The airports, in turn, point out that their role is commercial, not disciplinary, and that responsibility falls on the air operators. And within the flights themselves, the auxiliaries They blame gate agents for not blocking access to obviously intoxicated passengers, while pilots denounce that insufficient disciplinary measures are taken against repeat offenders. The fragmentation between ground and air causes each party to offload the problem on another, creating an operational vacuum that allows the situation to repeat itself flight after flight. The economic dimension. Behind the debate lies a factor that possibly outweighs any security protocol: alcohol, whether we like it or not, is one of the most lucrative businesses of the aeronautical industry. In airports it generates large margins for shops and restaurants, while in the cabin it is used as an incentive in higher categories. Precisely for this reason, rarely clear data is provided on income derived from its sale, and any attempt to limit consumption before boarding is met with resistance from both airport operators and airlines. The result is a permanent contradiction: The industry recognizes that alcohol causes problems, but depends on it financially. In other words, alcohol (and as a consequence, drunks) “interest(s)”, but with a small mouth. Public pressure. The number of passengers support restrictive measures It grows as incidents go viral and attract media attention. Some proposals already have a favorable majority: drinking limits at airports, breathalyzer controls before boarding or even total restrictions on certain routes. Meanwhile, regulators are toughening penalties: the FAA imposed its largest fine in history (more than $80,000) to an extremely violent passenger, and the airlines are expanding their ban lists to repeat travelers. However, the approach remains reactive, not preventive, and each solution encounters resistance in the chain of interests that sustains global air tourism. Between I want and I don’t want. Thus, the problem of the drunk passenger does not arise only from alcohol, but from a fragmented system where no one wants to bear the cost of controlling it. Airports that maximize profits, airlines that fear losing revenue, overloaded crews, regulators who act after the fact and frustrated passengers who see a drink as the instant answer to discomfort. Everyone agrees that there is a problem, but no one wants to be who imposes the solution. The result is a sky increasingly tensewhere safety depends on the professionalism of the crews and a kind of unstable balance that is broken too easily. Image | Instagram, X In Xataka | “This is the last time I pay 10 euros for a gin and tonic”: the anger of British tourists at the price of alcohol in Spain In Xataka | The “tourist cages” arrive in Valencia: holiday gentrification in Spain goes up a gear

In Barajas there is an isolated baroque hermitage in the middle of a roundabout. The question is how the hell did it get there?

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Sometimes the story leaves us with hints of such fine irony that they seem like the work of the best of screenwriters. It happens in Barajas. It has stood there for more than three centuries a baroque hermitage dedicated to Our Lady of Solitude, the landlady of the district. The passage of time and the development of the area, marked by the proximity of the Madrid airport, has made the temple a true tribute to that very thing: loneliness. After all, it stands isolated in the middle of a roundabout. The question is… How the hell did it get there? A nod to history. In a way the hermitage Nuestra Señora de la Soledad is more than just a small baroque temple. It is also a reminder of a style and philosophy of religious architecture that shined in its day and faded with the passage of time. This is what the Official College of Architects of Madrid says, which remember on your website that the building was part of “the network of chapels, hermitages and humiliations that dotted the roads of Castile” centuries ago. “This dense network of small pieces has been progressively disappearing, depending on the growth of neighboring populations and the decline of the program they proposed,” COAM explains. “However, some of these pieces have been saved from the process, almost always for rather random reasons, such as their location in points of little speculative interest or their relationship with the memory of the place. Both occur in the case of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad.” But what is the temple like? A baroque hermitage from the mid-17th century made up of four aligned structures: an access portico, the nave of the faithful, the sanctuary and a semi-detached house at the head. “All of this composed with attention to a truly exquisite scale, whose containment in plan reinforces the ascending character of the complex,” explains the school, which refers to the building as “a true treatise on wise popular architecture.” Inside stands out a baroque altarpiece with busts of the Virgin, Jesus and Saint Rita. The most curious thing about the hermitage, however, is not its structure, its interior architecture or the pieces of sacred art that it preserves. Not even its importance as an example of the region’s religious heritage. If there is something that attracts attention, it is its location, something that can be appreciated with a simple glance to Google Maps. Instead of being located at the top of a mountain, a meadow, a square or a town, the hermitage is located inside a gazebo, surrounded by a ring of asphalt. It was actually there before the land became a roundabout. Trapped between cars. Your case is so peculiar that years ago Madrilanea treated him and more recently dedicated a report The Confidential. Both explain that to understand the location of the hermitage we have to go back decades, when the high traffic on the road from Vicálvaro to Barajas led the authorities to think about ways to improve the road. The problem is that there was something that hindered their plans: the temple of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. The possibility of demolishing the hermitage or even moving it was put on the table, an idea difficult to execute considering that it was built based on brick and masonry. Neighborhood pressure ensured that both proposals were shelved and the building remained in place, although next to the road. Was that all? No. In the 90s the temple once again generated debate because it was located in the middle of the project to connect Plaza de Castilla with the airport through the M-11. Once again, the hermitage survived again, but at the cost of being left in an even more peculiar situation: the solution that was put on the table to avoid demolishing it was to open a tunnel under the ground. As the years went by, the old walls of the temple would see another project to improve the connection of an area that has ended up marked by the growth of the capital and the pull of the Madrid-Barajas airport, which today is an entry, exit or transit point for more than 60 million of travelers per year, in addition to thousands of tons of merchandise. The hermitage has endured, but it has not come for free: now it is isolated in a roundabout, converted into a junction of roads. Breaking the norm. The COAM admits that Barajas is not a common case. “We must recognize how unusual it is to know how to make the conservation of these monuments compatible with the layout of large infrastructures such as, in this case, the express access route to the airport,” points out the schoolfor which the temple is today “a strange monument”, “practically useless for its former purposes, isolated at the roundabout at the intersection of the expressway and Logroño avenue.” The situation of the hermitage is far from being ideal in any case. And not only because it has been left “alien” to the town, connected by a zebra crossing. There are those who warn that, like other historical monuments in a similar situation, the temple is very exposed to road traffic, with its load of pollution, smoke and the vibrations generated by the passage of cars, buses and trucks. Images | Google Earth and Wikipedia 1 and 2 In Xataka | There is a new very profitable and not at all legal business in Madrid: charging immigrants a fortune to register them in their homes

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