speed

charge double for more speed

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Anthropic just launched Fast Mode for Claude Opus 4.6a configuration that allows you to obtain model responses up to 2.5 times faster. Of course, it will also affect our pocket, since the price also multiplies. Although right now this is an experiment aimed at professionals who need speed in critical tasks, it is also a move that we are starting to see more and more: monetizing AI tools with incremental improvements with what is already in place. And of course, if this reduces that margin between expenses and income of its operations, better and better. What Anthropic has announced. Fast Mode is neither a new model nor a trimmed version of Opus 4.6. It is the same intelligence, with the same reasoning capacity, but configured to prioritize speed of response over cost efficiency. According to the companyoffers 2.5 times faster responses while maintaining the same model accuracy. At the moment it is available in the testing phase for Claude Code users who have the additional use activated, and also on platforms such as Cursor, GitHub CopilotFigma or v0. The hit to the pocket. While Opus 4.6’s Standard Mode charges $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens, Fast Mode multiplies those fees: $30 input and $150 output for contexts under 200,000 tokens. In longer contexts, the output rises to $225 per million tokens. Anthropic is offering a 50% discount until February 16, but we’re still talking about a significant increase. The bill especially skyrockets if you activate Quick Mode mid-conversation, as it charges full price for all the previous context. Who does it make sense to? Anthropic says that Fast Mode is designed for interactive work where latency matters more than cost. Real-time debugging, fast code iteration, urgent fixes before a deadline. Situations where waiting breaks the workflow. According to the official documentationit doesn’t make sense for long standalone tasks, batch processing, or jobs where the budget is tight. If Claude is going to spend 30 minutes refactoring code in the background, paying more for speed doesn’t add anything. The signal that sends the market. Fast Mode is not just a premium option. It’s Anthropic testing how far its professional clients are willing to go to achieve fluency. And by the way, sending a message: improvements in speed and user experience are going to cost more and more. The company needs to close the gap between what it spends on computing and what it makes, and it’s doing it faster than its customer base needs to be faster on computing. Fast Mode is billed directly as additional usage, completely skipping the fees included in subscription plans. Between the lines. Anthropic’s move fits into a broader trend. AI models are reaching a level of capability where “revolutionary” improvements are increasingly rare. What remains are incremental adjustments: a little faster, a little more context, slightly more precise responses. But those settings require massive infrastructure and face. So companies in the sector are trying new ways to monetize what they already have. In this case, charge much more to do the same thing, only faster. It is making performance profitable as a premium service. The speed trap. “Speed ​​is addictive”, counted Civil Learning in his Medium article. Once you experience a model that responds instantly without losing reasoning ability, going back is frustrating. Anthropic knows this. Fast Mode doesn’t just sell speed, it sells the ability to maintain flow during intense programming or debugging sessions. And once you get used to it, it’s hard to give it up. And now what. Fast Mode is a research preview, meaning both features and pricing are subject to change. Anthropic plans to expand access to more API clients, but for now it keeps it under control. The key will be to see how many professionals are willing to pay that extra price on a sustained basis. Cover image | Anthropic In Xataka | ChatGPT is increasingly turning to a source that supplants Wikipedia: Elon Musk’s Grokipedia

What are they and how do they affect the maximum speed on highways and highways?

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Let’s explain to you what are dynamic speed limits on highways and highways. Because no, the speed limits are not going to change forever nor are we going to say goodbye to 120 km/h, but in some sections the maximum at which you can drive will depend on each moment. Therefore, taking into account everything that is being said and exaggerated, we are going to try to explain to you how this type of speed limits works. Just remember that At the moment they have only been implemented in some sections of specific roads, not on all highways and expressways. What are dynamic speed limits? Highways and expressways have a speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour. But when a section of road tends to have a lot of traffic or complications on a regular basis, or simply when the weather and visibility are poor, then these static limits can even become dangerous, because people tend to go faster than they should. For these cases, the DGT is beginning to implement a technology that has already been satisfactorily tested in countries such as Germany or France, managing to reduce accidents in high traffic areas. It is about the dynamic speed limitswhich will vary depending on the conditions at any given time. This technology uses artificial intelligence to record and process traffic or weather data in real time, and will take into account visibility, peak times, times and incidents that occur. With all this, The speed limit will be adjusted automatically taking into account the situation at all times. In the sections where it is implemented, the speed limit will be displayed on the illuminated panels on the roads. Thus, if the conditions are not bad, this system will at specific times reduce the speed limit from 120 km/h to 100, 90 or even 80 km/h. For example, if it is very foggy this morning, perhaps the limit is 120 to 80 km/h to avoid accidents. That limit to which it is lowered will be the legal one at the moment in which it is posted, so speeding will have fines which can range between 100 and 600 euros and between 2 and 6 license points. Come on, it doesn’t matter if you’re on a stretch of highway, if it says the limit is 80 right now, that’s how it is. For now, These dynamic limits have only been applied to one trackwhich is the AP-7, in one of its sections in Catalonia. Taking into account that it is a system that works satisfactorily in other European countries, if the bet goes well in this area, it would not be ruled out that it be implemented in others. Cover image | Jorge Franganillo In Xataka Basics | DGT express fines: what they are and how this new system works to notify violations in 48 hours

We already know which country had the highest internet speed in the world in 2025: Spain

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How has the internet changed in 2025? It’s too broad a question, but if there’s anyone trying to answer it, it’s Cloudflare. The company has published an extensive summary of the most important thing this year and among the numerous conclusions there is one that has surprised us: Spain is the country with the fastest internet connection in the world. Spain at full speed. in the studio stands out that Europe was the clear leader in terms of the best internet connection speeds. Here Spain was also the protagonist, because it was the country with the highest download speed in 2025, with 318 Mbps on average (25 Mbps more than in 2024). It was also the best in terms of upload speed, with 206 Mbps (13 more than in 2024). A possible person responsible. Cloudflare indicates that the reason why Spain leads this unique ranking is probably in the program UNICO-Broadband (Universalization of Digital Infrastructures for Cohesion). This initiative has been going for years and the current goal was to achieve an infrastructure capable of providing services at symmetrical speeds of at least 300 Gbps, scalable to 1 Gbps, and achieving 100% coverage in 2025. Achieving everything is almost impossible —Hello, rural Spain— but that effort certainly seems to be paying off. Spain also more than meets the metric of latency under load: even on intense connections, response times are very good. We also enjoy excellent latency. Data download and upload speeds are important, but so is the latency of the connections: the lower it is, the more fluid the communication is, especially in video conferencing, gaming and streaming applications. Here Iceland takes the cake with only 13 ms, but Spain is still among the best with 19 ms. Things are even better in the so-called latency under load, which measures how long it takes a signal to go and return (the ping) when the internet connection is under intense load (playing online, watching 4K videos). In that metric, much more realistic than “resting” latency, Spain is in third place with 89 ms, a truly remarkable figure. Years as leaders. These results may surprise, but in reality Spain already led these rankings in past editions of Cloudflare’s annual summary. It happened in 2024and also in 2023which is undoubtedly great data that shows that despite the problems that may arise, most users have access to an enviable infrastructure. More traffic than ever. Global internet traffic grew by 19% in 2025, and the person most responsible for that traffic was the Googlebot that searches the internet to index it and make it easier for us to find all types of data in the Google search engine. Although crawlers from AI companies are gaining ground, they are still a long way from Google’s activity, and with good reason: all types of websites want to be “crawlable” in order to be “findable.” The same does not happen with AI. The higher the ratio, the less traffic these chatbots send to content websites. Anthropic is the worst here, and Google, of course, the best by far. What happens to AI in 2025. There are many metrics related to AI this year. For example, Anthropic is the platform that sends the least traffic to content websites (ahead are OpenAI and especially Perplexity). This also causes platform crawling bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) to be “blocked” in the robots.txt files of many websites to prevent them from collecting data without permission to train their models. Google continues to reign. The list of most popular internet services Not much has changed around the world: Google leads that ranking, and is followed by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Instagram. It’s probably more interesting to see what data Cloudflare is reporting on the most popular generative AI services. There the winner is not a surprise (ChatGPT), but the order of the rest of the contenders is striking, because they are then followed by Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Character.ai. Grok is in ninth place and DeepSeek in tenth, for example. That list will surely be very different in 2026. Image | Sasha Pleshco | Stephen Phillips In Xataka |

The drone war in Ukraine is advancing at the speed of light: what was useful two weeks ago is a death trap today

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Since the first months of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has converted the use of drones in one of the central pillars of its defense, and has done so to the point of transforming a conventional conflict into a permanent laboratory unmanned combat. In this environment of constant adaptation, drones have not only redefined the way we fight on the front, but have imposed an unprecedented pace of technological change that forces armies, industries and training centers to update almost in real time to avoid becoming obsolete. Classrooms at war. The Ukrainian drone schools have become one of the most extreme laboratories of military learning in the world, forced to rewrite their training programs at a dizzying pace that in some cases reaches the two weeks. In a conflict where drones have become the main instrument of attack, reconnaissance and attrition, the distance between an obsolete lesson and a lethal decision can be measured in days. For these centers, adapting is not an academic question, but rather a direct line between survival and death on the front, in an environment where technology, countermeasures and tactics change constantly and rapidly. In Xataka We had seen everything in Ukraine, but this is new: drones are disguising themselves as Russian soldiers, and it is working Synergy. To stay relevant, instructors are not limited to manuals or simulators. They regularly visit the battle lines, maintain permanent contact with alumni deployed and testing new technologies before incorporating them into their courses. In schools like Dronarium, with offices in kyiv and Lviv, its R&D manager, the veteran known as “Ruda”, explains that technological evolution on the front is so rapid that it requires almost immediate adaptability. There is no two equal classes: Each lesson incorporates small adjustments resulting from what happened days before in real combat. More than 16,000 students have passed through this center, and their experiences are directly integrated into the curriculum, turning training into a living system that feeds back on the war. Two-way learning. One of the pillars of this model is communication direct and permanent with the combatants. Messaging groups connect deployed instructors and operators, allowing soldiers to share new enemy tactics, technical problems or improvised solutions, while receiving advice in near real time from the rear. In centers like Karlsson, Karas & Associates or Kruk Drones, this relationship does not end at the end of the course: it is maintained throughout the operator’s operational life. The instruction is clear: nothing is taught that is not strictly necessary in combat, and what is no longer useful is unceremoniously discarded, no matter how recent it may be. A war that reinvents itself. The central weight of drones on the battlefield explains this urgency. The majority of frontline impacts and casualties already depend on unmanned systems, requiring continuous modification of both platforms and employment tactics. New models appear, others are neutralized by countermeasures, and the rules of the game are constantly rewritten. This speed has set off alarm bells in the West: military officials such as British Minister Luke Pollard warn that NATO forces run the risk of becoming obsolete, trapped in acquisition cycles that last years in the face of a war that repeats every two or three weeks. {“videoId”:”x8j6422″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Declassified video of the clash between Russian fighters and the American drone”, “tag”:”united states”, “duration”:”42″} The industry learns from Ukraine. The schools they are not alone in this race. Defense companies that observe the conflict have begun to copy this model of direct interaction with the front, shortening your cycles developmental. Manufacturers of anti-drone systems and UAV platforms visit the battlefield, chat with operators and fine-tune designs in a matter of weeks, not years. Some executives recognize that the ways in which Ukrainians use technology have surprised them, forcing them to rethink basic assumptions. At the same time, the soldiers themselves benefit from this exchange, providing constant feedback and receiving improvements, spare parts and solutions adapted to their real needs. In Genbeta According to psychology, those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s developed mental strengths that are being lost today Schools under fire. There is no doubt, this permanent adaptation has a cost. Drone schools are not only competing against the technological clock, they are operating under the direct threat from Russian attacks and with limited financial resources, often depending on donations to continue functioning. In this context, their fight is not only to stay updated, but to survive. Even so, their role has become central in modern warfare: they are the link that connects innovation, industry and real combat, and the best example of how Ukraine has turned the urgency of conflict into a flexible and brutally efficient national military learning system. Image | Heute, RawPixel In Xataka | The new episode of terror in Ukraine does not involve missiles or drones: it involves leaving a city without cell phones In Xataka | Europe faces a question it can no longer avoid: how to respond to a war that is rarely declared (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The drone war in Ukraine is advancing at the speed of light: what was useful two weeks ago is a death trap today was originally published in Xataka by Miguel Jorge .

The Madrid-Barcelona AVE will reach a peak speed of 350 km/h. And it will do so thanks to new sleepers of Spanish design

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While in China they are already thinking about trains that reach 4,000 km/hIn Spain we are looking for an AVE that reaches 350 km/h that could be reached without problems if it were not for one detail: the tracks. And for something much more specific: the sleepers. The solution is a new design called “aerotraviesa” that will increase the speed of the BIRD. The problem is that theory is one thing, and practice another. a physical problem. Spain plays in the high speed major league and, in it, Renfe opera four types of trains. The Alvia and Avant reach 250 km/h. The Avlo and the AVE reach 300 km/h. However, the machines are prepared to reach higher speeds, the aforementioned 350 km/h. The problem is in physics. When a train exceeds a certain speed, 300 km/h, a phenomenon called ‘ballast flight’ occurs. This implies that the underside of the train generates turbulence that creates areas of low pressure on the track. This causes the passage of the train to vibrate the stones, the ballast, lifting them and causing them to collide against the underside of the train or settle on the tracks and sleepers themselves. Furthermore, at more than 300 km/h, the possible bumps on the journey increase. Air traverses. That’s where a new sleeper design comes into play that the company itself Adif presented a few years ago. Instead of a flat crossbar, a traditional rectangle, the central part of it has a more rounded design. Adif affirms This modifies the velocity field on the ballast in the area between the sleepers, minimizing the presence of ballast particles, and the key points are: Reduces 21% of the aerodynamic load in the space immediately above the ballast bed. The design allows increasing the distance between the ballast level and the upper face of the sleeper. It has no higher manufacturing or handling costs (they are still molds). And most importantly: the aerodynamic load generated by a train at 330 km/h on a track with current sleepers is equivalent to that generated by the same train at 370 km/h, but with aero sleepers. AV350 Plan. In short, the aerocrossers improve the aerodynamic performance of the infrastructure and there is another important fact: their use allows an increase of 12% in the operating speed of the train. And it is not just theory, since Spain wants to start installing overhead traverses to improve the speed of the AVE. A few weeks ago, Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, advertisement that the Madrid-Barcelona line will be the first to have these overhead traverses. The result? Reach the maximum speed of the original design of the infrastructure, which is 350 km/h. Currently, the AVE reaches those 300 km/h due to the physical limitations mentioned above. This will allow us to go from the two hours and 37 minutes of the AVE that currently takes the least time to less than two hours. Puente highlighted that the design of the aerocrosses is pioneer in the world. The Polytechnic University of Madrid, Adif and SENER constituted a consortium to develop this technology and obtained the patent in March 2014, achieving international protection in Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United States. There are countries that have faced the ballast problem in other ways, Germany covering the ballast with concrete, for example. Arching an eyebrow. Increasing the speed of the train by changing the sleepers sounds great. The problem is that there are some aspects to consider. On the one hand, the cost-benefit debate not only because of what the investment will mean in changing all the sleepers, but also because of the maintenance of certain train materials that will suffer more than now. Driving at 350 km/h exponentially increases the wear of both the wheels and the catenary, regardless of whether the ballast causes no damage to the train, or causes less. On the other hand, not only the sleepers come into play, but also the own land. A bump at 300 km/h can be annoying, at 350 km/h it can be something more. Or two. And, beyond whether it is worth the investment to gain half an hour or what will happen with those possible technical problems, the big question is what happens with the rest of Spain. It is estimated that the Madrid-Barcelona section in which these air crossings begin to be applied will take about two years to complete. At a rate of 800 sleepers changed per day and 1,666 sleepers per kilometer, the work is of great magnitude. And it is clear that it is a congested route and that it is seeing a boom in the number of travelers, but while that line is reinforced, the connection with other parts of the peninsula remains neglectedlike the train to Soria, Teruel or the perennial case of Extremadura. Images | Xataka, Adif In Xataka | AVLO’s departure from Madrid-Barcelona seemed like another problem for Renfe. He has left us an unexpected winner

In 1970, the train to my town in Extremadura took 20 minutes longer than it does today. It’s a painful reminder about “high speed”

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For eight days, Cáceres and Badajoz have been linked by train. To be exact, they are united by a train typical of the 21st century and, more specifically, of 2025. Since last December 1the two largest cities in Extremadura are linked by a journey of just 50 minutes. A trip with four frequencies daily that makes the lives of thousands of Extremadurans easier. By the middle of next year, in 2026, the Government says that trains will finally be able to reach 300 km/h. If fulfilled, it will be a milestone for the region and a first step to make that Madrid-Lisbon a reality, of which been talking for more than 20 years. Europe seems to have gotten serious in that sense. The intention is to have a connection between capitals in 2030 and that four years later, the journey will only take a little more than 180 minutes. Three hours that now seem little more than a chimera. Especially if we take into account that the first promise to connect both cities dates back to 2003. So he was aiming for 2010 as a final date to have the high-speed connection ready. Today, from Madrid to Badajoz, the only section that operates at “high speed” is the one that separates Badajoz from Cáceres… and a little further, up to the Monfragüe station and its connection with Plasencia. The problem is that the Plasencia-Badajoz section is only one of the three sections that make up the connection between Madrid and the Portuguese border. Yes, it began to act as an electrified connection of iberian width in December 2023. Now, almost two years later, passengers can move between Cáceres and Badajoz in less than an hour. But traveling between Madrid and Badajoz still requires you to use almost five hours of travel. And it is not something that is going to change in the short term. Because it took us almost the same time to get to Extremadura as it did 50 years ago. 20 minutes Browsing the net and trying to understand how we have evolved, I came across the seventh number of the Renfe guide in which the schedules of all the trains available in Spain between December 1970 and March 1971 are collected. In addition to having a good time diving and finding some curiosities such as that the traveler had a Madrid-Paris available that only required worrying about the change in gauge at the border, I found something that caught my attention. Since I was a child, I move frequently between Madrid and Extremadura. Specifically, a town near the Monfragüe Natural Park, an enclave that is located a few kilometers from Plasencia. As long as I’ve had a car, I’ve always traveled in it, but when I didn’t have a driving license I used to opt for the bus. First because there were more frequencies available. Then because delays and breakdowns became part of normality. A shame because the train trip is much more comfortable than the bus and should be faster. Ought. Because while diving I found a detail that caught my attention. Trains leaving from Madrid and arriving in Extremadura in 1970. Click on the image to see more schedules There it was. Train leaving Madrid at 10:40. Arrival at Palazuelo-Empalme (current Monfragüe station) at 13:41 minutes. 181 minutes to cover the 253 kilometers of the journey. Today, luckily, Renfe offers a faster connection. Specifically, 20 minutes faster. As you can see in the following image, the trains between this Extremaduran station (the first electrified) and Madrid are still more than two and a half hours away to travel just over 250 kilometers. Let us remember that Madrid and Barcelona aspire to be united in less time. Or that in less than 10 years we should see a Madrid-Lisbon in less than three hours. The problem, as we said, is that the connection between Madrid and Extremadura is progressing at an extremely slow pace. The first step has been to electrify the Iberian gauge track between Badajoz and this Extremaduran stop. Now, in addition, it is double, which prevents a failure in one direction from immediately affecting the other and, at least, one of the two from continuing to function. The second and biggest problem is that the connection in its La Mancha section is especially slow. The line is divided as follows: Plasencia-Cáceres-Mérida-Badajoz section Talayuela-Plasencia section Madrid-Oropesa section At the moment, the section between Talayuela and Plasencia (on the Extremadura side) is in the construction phase but as indicated in Levantthe works are still in an initial phase. In fact, of the seven subsections into which it is divided, only two of them have been completed, as collected by Adif. Despite everything, the deadlines should not be extended much longer and the section should be active in 2028. But the most problematic thing is in Castilla-La Mancha. The Madrid-Oropesa section is still in the information project phase. In it, the biggest obstacle is the passage through Toledo. The intention of the Ministry of Transport and the city council is to bring the AVE as close as possible to the municipality, using the current station that is located just two kilometers away in a straight line from the urban area. This forces us to design a new viaduct to solve the passage through the Tagus… and there is the conflict. The Autonomous Community and platforms in defense of the city’s heritage believe that it damages its image and propose an alternative station in an industrial estate further away from the urban area, reducing the visual impact and discarding the need for the viaduct. They show in an exhaustive analysis in Geotrain how one day, if all goes well, in 2030 we will have a connection between Madrid and Badajoz in 151 minutes. That is, in two and a half hours. Until then, it will still be 10 minutes less than it currently takes to the station closest to my town, located long before reaching … Read more

Liberalization brought us the lowest prices in the history of high speed. Everything indicates that it is about to end

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A high-speed runner that is becoming more expensive and others that seem to have hit the ground. The arrival of competition to Renfe promised to reduce the price of train tickets. In fact, it reduced them. But the big question is knowing when they will rise again. Or, if necessary, how far they will end up going up. spring. It is the data that it collects the latest report published by the CNMC. It analyzes the price and occupancy of high-speed trains in our country. Specifically, the data refers to the months of April, May and June, which are the last recorded by Competition. It is an interesting study as it covers dates in which rail traffic increases, with passengers opting for this type of transport for their Easter holidays and first summer trips. The impact of both events is clear because despite offering 0.6% fewer seats, the number of travelers has increased by 4.4% compared to 2024. What do the data tell us? That we travel faster and faster. Because the previous data breaks down the high-speed markets open to competition and reflects that in the second quarter of 2025, a total of 11.8 million passengers boarded the high-speed long-distance train, 16.1% more than in the previous quarter and 15.2% more than in the same quarter last year. The data also tells us that clearly Spain moves at two speeds. One is represented by Madrid-Barcelona, ​​which increases its prices and remains the main corridor in the country. The other is the Andalusian or Valencian high speed, whose prices are already beginning to remain stable. The cheapest. The brokers who reduce their prices are, as we said, the Andalusians and Valencians. Traveling from Madrid to Seville was, on average, 8.6% cheaper than the previous year, boosted by the arrival of Ouigo as Iryo reduced its prices by 2%, AVE by 3.8% and AVLO raised prices by 3.4%. The average price of the trip was 49.47 euros. Below is the Madrid-Málaga corridor, which maintains a price about two euros cheaper but which barely changes its prices compared to the previous year (-1.2%). Again it is Ouigo who presses down. For their part, Madrid-Valencia and Madrid-Alicante have also significantly reduced their price compared to the previous year. In the first the decrease is estimated at 8.3% and in the second 8.7%. The (almost) cheapest. Although prices are lower In these corridors than in the same period of 2024, the truth is that the average ticket price has been lower. In all the previous cases, the average ticket price was lower in various months last year. In the graphs, in addition, a certain stagnation and slowdown in the fall is observed. It must be taken into account that, except for Madrid-Málaga, Renfe has considerably lowered the ticket price on its AVE. In the Sevillian corridor it has fallen by 3.8%, in the Valencian corridor by 10.6% and in the Alicante corridor by 11.6%. These falls, despite being partially offset by the increases in AVLO where the AVE falls, have a great impact on the average price of the ticket since a percentage drop in the AVE is more money than the same reduction in Ouigo, Iryo or AVLO, which are lower cost for the customer. That is, we have cheaper general prices, yes. But above all because Renfe seems to be pressuring customers to “jump” to the AVE, with an increase in the prices of AVLO and an evident drop in the price of its most expensive option. The most expensive. The corridor that has experienced the most increase in cost has been Madrid-Barcelona. Since competition entered, traveling between both cities has never been so expensive. At the beginning of 2024, the average price hit the bottom, standing at around 40 euros. On the same dates in 2025, that same bill was already looking at 50 euros. Between April and June, the average price reached 63.14 euros. All companies have made their tickets more expensive and no small feat. The cheapest average price was that of Ouigo, with 50.11 euros and despite this it became 18.7% more expensive. The second, that of AVLO (offer that no longer existswhich will continue to increase prices) with 51.95 euros and an increase of 14.5%. Between the two Renfe options is Iryo, with 56.01% and an increase of 22.5%. The AVE closes at the top with an average price of 73.91 euros and an increase of 13.1%. Have we hit the ground? It is the big question that arises now for the client. Although year-on-year prices have fallen, the truth is that we continue to see a slight increase in the overall price for the year or, at the very least, stagnation where the three companies operate at full capacity. Only the entry of Ouigo in Andalusia seems to have moved the market a little. But Iryo and Ouigo have been sending more or less clear messages that they are beginning to move away from the price war. Everything indicates that this was not sustainable to maintain these companies and both the italian as the french they seem to take new directions (with changes in address) now that its landing seems consolidated. “We will follow them”. Renfe, for its part, has been clearer. The company defends that the situation is not profitable for the companies and that sooner or later their competitors are going to raise prices. And the company does not seem to want to compete with them on price. Its president has already announced that if its rivals raise prices “we will follow them”anticipating a growth in the cost for the user that has already been seen in Madrid-Barcelona. Photo | Xataka In Xataka | Ouigo and Renfe have found a new way to make life impossible: torpedo repairs

High speed in Madrid is at risk of collapsing. And that’s why Adif wants to send her to Parla

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Parla has 134,833 inhabitants, 24.43 km² in area and one goal: to become the nerve center of high speed in the south of Madrid. The idea was presented yesterday by Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport, and is part of the profound renovation that the Government wants to carry out on the high-speed line between Madrid and Barcelona. The plans. Announced yesterday by Puente: a Madrid-Barcelona in less than two hours. That is the goal and the big headline. At the moment what we know is that two feasibility studies have been requested. They will study the possibility of introducing improvements in the infrastructure so that trains can reach 350 km/h top speed and both cities can join in less than 120 minutes. The investment should be reflected in “more services, less time, more users, more territorial structure and flexibility of exploitation, according to Puente’s own words. For this, the construction of two new stations will be key, which will also be the key to introducing two new variants at the entrance to both cities. Parla. It would become the reference for the municipalities in the south of Madrid. And the construction of a large caliber station in the southern zone would not only impact the more than 130,000 residents of the municipality. The key is in everything that is nearby: Getafe, Leganés, Fuenlabrada or Pinto. Alcorcón and Móstoles are further away but there are connections with Cercanías. From Transport they say that Parla has “an area of ​​influence of more than 1.26 million inhabitants and in which, within a range of 15 minutes, 4.7 million people would have access and in less than 1 hour, about 6 million potential users.” In these moments, and if no delays or breakdowns occurthe connection between the Parla and Atocha Cercanías stations is covered in 29 minutes. And it takes 33 minutes to get to Sol station, in the heart of Madrid. Decongest. It is the last objective of the new station. If built, the idea is to offer an alternative to intern services. That is, those who travel from Barcelona to Seville directly. These trains would need less time to travel the distance since they would travel fewer kilometers and could travel faster as they would not have to deal with speed reductions at the entrance to the city and passing through Atocha. Besides, Puente pointed out in his speech that with this new station the station can be used as an intermediate stop on the Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Levante services (its neighbors would not have to go to the center of the capital to return back having boarded the high-speed train) and it can serve as an alternative station in case of incidents. Right now, Transport assures, 250 trains circulate through Madrid or its surroundings. With this variant an alternative would be created to the high-speed route already existing between Madrid and Andalusia or Levante. In addition, it would improve the service for the increase in traffic expected with the improvements in the Extremadura corridor. Parla, you are not alone. Parla’s action, as we said, is not the only one that Transport plans to reduce the time between Madrid and Barcelona. With the same arguments, the idea is to create a new station near Barcelonaspecifically in El Prat de Llobregat. The idea is that this new station would allow the Madrid-Barcelona-French border high-speed train to connect with the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airport. Regional trains would also stop at this station through the corresponding adaptation of the lines. The other action in Catalonia involves linking the Lleida-Pirineus station with Barcelona with a new line that would enter the city through La Sagrera, north of Barcelona. In this way, trains would not necessarily have to pass through Camp de Tarragona, freeing up part of the traffic that already circulates there and, therefore, offering a new variant to Barcelona very similar to that of Parla in Madrid. Many trains, little investment. Although the study of these actions has raised some controversy when it is understood that other Spanish roads still need significant improvement to lighten travel times, the truth is that investment in Adif’s infrastructure has been requested for a long time. It must be taken into account that both alternatives in large cities, and especially south of Madrid, represent a good escape route to decentralize the network. The arrival of Ouigo and Iryo has exponentially increased the number of trains on the tracks but they face the problem of Adif has not invested enough money to absorb traffic. own Puente assured last August that “6 trains circulated per day on the Madrid-Seville line, in each direction. Today, 289 trains circulated at the Torrejón de Velasco point on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line (…) When there is an incident you have 25 trains in both directions within a radius of one hour.” Photo | Smiley.toerist and Google Maps In Xataka | A Spain literally at two speeds: while the Madrid-Barcelona AVE goes at 350 km/h, the rest of the network languishes

China’s biggest problem is not the US. It is a “virus” that advances at an unprecedented speed and threatens to empty its factories

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In September, and in front to a data offered by the United Nations that put the future of the Chinese economy in check, Beijing defended itself with an opportunity for the future: the AI. In between, it remained to be seen who was right. Because the main problem of the economy that pull the strings of the planet are pure mathematics applied to a near and most uncertain future. One that indicates that, sooner rather than later, its population will to plummet. Against oneself. The demographic crisis that shakes China today is, to a large extent, the result of a policy that worked too well: the birth control campaign begun in the seventies and crystallized in the policy of only child 1979. What began as a state intervention to contain population growth that was considered unsustainable ended up shaping behaviors, expectations, and family structures for generations. Sterilizations, fines and forced abortions not only birth numbers reducedbut they inhibited the cultural habit of mass reproduction, and when the State began to relax the rules (allowing two children in 2016 and three in 2021) the social response was no longer the same: the fertility rate fell from 1.77 children per woman in 2016 up to 1.12 in 2021and the timid incentive measures have barely reversed the curve. The real cost of breeding. Behind the numbers there are everyday decisions. The economic calculation of starting a family in China is, as in so many other places, considerable: studies estimate that raising a child from birth to the end of their college education can cost on average about $75,000and in cities like Shanghai that figure shoots up to approximately $140,000. These prices, together with long work daysmarket expensive housing and professional expectations, explain why many young people (especially women) they choose not to have children. Surveys and testimonials collected show that for many people motherhood today is equivalent to a professional and personal resignation that they are not willing to assume: “I don’t want to think about sacrificing my life,” summarizes an executive from Hangzhou in the Washington Postand that plea for time and personal autonomy is one of the reasons why symbolic subsidies from the government (for example, some 500 dollars a year for the first three years) are insufficient to reverse the trend. Without weddings and solutions. we have been counting. Demographic decline is accelerated by fall of marriage: in 2024 just 6.1 million of couples registered their union, compared to 13.5 million in 2013, a data that works as predictor of future births when the rate of births outside of marriage is marginal. The State not only offers economic incentives and university courses about “how to flirt”, but has returned to intrusive behavior: officials pressure newlyweds about your plans of pregnancy and control the conversation public about marriage in the media. It is a gesture of urgency that clashes with the autonomy of generation Z, increasingly individualisticfor which getting married and procreating are no longer social mandates but options (among many). That tension between pronatalist policy and cultural change explains why coercive measures of the past do not seem to translate into higher births today. Accelerated aging. While fewer Chinese are born, the older population continues to grow: Life expectancy rises and the population pyramid inverts, which poses a brutal rebalancing in public accounts. Projections indicate that in the coming decades the proportion of elderly will doublewith colossal pressure on pensions, healthcare and long-term care financed by an increasingly narrow contributor base. Demographers warn that this phenomenon can trigger a vicious circle: more resources allocated to the elderly imply less public support for young families, which further reduces fertility. By 2100, according to calculations by international organizations, there will be more people out of working life than within it, a scenario with economic and political implications of systemic scope. The factory of the world shrinks. The problem is not only quantitative but qualitative: the workforce that made China the factory of the planet (born between 1960 and 1980, with a disposition for industrial jobs) has no substitute culture in later generations that they avoid factory work. At the same time, the proportion of Chinese manufacturing in the world total (today located around 30%) will necessarily be reduced if demographics exhaust the labor supply. The official short-term answer is automationbetting on robots and investment in productivity, but substitution does not work the same in all sectors: services, care and certain labor-intensive branches will continue to demand humans. The consequence is that manufacturing companies already they detect competitive pressure in prices and labor costs, and some observers point out that the industrial replacement could move to India, Southeast Asia, Mexico or Eastern Europe, with a multiplier effect on global supply chains. Politics and resistance to foreigners. They remembered in the post that a lever that in other countries would alleviate the labor force deficit (immigration) crashes in China with taboos of cultural homogeneity and political considerations that make the adoption of broad immigration policies difficult. That forces the government’s options and forces it to rely on internal incentives and in robotization. The strain between the economic need for labor and the preference to maintain cultural cohesion places Beijing in a strategic dilemma: either it embraces broader migrations (with all the integration challenges that this would imply) or it accelerates productive reconversion and the displacement of sectors that depend less on the labor factor. State measures. Faced with the abyss, Beijing has been introducing measures: relaxation of family policysubsidies, public campaigns for promote marriage and birth rate, and tax programs limited. But the experts they underline that late policies rarely reorder behaviors already fixed for decades. Louise Loo and other economists they estimate that reducing the workforce could take away about 0.5 points percentages to annual GDP growth in the next decade, a bite significant for an economy that needs to grow to absorb debts and finance its modernization. The challenge is that demographics act over long periods of time: cohorts born today … Read more

In 1896 a man decided to lead to the reckless speed of 13 km/h. And received the first fine in history

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Speed ​​fines in Spain vary from 100 at 600 euros. The table in which the economic amount is collected also serves if the driver will also be punished with the subtraction of driving card points. In the best case, the sanction It does not entail the subtraction of points, while in the worst you can detract a maximum of six. All this information can be consulted in your own DGT website or in the Traffic LawMotor vehicles and road safety. And it is useful, according to data from Associated European motoriststwo out of three fines that are imposed in Spain are motivated by speeding. But although speeding fines look like something modern, what is necessary to invest most sophisticated media To register the infraction and judicially demonstrate the breakdown of the norms, its history begins before The first car in Spain will enroll. The first fine of history for speeding Fines for committing some kind of Flying infraction They have a lot of history. Some suggest that the first punishment related to a traffic infraction was recorded in Egypt more than 2,800 years ago, after a drunk driver run over a girl and collided with a statue. However, the basis of this information is, at least, doubtful. But what is a general consensus is in the registration of the first penalty for speeding. In fact, those responsible for Guinness Record They make it record as the early infraction of this type. And they put date: January 28, 1896. The fine also has a name, surname and place of origin. Specifically, the offender was Walter Arnold who in the United Kingdom, and fully aware of what was played, promoted one of the first cars built by Karl Benz until the devilish speed of 13 km/h. Arnold exceeded the streets of Paddock Wood at full speed, in Kent Count “Horses without horses”. Arnold had broken four rules in a single moment: Drive a car without horses along a public street Drive a car without horses without the intervention of three people Do not show the name and direction of the vehicle Quadruplica the maximum permitted speed Yes, according to the fine, Arnold was traveling at a speed of 8 mph (about 13 km/h) when the maximum allowed limit was 2 mph. Of the means to calculate this speed, nothing is said. What we do know is that the result was immediate. Put before Justice, Arnold was convicted of each and every one of the accusations that were awarded. What Arnold had in mind is that the payment of 4.7 pounds were just an investment. With his stumbling he showed that the speed limits were completely outdated for those Combustion vehicles And, therefore, shortly after the speed limit was extended to reasonable 14 mph (just over 22 km/h). But this was not here. Arnold, in addition, was known for its handling of vehicles. He got the license to sell in the United Kingdom the vehicles of Karl Benz slightly modified with a local production under the name of Arnold Motor Carriage. A car with which he managed to win in the first race of emancipation in it was linked to London with Brighton (separated by 87 kilometers) and served to multiply car sales. The first fine was, in short, a marketing trick. In Xataka | The Mercedes T80, the car mounted on the engine of a hunt with which Hitler wanted to reach 750 km/h Photo | Clare Black and Knowledge of London

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