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BYD is already studying entering Formula 1, according to Bloomberg. And it is not a whim, it is a necessary step

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To understand a leak you have to imagine (or be clear about) who is behind it. But also how and when the information has been leaked. And in this case, of course, there is little that is coincidental. BYD is studying its entry into Formula 1, according to Bloomberg. In the week in which Formula 1 arrives in China and the sport seeks new markets. The rumors. BYD is studying its ability to compete in Formula 1 and/or the World Endurance Championship (WEC) according to Bloomberg. The media outlet points to “people familiar with the matter,” who point out that the company calculates how much money an investment could take where no success is guaranteed. For the information of Bloomberg It seems that internal investigations would be in their early stages. And the media points out that there would be two possibilities, from creating your own team to buying one already on the grid, a more common option. Because? On BYD’s side, the reason is clear: trust. The company needs to open up to new markets but, in addition, its plans for the next five years include a rapid expansion. The company has also seen how its sales have collapsed in China and there are those who anticipate a stagnation in sales if the State does not return the purchase aid of recently recalled electric cars. Entering one or both of the competitions would give the company a layer of credibility and confidence in the face of possible new competitors. Competitions continue to be a huge laboratory where solutions and ingenuity can be developed that can then be applied on the street, but they also help create history and brand image. Chinese companies need a boost in this last sense to give credibility to their proposal. At the moment they are doing it by following all the challenges that traditional manufacturers once set themselves. That’s why Xiaomi has sought its own record at the Nürburgring. That’s why BYD boasts of having the fastest car in the world. Jumping into competition is only a natural step in strategy. Formula 1. Why would BYD be interested in Formula 1 when the championship is not going through its best moment? For several reasons: With the change in regulations, the battery and electric motors are more important than ever. Right now, the type of motorization is aligned with a proposal with which BYD can take advantage on the street. Despite criticism, it remains the queen category of motorsports. Neither the World Endurance Championship (except the 24 Hours of Le Mans), nor the World Rally Championship, nor Formula E, nor the American competitions (Indycar or Nascar) attract so many viewers to television. Formula 1 has gained enormous weight among young people in the United States. Your documentaries Drive to survive They have increased interest in a population group that may be interested in their vehicles. The country also already organizes two Grand Prix, which would serve as a showcase where, at the moment, they cannot sell their cars. Formula 1 aims to once again attract the Chinese public. This weekend F1 returns to Shanghai, which has been sowing the seed since 2004 (with the 2020-2023 break due to the Covid-19 crisis). If Formula 1 is interested in gaining followers in the country, BYD would be a great tool. And the problems? The problems for BYD are also several and almost all of them are linked to the fact that it is impossible to guarantee the return of investments in competition in terms of success. And it is difficult to measure its social impact in the short term. Bloomberg points out that a year in a championship like Formula 1 or the WEC is equivalent to investing about 500 million euros. The company does not have a previous competition structure. That leaves two possibilities: create it from scratch with inexperienced engineers or buy existing equipment. Neither option is cheap. The future of Formula 1 is uncertain. The current regulations do not convince either drivers or fans. Some teams even supported freezing the change or not giving so much weight to the batteries and others like Audi, which had already made the investment to enter it, refused. The doubt is whether the sport will maintain the current rules as they are or if they will move away from a proposal that fits with BYD’s philosophy. Just as BYD has a lot to gain in image, it can also lose it. Both Formula 1 and the WEC are dominated by Western teams, failing could mean a step back in the communication strategy. The WEC. The World Endurance Championship could be a logical and alternative option to Formula 1 that seems to have fewer risks. The organizers seem willing to open their hand with the type of motorization used, so there are not so many regulatory restrictions in that sense. This has once again attracted brands such as Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Ford or Genesis (Hyundai). In addition, it would allow him to grow and gain experience without having so many spotlights on him. Endurance races are an excellent opportunity to test the reliability of advances that can then be replicated to a greater or lesser extent on the street. A success would be excellent publicity and a failure would not attract as many eyes. Photo | BYD and Drew Bates In Xataka | From BYD to Xiaomi: all the Chinese cars that are already sold in Spain, Europe and those to come

Apple Music will come to the app to offer the next step

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TikTok has become more than just a platform for short videos: for millions of people it is the place where they discover new music. Songs that appear in “Para ti” can go from being a viral fragment to becoming a global hit in a matter of hours. That role as a great musical showcase has redefined how songs are released and promoted in the industry. Apple Music seems to have taken note of that dynamic and is now committed to going one step beyond discovery. The novelty. “Play Full Song” seeks to shorten the journey between the moment someone discovers a song on TikTok and the moment they decide to listen to it in its entirety. From now on, Apple Music subscribers will see a dedicated button on their “For You” or sound details page, from which they can open an Apple Music player to listen to the full track. By tapping it, the user can play the track and continue listening to recommendations within the service. TikTok also adds that users will be able to save songs in “Your Music” and add them directly to their Apple Music lists. An agreement that goes through Apple Music. Although the button appears within TikTok, the complete playback is not done on the social network itself. The function uses MusicKit, Apple’s technology that allows you to integrate your catalog into other applications, so the song is played in Apple Music and listens are counted in that service. The important detail is that the integration is linked only to Apple Music. According to TechCrunchother streaming services, including Spotify, do not currently have an equivalent option to listen to full songs from TikTok. This integration does not appear in a vacuum. TikTok has been incorporating tools designed to connect the virality of its videos with streaming platforms for some time. One of them is “Add to music app”, a function that allows you to save songs discovered on TikTok directly to music services to listen to later. In parallel, the company has also explored other paths, such as its attempt to launch its own streaming service, an initiative that ended up closing. Since then, the strategy seems to focus on reinforcing its role as a discovery point that connects with other platforms. Music is also heard in community. The announcement also includes a feature called “Listening Party,” designed to bring artists and fans together for a shared listening session. During these sessions, fans can listen to songs in real time while interacting with each other and the artist themselves. TikTok describes the initiative as a new social way to experience music within the platform. Together, these tools aim at the same objective: reinforcing TikTok’s role as a meeting point between musical discovery, reproduction and direct relationship between artists and audience. Images | TikTok In Xataka | Netflix spends 17 billion on producing content and YouTube does it for free. And that’s why YouTube is winning the game

step by step creating the bot and adding artificial intelligence to it

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Let’s explain to you how to create your own AI bot on Telegramso you can interact with it at any time. In this way, the bot will be yours and you can put the model of artificial intelligence whatever you want, whether Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude or whatever. To carry out this task we are going to use two services. First we will use BotFather of Telegram to create the bot, and then we will use the service Make to create a workflow or workflow that adds an AI, which in the case of our step by step will be Gemini, but you can use any other. But before we start, I must remind you that even if the bot is yours, everything you write will be sent to the Make servers to process the workflow and the AI ​​you choose. Therefore, be careful with writing personal details that may violate your security or privacy, because you will be giving them to these two companies. First you must create the bot The first thing you have to do is create a bot on Telegram using BotFather. To do this, write a message to the bot @BotFather and write to you as if you were a new user. Type the command /newbot to create a new bot, to which you have to give a name to identify yourself and a unique username to access the bot whenever you want. When you do it, it will give you two things, first the username and address of your bot to access it, and second an access token with various figures and letters. You have to save this token to use later. In the message that Telegram will return to you, will also give you a link to the bot you createdwhich will basically be t.me/@botname. This will be important for later. Also you can use BotFather options to customize your botputting a profile image, a description or whatever you want. We have explained all this to you in our post about BotFather. Now get the API of an AI Now we have to get an API from an AI. We will use the Free Gemini APIwhich although it has some limits in its use, will be useful for some tests without spending. To get it go to the website aistudio.google.com and sign in with your Google account. When you do, in the bar on the left at the bottom click on Get API Key. Now you have to click on the option Create API key that appears at the top of the screen you have created. This will open a window where you have to create the project for which you are going to use it in order to identify it, for example “Bot Telegram IA”. When you create the project, you can now create the API. When you have created the API, you will see that it appears in the list of API keys. You just have to click on the left, below where it says Clueand a window with the API will open, starting with “AIza–“. Now create the workflow Now let’s create the workflow or workflow using the service Make. Within this program we are going to create a new scenario. We start by clicking on the initial + for the first step, for which you have to write Telegram and choose the option Watch Updates within the options related to Telegram that will appear. When you do this the first time you will have to create a webhook. Basically, it will be like creating a connection, and by doing so you will be able to give it a name and when establishing the connection, you will only have to type the Telegram bot token that BotFather gave us. Once the connection is established, open the Telegram bot that you created in the app, and click on Start. When you do this, the message /start will be written. When you do this, go back to make.com and, at the bottom, press the button Run eleven. This will simply test the connection with the bot. Now, click on the + button on the right of Telegram Bot to generate a new module, and you will have to choose the module to generate an AI response. Simply type the name of the AI ​​you have a token for, in our case Gemini, and choose the option that means generating a response. A window will open to configure your AI. In it, you have to establish a connection using the APIwhich is what we have done above. You will also be able to choose the model you want to use. Keep in mind that the more advanced the model, the more credits the AI ​​will use, and your free API will have limited credits. Now comes the most complex part of all. You have to go to the section messages of this window, and in Item 1, in the field Role you have to put User. Now, in Parts you have to fill out Item 1 by putting in Message Type the option textand in text just below choose option 1. Message: Text. As before we have already executed our project with the Telegram bot, when you click on the value you will get suggestions based on the results of the bot. In these suggestions you will see the 1. Message: Text. You will recognize it in the next window because it is where it says /start, which is what we wrote to the bot. Down in System instructions go to Promptsand in the value of Prompt 1 you also have to put 1. Message: Text. Below, in Response Modalities you have to **choose only the option textdeactivating Imagebecause with the API we will not be able to generate images in our country. Now we are going to create the third step, that of sending the AI ​​response to the Telegram bot. To do this, create a new module, look for the Telegram … Read more

Microsoft has just taken a key step in its technology to preserve data for millennia

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Saving data “forever” is one of those ideas that sounds simple until you look closely at the media we use every day. A file can be perfect today and become unreadable in a few years, or decades, due to degradation of the material or, directly, because the support ends up failing over time. Therefore, when we talk about preserving information for centuries, CDs, DVDs, hard drives or tapes are not a definitive answer. And it is precisely in that gap, that of a support capable of resisting without permanent care, where projects like Microsoft’s try to open a different path. Project Silica. This is where this Microsoft Research project comes into play, aimed at rethinking what it means to archive information in the very long term. Instead of relying on conventional magnetic or optical technologies, the system uses ultrafast lasers to modify internal properties of the glass and store data in the form of three-dimensional voxels, which can then be read using optical techniques assisted by machine learning, as detailed by Microsoft in a study recently published in the journal Nature. It does not seek to compete with SSDs or hard drives in speed, but rather to offer a material base specifically designed for long-lasting conservation. looking back. The Redmond giant has been working on this line for years, and one of its best-known demonstrations came in 2019, when he managed to save the movie ‘Superman’ complete on a glass shard about the size of a coaster. That test confirmed that three-dimensional storage within the material was not just theoretical and that, in addition, the support could withstand heat and water, and even demagnetization tests. What changes now is not the fundamental idea, but the degree of technological development that could bring it closer to real preservation uses. From the laboratory to common glass. The central novelty of the 2026 announcement is not only in the estimated longevity, but in the material used to achieve it. Previous research relied on high-purity fused silica, which was limited in cost and production, while the new study demonstrates the possibility of encoding information in borosilicate glass, a widely available and much cheaper material. According to Microsoft, this advancement directly addresses marketing hurdles related to the storage medium. Now, this does not mean that the technology is ready to be deployed, but it does reduce the distance between scientific experiment and real application. Simpler and faster writing. The work released this week introduces relevant changes in the way data is written and read. The team has introduced so-called phase voxels, which can be formed with a single pulse, and has refined the writing of the birefringent voxels to reduce pulses and speed up the process, including a “pseudo-single-pulse writing” approach. Added to this are parallel writing techniques to record multiple data points simultaneously and a simplified reader that now requires a single camera, with machine learning support for classification and interference mitigation. Detail of writing equipment during data coding with high speed multibeam laser pulses The figures. Technically, the system can reach densities of up to 1.59 gigabits per cubic millimeter, which translates to about 4.84 terabytes in around 300 layers inside a glass chip that is 12 square centimeters square and 2 millimeters thick. That capacity is roughly equivalent to millions of printed books or thousands of 4K movies. Of course, this is a capacity that does not go unnoticed. As we can see, rather than competing in speed, the interest is in how much can be preserved in a small space for extremely long periods. 10,000 years. The estimates come from accelerated aging tests in which etched glass plates are subjected to high temperatures to simulate the passage of time, a common methodology in materials science. The results of tests carried out by the research team suggest that information could remain readable for periods of more than 10,000 years under normal storage conditions, a longevity tremendously greater than that of current electronic media. Even so, these are projections based on experimental models, not direct verification on a historical scale. What’s next. We are facing a surprising technical advance, but the technology continues to depend on expensive equipment and writing speeds well below current commercial solutions, factors that determine its viability outside the laboratory. Added to this are challenges of large-scale production, future compatibility and adoption models in institutions that really need to preserve data for centuries. For now, Microsoft places Project Silica in the field of shared research, open to other actors developing specific applications. Images | Microsoft In Xataka | The first hard drives in history were gigantic. Then a miracle happened: miniaturization

step by step of the online process

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Let’s explain to you how to register your electric scooter in the DGTone of the procedures that all owners of these vehicles they must perform in addition to having mandatory civil liability insurance. As you already know, this new regulation finally begins to put a little control on electric scooters in Spain. Specifically, the standard affects all vehicles with one or more wheels that are moved by electric motors and that reach speeds between 6 km/h and 25 km/h. When you register your scooter with the process that we are going to tell you, you will be given a PDF with which you can acquire an identification tag that you are going to have to place on your vehicle, a license plate for the electric scooter. In addition, you will also have to take out mandatory insurance. Scooter registration is a procedure what has a cost of 8.67 eurosbut then the 20 or 40 it costs to issue the license plate. If you do not do so, you may be fined like the owner of any other unregistered vehicle. How to register your electric scooter To register your electric scooter or VMP in the DGTyou can do it in person or through the DGT website. The URL of the website you have to go to is headquarters.dgt.gob.es/es/vehiculos/matriculaciones-de-vehiculos/inscripcion-vmp/index.html. Now you will have to identify yourself on the DGT website, for which you will need to use the Cl@ve system. You can use the Permanent Key or mobile or digital certificatelike the FNMT certificate. You can also do it by phone or through the app. myDGT. Once you have logged in, your basic personal data will be automatically loaded, such as ID, name, address, etc. You will have to check that everything is correct and continue. Then, you will go to a screen where you will have to enter vehicle detailssuch as serial number, certificate number (you can watch it here), brand, model and type of use. Once you have completed this information, you will be taken to a page where you will have to Enter the data to pay the fees. When you do so, the registration will be confirmed and a PDF will be sent to your email, which will serve as proof of the operation. Now, with this document you can go create the registration for your scooter, and you will also have to take out the mandatory insurance. Just remember that when you stop using the scooter, just like with a car or a motorcycle, you will have to go to an authorized scrapyard or clean point to proceed with its destruction and have it definitively removed from the DGT, with the proof that they will give you at this center. Cover photo | Volodymyr Dobrovolskyy In Xataka Basics | DGT map: how to use it to see ALL traffic incidents on Spanish roads in real time

How to uninstall OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot or Clawdbot) safely on your computer step by step

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Let’s tell you how to securely delete OpenClawformerly known as Moltbot or Clawdbot. This is a AI agentwhich can control your computer entirely, and which you can then control through apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. But there are quite a few dangers of OpenClawso just as we teach you how to install it If you want to poke around, now we will tell you how to uninstall it. As with installation, uninstallation requires a series of commands in the terminal from your computer, be it PowerShell in Windows or the terminal in macOS and GNU/Linux. 1. Use the official uninstall command The first step is to open your computer terminal and paste the following command*. When you do this, it will delete the local database, workspace, and installation files. openclaw uninstall –all –yes In the command, you have to use the name with which you installed the agentwhich can be openclaw, clawdbot or moltbot. In the first few weeks of this AI, the name has changed several times. It is possible that when finished you will see a message telling you that CLI is still installed. This is normal, and is something we will fix in the third step. 2. Manual cleaning If you use Windowspress Win+R and write services.msc. Within the screen where you go, look for the ClawdBot, MoltBot or OpenClaw service, right click and choose the option to stop it. Now, you have to open file explorer and delete these folders if they exist. The folder that should appear will depend on the name with which you installed the tool. C:\Users\\.clawdbot C:\Users\\.molbot C:\Users\\.openclaw If you use macOSenter the terminal and type one of the following commands, depending on the name with which you installed them. rm -rf ~/.clawdbot rm -rf ~/.moltbot rm -rf ~/.openclaw Then, you have to type one of these commands to prevent Clawdbot from starting every time you turn on your computer. rm -rf ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.clawdbot rm -rf ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.moltbot rm -rf ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.openclaw 3. Remove the CLI tool You have already deleted your data, but the tool and its commands still exist in your terminal, since you installed them through NPM or HomeBrew. So, now you will have to uninstall it. If you have installed the tool through NPMwhich is the most common, use one of these commands, depending on the name you installed the tool with: npm uninstall -g clawdbot npm uninstall -g openclaw npm uninstall -g moltbot If you are a Mac useryou may have installed it through Homebrew. In this case, if the commands above do not work for you, you can try these: brew uninstall clawdbot brew uninstall openclaw brew uninstall moltbot If none of the commands above work for youthere is another more manual method if you don’t remember how they were installed. They are these commands: sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/clawdbot sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/openclaw sudo rm -f /opt/homebrew/bin/clawdbot 4. Additional security cleaning Ok, we have already removed the agent from our computer, but still has access to things like your email, your calendar, or your cloud accounts if you gave it to them when you installed it. Now it will be time to clean these permissions. To do this, you have to review the API keys you have collectedsuch as GitHub, Google Cloud, AWS, etc. Review and revoke or regenerate any API you gave to the bot. You also have to disconnect applications where you have linked it, such as your Google or Microsoft accounts, to revoke access to OpenClaw. Finally, log out of the agent web tool to ensure that you have stopped using it completely. 5. One last check Once you have done all this, restart the computer and open the terminal to write the following code: clawdbot –version If the response message is that it has not found the command or does not recognize it, it is because that’s it, you are done with the uninstallation. In Xataka Basics | The best prompts to save hours of work and do your tasks with ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or other artificial intelligence

The great battle of the internet of the future is fought against anonymity. And Discord has taken a step requiring ID to enter

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Discord announced yesterday that will launch an age verification system on its platform globally starting next month. This will be when you default to setting all accounts as “appropriate for teens” (“teen-appropriate“) unless the user proves that they are an adult with a partially automatic process that may require the system to scan our face or our identification document. This has reopened the debate about privacy and privacy not only on social networks, but throughout the internet. How it will work. Savannah Badalich, Product Manager at Discord, explained in The Verge that “Discord does not use private messages or any message content in the age verification process”, and clarifies that in many cases this verification will be transparent and the user will not have to do anything: “For most adults, age verification will not be necessary, as Discord’s age inference model uses account information such as account age, device and activity data, and aggregated high-level patterns in Discord communities. But if you need to verify yourself, be careful. Those users who do not obtain this automatic verification will not be able to access channels and servers that have age restrictions, will not be able to participate by speaking on live channels and will have sensitive or graphic content filters activated. They will also receive notifications of friend requests from suspicious users, and even direct messages from unknown users will be automatically filtered to a separate mailbox. The protection that Discord proposes is analogous to that already proposed by the Government of Spain with the beta Digital Wallet, popularly known as the “pajaporte”. Your face or your ID to validate your age. If Discord’s inference model fails to automatically determine your age, the global rollout will require users to present identification to prove they are of legal age to have an adult account. According to Discord, removing those limitations from teen accounts will force users to “choose to use facial age estimation or offer a form of identification to Discord partners.” So, there will be two great options: your face– The user will need to appear in a selfie video during the verification process and a Discord AI system will analyze that image in real time. According to Discord, that selfie will not leave our device. Your ID– If the selfie process fails, users can appeal or verify their age with a photo of their ID. These documents will be verified by third parties, but on Discord they assure that these images of the document “are quickly deleted — in most cases immediately after confirmation of age.” Discord already had a scandal with this. This is actually not the first time Discord has tried something like this. Last year it already deployed an age verification system in the UK and Australiaand the curious thing is that some users exceeded that measure using the ‘Death Stranding’ photo mode. Mass data theft. In October one of those Discord partners suffered a massive data theft in which users’ age verification data, including the government identification documents of said users, were leaked. Badalich states that they stopped working with that company and now use another. “We do not do biometric scanning or facial recognition, but rather facial estimation. The DNI is deleted immediately. We do not store information about you,” said the directive. Anonymity in danger. For decades, anonymity has been considered an acquired right and a pillar of Internet freedom. It is something that allows exploration and criticism without fear of retaliation, but at the same time that has facilitated a toxic public discourse that has turned many platforms—starting with social networks—into “digital dumps” in which harassment and abuse are difficult to stop. Content moderation on social networks has been so problematic that X and Facebook have ended up eliminating their moderation teams—or reducing them to a minimum—so that let the community itself warn of misuse of these networks. Government pressure. Discord’s announcement follows an increasingly recurring trend on the internet. The pressure from governments around the world is notable and wants to eliminate anonymity with the argument of protecting teenagers. Bills are being promoted that force platforms to monitor who enters and how old they are. Eliminating anonymity would certainly have advantages in mitigating toxic speech and instances of harassment or abuse, but it would also have enormous disadvantages. From protecting minors to spying on us all. Among these disadvantages is the risk that these social networks become a massive system of citizen espionage in which the violation of privacy is real. By forcing users to go through these filters, massive databases can be created that are not only targets for cybercriminals, but also potential tools for state surveillance. Is the cure worse than the disease? This government battle against anonymity is justified as a fight against hate and abuse, but the collateral damage is extraordinary. We would lose that structural privacy that the Internet has always offered. If to prevent a stalker or scammer from acting we must identify each individual on the network, we end up turning the Internet into a gigantic registry in which freedom of expression is conditioned by government blessing. Total paradox. The most ironic thing is that Europe, which has traditionally been a defender of privacy, is now totally in favor of those age verification measures that precisely put her in danger. The old continent, which has always criticized Big Tech for aggregating personal data of European citizens, now supports measures that will precisely help build these gigantic databases. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. It has been more than a decade since we reflected on that typical phrase of those who did not seem to care that the NSA PRISM program I would have spied on them because they “had nothing to hide.” It’s easy to dismantle that theoryand it is a fallacy that Giving up privacy means greater security. Open debate. The Discord announcement has generated a huge debate in all types of networks, but we found a good … Read more

The US and Mexico have just taken the step to treat them as such

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The digital economy, the energy transition and a good part of advanced industry depends on a set of materials whose importance is only perceived when they are scarce. Governments classify them as critical minerals precisely because of their essential role and the fragility of their supply chains. This change in perception, from industrial resource to strategic asset, is reordering commercial decisions and international alliances. The step taken now by the United States and Mexico is part of that deeper transformation in how the materials that support contemporary technology are managed. A clear objective. Both governments have announced the development of a bilateral Action Plan that will explore commercial and coordination tools aimed at mitigating risks in the supply of critical minerals. Beyond the technical content that has yet to be defined, the announcement itself indicates that the management of these raw materials has come to occupy an explicit place on the bilateral agenda between the two countries. The detail. The announced framework describes an intention for cooperation, but does not yet establish its operational content. Both the minerals that will be included and the trade mechanisms that could be applied remain to be specified. This lack of precision is relevant: usual lists of strategic materials, like lithium or copperare part of the industrial and energy context in which the plan is discussed, but we will have to wait to know what elements will end up making up the pact. Price floors. The proposal introduces an unusual instrument in the public debate: setting minimum values ​​for certain imports to respond to “global market distortions” and reduce vulnerabilities in the supply chain. The idea appears linked to the resilience of these chains and considerations of economic and national security in the argument that accompanies critical minerals. Of course, its eventual application would be subject to subsequent agreements and its fit into international trade frameworks. The agreement also emerges under the shadow of an unavoidable trade event: the review of the North American treaty shared by the United States, Mexico and Canada (T-MEC). The proximity of this process gives the plan additional meaning within the regional economic architecture. However, the information released about this bilateral initiative does not include mention of Canadian participation, a detail pointed out by Reuters that delimits the immediate scope of the ad. It is not a static list. The concept of critical mineral describes a condition more than a closed catalog. United States energy legislation links them to economic or national security, the vulnerability of their supply chains and their indispensable role in the manufacture of products, as explained by the USGS. But that classification changes over time as technology, demand or external dependence evolve. Therefore, rather than a fixed list of materials, what is really at stake is the capacity of each economy to secure resources considered strategic at each industrial stage. The board is moving. The bilateral agreement appears in parallel to a broader international deployment to reinforce supply chains considered strategic, with new frameworks and memoranda. But its reading does not end in that dimension. For Mexico, coordination opens a way to consolidate its role within the North American industry and attract projects linked to mining, processing or advanced manufacturing. The result is a two-way movement: an expanding global strategy and, at the same time, a redefinition of the place that Mexico can occupy in it. Images | Dominic Vanyi + Nano Banana In Xataka | Greenland has 1.5 million tons of rare earths. The problem is that there are no roads to get to them.

Latin America is the next step

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If you have ever been traveling and, upon arriving at your destination, you have wanted to book an excursion in Spanish, a skip-the-line entry or a transfer without complications, it is quite possible that you have come across Civitatis. The company, based in Spain and founded in 2008, has made a name for itself as an online platform for booking activities, guided tours and destination experiences designed for Spanish-speaking audiences. Now he wants to play another game: look beyond Europe and grow strongly in Latin America. Look beyond Europe. After years consolidating its presence in Europe, Civitatis is preparing for a change of scale in its international expansion, with Latin America as a priority. The company frames it as a strategic step and also as a positioning adjustment: in an informative meeting prior to Fiturits CEO, Andrew Spitzerdefended that the focus is not only on growth, but on truly integrating into the market. The goal, at least in his story, is for this growth to stop being peripheral and become central. three levers. From there, the plan is based on three pillars. The first has to do with the United States: the company highlights the proximity to that market and the weight of the Spanish-speaking population as an opportunity for organic growth. The second is Brazil, where the company plans to grow by 30% in 2026, an objective that involves expanding the catalog also in Portuguese to better adapt to the country. And the third is more structural: in Latin America the wholesale channel, supported by distribution agreements with travel agencies, has more weight than in Europe, where direct sales to the end customer predominate. Operating muscle. According to the data provided by the company, Civitatis already works with three regional centers in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, which function as a base to coordinate its activity on the continent. Together, these hubs concentrate 70 employees out of a total workforce of 360, according to the figures shared at the meeting prior to Fitur. The reading is clear: it is not just about selling in the region, but about building structure and teams on the ground to sustain growth. The app as an inflection. The other major axis of the plan for 2026 does not have to do with the map, but with the product. The company is preparing the launch of a new mobile application with which it aims to stop behaving as a purely transactional platform and become a travel companion. Europa Press adds that the app would be designed to centralize reservations, itineraries and complementary services under a space called My Trips, with access even offline. The idea of ​​relying on artificial intelligence to promote greater personalization also appears in that roadmap. What exactly is Civitatis?. It is not a traditional tour operator, but a platform that connects travelers and local tour operators, acting as Online reservation channel for activities and visits at destination. Their proposal consists of bringing together this dispersed offer, presenting it in a digital catalog and managing the reservation from the same place, so that the user does not have to go supplier by supplier. This intermediation position also marks its limits and its opportunities: expansion does not depend only on opening the market, but on building a local catalog and making it accessible with the same product logic. Grow cautiously. The expansion into Latin America and the launch of the new application also have a business reading: Civitatis maintains that its roadmap is based on sustainable profitability. It should be noted that the company does not currently have an IPO among its priorities, despite being in the full acceleration phase. And El País places as a key piece the investment of Vitruvian Partners, with 100 million euros in 2022 and another 50 million in a second operation two years later. From here, the game consists of combining global ambition with measured growth, without losing the ability to adapt to each local market. Images | Laurentiu Morariu | Civitatis In Xataka | The “European Bizum” is on the verge of becoming a reality and there are two clear losers: Visa and Mastercard

Europe wants to manufacture 20% of the world’s semiconductors by 2030. It has just taken the first step

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43,000 million euros. That is the figure that the European Commission set to achieve something that is currently out of reach: technological sovereignty regarding semiconductors. With the ‘Chips Act‘, Europe seeks to position itself as a power in a semiconductor production segment dominated by Asia with Taiwan at the head. Now, and after years of dreaming, Europe inaugurates the first installation: the FAMES Pilot Line. The objective is not conservative. By 2030, the Old Continent wants produce 20% of integrated circuits of the world. We have an ace up our sleeve called ASMLthe global spearhead in terms of manufacturing of advanced photolithography equipment refers. The Dutch are the ones who produce the machines that buy foundries like TSMC o Intel to manufacture the most advanced chips on the market. But there is a problem: we have the machine that makes the chips, but we don’t have someone to make chips. That is what the project wants to change, and with FAMESthe European Union Chip Law lays the first brick to be more relevant. It’s not going to be easy at all. FAMES, the spearhead of Europe’s Chips Law Unlike a private company, FAMES is something much more European: a collaboration between countries and institutions. It represents a new example of public-private collaboration like the one we are seeing in parallel in the european space race. And the pilot program is located at the CEA-Leti facilities in the French town of Grenoble. With an initiative of 830 million euros contributed by both the European Commission and the participating states, FAMES brings together 11 organizations belonging to eight countries and, after two years of preparation, has presented favorable technical results to begin developing advanced semiconductor technologies. The organizations and countries of the FAMES Consortium FAMES, with 830 million in financing, is the first of the five pilot lines that will be inaugurated under this Chips Law initiative, and the CEA-Leti plant has been expanded with about 2,000 new square meters destined to clean room. It is an extremely clean area isolated from the outside, with strictly controlled temperature and humidity conditions and optimal conditions for manufacturing semiconductors. CEA-Leti already had 12,000 square meters of clean room, so the expansion under the Chips Law is considerable. And the big question: what will they do in this pilot program? Well, something known as Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator, or FD-SOI. This is a manufacturing process in which a thin insulating layer (less than 10 nanometers) is placed under the transistors so that the chips operate at lower voltages. And the goal is to create 10 and 7 nanometer processors. FD-SOI Thus, they consume between 30 and 40% less energy without losing performance, making them more efficient. That efficiency and delivery of energy to the chips is something that everyone is trying to improve, from an Intel that already has its most cutting-edge technologies ready in this sense to a TSMC that is preparing its response by the end of 2026. That Europe is developing its solution now seems demoralizing, but it must be taken into account that, for decades, the technology of the Old Continent has depended on external manufacturing, so advancing this manufacturing process at this time is not bad news. But well, in the end, FAMES represents the first platform in which some advanced technologies for the manufacture of semiconductors will begin to mature and, together with the rest of the pilot lines, the objective is to transfer these advances and knowledge to the industry and, obviously, to a final product. We will see if the 2030 goal is reached, but Europe itself is not very optimistic about the matter. Europe thinks that Europe will fail in its objective At the beginning of last year, we already said that the European Court of Auditors itself believed that the European Chip Law would be a failurepointing out unlikely which would be if they achieved the goal of building 20% ​​of the planet’s semiconductors by 2030. And… they are not misguided. Europe is seeking its technological independence while inviting entities like TSMC to its soil, but the two main technological centers are also moving. The United States is attracting talent to its territory, with TSMC buying more land to open a megafactory and Intel as a banner in the American foundry. China is not standing idly by and, following a Western veto, its semiconductor industry has made unthinkable advances with old ASML machines while companies like SMIC either Huawei develop your own solutions to create advanced chips and be able to shield itself from American technology. And beyond countries, private companies such as Intel itself, TSMC, Samsung, GlobalFoundries or Texas Instruments are also moving, installing new cutting-edge plants both inside and outside the United States, a country that is determined to invest what is necessary to achieve leadership. In the end, getting 20% ​​of the world’s chips is a tremendously ambitious goal and Europe is very far away in this industrybut you have to start somewhere and FAMES represents that first stone on the path of the European semiconductor initiative. Images | Intel (edited), FAMES In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

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