Train liberalization in Spain has been a success for travelers. The problem is that companies are losing a money

Railway liberalization has reached cruise speed with spectacular results for passengers … but demolving for operators accounts. Why is it important. The train price war is changing the transport map in Spain. Users earn with more low options and prices, but companies are bleeding money in a battle that has also begun to question the sustainability of the current model. In figures: Almost 40 million travelers They used high speed in 2024. That is 77% more than in 2019, before pandemic. Prices They have fallen up to 42% On some routes. Passenger income is 35% below the levels prior to liberalization. The context. Ouigo has become the undisputed EY of low prices. In the first quarter it was the Most economical operator in four of the five liberalized runners: Madrid-Barcelona (18.59 euros). Madrid-Sevilla (29.09 euros). Madrid-Málaga (26.89 euros). Madrid-Aliante (20.80 euros). Only in Madrid-Valencia surpassed him Avlo, and it was for just 25 cents. This aggressive strategy It is giving results. The French subsidiary has managed to capture 36% of the market in Madrid-Aliante, 25% in Madrid-Valencia and 15% in Madrid-Barcelona. Yes, but. Profitability is another issue. The sources do not indicate the concrete losses of each operator in 2024, but The data They indicate that the average income remains far from the levels that Renfe achieved alone. The operators have increased only 6% the average income in Madrid-Barcelona, to the 8 cents per traveler and kilometer, a figure that remains 35% lower than the era of the monopoly. Deepen. Beyond numbers, liberalization is changing mobility habits. The train has won the battle to the plane bluntly: In Madrid-Barcelona, the rail share went from 65%to 81.5%, while other routes exceed 80-90%. And now the financial sustainability of the sector is at stake. If current margins do not allow long -term profitability, something will have to give in: either prices, or some operators will end up withdrawing from the market. In Xataka | Renfe trusted the Avril trains to face the Low Cost of Ouigo and Iro. They do not stop giving problems Outstanding image | Dani guitar

Deepseek marked a turning point in the AI race. Now another Chinese company wants to imitate its success: Kimi K2 is born

The Chinese startup Monshot AI has presented Kimi K2, an open -source artificial intelligence model that arrives with outstanding programming capabilities and autonomous tasks that, according to The published benchmarksThey spray competition in several of their models. Its launch occurs at a key moment for the sector, when Chinese companies seek to replicate the disruptive success of Deepseek with potential height models and much cheaper than market alternatives. Kimi does not come from nothing. MoNshot ai was one of the most promising startups in the Chinese ecosystem of AI and that giants like Alibaba have invested greatly. His Kimi chatbot reached third place in monthly active users in August 2024, but fell to the seventh in June After the emergence of Deepseek R1 in January. Now try to recover ground with a strategy that combines open source and aggressive prices, following the formula that catapulted Deepseek. Image: MoNshot AI What Kimi K2 offers. The model has 1 billion total parameters and 32,000 million activated parameters, using The well-known Mixture-Of-Experts architecture to optimize computational costs. It is presented in two versions: a base for researchers and developers, and another optimized for conversation and autonomous tasks. Kimi K2 thus becomes Moonshot AI’s proposal with the ability to act as an intelligent agent to use tools, write code, complete workflows or talk, among other tasks. Kimi K2 explained in numbers. In performance testsKimi K2 has achieved 65.8% precision at Swe-Bench Verified, one of the most demanding benchmarks for software engineering. In LivecodeBench it reached 53.7%, exceeding 46.9% of Deepseek-V3 and 44.7% of GPT-4.1. In mathematics, its 97.4% score in Math-500 exceeds 92.4% of GPT-4.1, suggesting significant advances in mathematical reasoning. The price factor. MoNshot is charging $ 0.15 per million input tokens and $ 2.50 per million tokens out of the developers who use their API. Compared, Claude Opus 4 It charges 100 times more for the entrance (15 dollars) and 30 times more for the output ($ 75), while GPT-4.1 charges 2 dollars per entrance and 8 per exit. In addition, the model is available for free in Web applications and Kimi mobile, without monthly subscriptions that require chatgpt or Claude for their most advanced models. Technical innovation. MoNshot has developed the MuCanclip optimizer, which allows train models of one billion parameters “With zero training instability.” This technology could drastically reduce the training costs of large models, a problem that has limited the development of AI to companies with greater resources. Double channel strategy. The company offers so much Free access to the source code as payment API at a very competitive price. This strategy allows companies to start with the API for immediate implementation and then migrate to self -healing versions either by regulatory cost or compliance. And it is that each developer who downloads Kimi K2 becomes a potential business client. Moment of inflection. Kimi K2 represents a convergence point where open source models and proprietary alternatives shake hands. MoNshot AI intends to turn Kimi into a tool for everything, while offering its open source model and is reserved to charge for the use of its API for all types of implementations. And now what. The launch reaches a critical point in which both Openai, such as Google or Anthropic, must respond to this wave of cheap and high quality language models. The issue is no longer whether open source models can match the owners, but if large technological ones can adapt their business models fast enough to compete in this new scenario. The looks are put in GPT-5 And in the next movements of the industry at a rate, as always, accelerated. Cover image | Xataka with Mockuuuups Studio and Kimi AI In Xataka | Grok 4 destroys the tests and aims to be the most advanced AI model. The problem is that Elon Musk continues to sabotage his answers

Apple has discovered gunpowder with the 16E iPhone. So he has launched the machinery to replicate his success, according to Gurman

It seems that Apple has taken the like to launch an ‘low cost’ iPhone with premium performance. And is that after the launch of the iPhone 16E In February, the Cupertino company wants to continue exploiting this vein. From Bloomberg, Mark Gurman points That Apple plans to launch the Iphone 17E in spring of 2026, giving clues that the brand seems to have decided to bet strongly on the entrance segment with annual updates. The formula that works. Apple seems to have found some balance with the iPhone 16E: a device that shines in performance thanks to its chip A18, and that makes sacrifices to place in a spectrum lower than the iPhone 16 As for the price and features (we would already like that price spectrum to be even lower, but well). This combination has proven to be very attractive for those looking for the iPhone experience without coming up. A reminiscence of iPhone se. The continuity plan. According to Gurman, the iPhone 17E will maintain the same OLED design and screen of the current model, but will incorporate the A19 chip to be up to the next generation. As reported from the Korean medium The ELECscreens suppliers will remain BOE and Samsung, with LG Display as a possible third actor. Change of strategy. The rapid transition from 16e to 17E marks an important turning point. Apple leaves its previous policy of updating the entry models every few years – as with the iPhone se – to adopt an annual cycle. This shows that the company has identified a market opportunity that does not want to miss. Beyond the iPhone 17E. The Ming-Chi Kuo analyst points that Apple has even more ambitious plans for this line. The 18E iPhone is expected to arrive in spring of 2027, coinciding with a divided release strategy where standard and entrance models will be presented six months after the PRO. New MacBook Pro and iPad. The 17E iPhone will not be the only protagonist of the first half of 2026. Gurman reveals That Apple plans a massive product deployment that includes new entrance iPad and iPad Air with M4 chip, MacBook Pro and AIR updated, and even a new external monitor for Mac. This strategy seeks to revitalize sales after an irregular demand period. It seems that we will have to wait until you know how Apple implements its new strategy on these devices and if the change is well received by its users. In Xataka | Apple has lost the throne that maintained for a decade. And Chinese brands don’t even let him be second

This summer’s surprise success in Netflix combines superheroes and k-pop

‘The K-Pop Warriors’ is the undisputed surprise success of the summer: an animated film inspired by the K-Pop music that has been submitted to the top of Netflix’s success lists. One more proof that sometimes it is not necessary to have great names by supporting a production: strangely that it seems, sometimes it is enough to exhibit enough quality and originality. What happens to ‘The K-Pop Warriors’: Also known as ‘KPOP DEMON HUNERS’, the movie’s premise is pure fantasy: a group of idols of K-Pop They lead a secret life as demon jackets, in an absurd and highly stylized mixture of ‘Buffy Hunting’ and ‘Hannah Montana’. In this adventure, facing a band of villains, a group of boys who are also music stars, their responsibilities as Salvadoras of the world and more or less run over their massive success are quoted. Sweeping ‘The K-Pop Warriors’ arrived on the platform on June 20 and quickly reached the post number 1 in Netflix worldwideleading the most watched lists in 26 countries and entering The Top 10 in 93 territories. In its first two weeks, he accumulated more than 33 million views, being placed as the most watched film of the platform in that period. In fact, in the second week, he doubled his initial figures, from 9.2 million views in the first three days to 24.2 million and more than 40 million hours reproduced. That is, a phenomenon of pure mouth mouth. And be careful, that there is also critical and public impact: In Rotten Tomatoesthe film has 95% criticism and 90% of the public, which makes it the best combination of scores for an animated production output of the platform. Impact on multiple aspects. It is not just that the series is reaching unusual success thanks to the quality of its history or its impressive animation, but has transcended its initial success in streaming to become a global phenomenon that also dominates the musical field. Your soundtrack has also achieved a Notable impact: two of their songs entered the 200 Billboard and in their second week the streams In the US, they exceeded 42 million, with a 44% increase in digital downloads, an unusual achievement for an animated film. Who is behind. This success must to the participation of a couple of producers from the K-Pop industry, Teddy Park and Lindgren. The first is one of the most influential producers of the genre, and has written successes for Blackpink2Ne1 and Bigbang. The second is an international producer and composer of international scope, and has worked with artists such as Dua Lipa and BTS. Park took care that the songs sounded to Genuino K-Pop, not a low quality glow for a movie. And Lindgren, on the other hand, is responsible for the cabins to possess enough pop hook to impact the lists of successes. To round the product, in the songs you can hear voices of idols Reales such as Jeongyeon, Jihyo and Chaeyoung from Twice. The fandom can be satisfied. And now what. The overwhelming success of ‘The K-Pop warriors’ can leave an important mark in the industry, or at least advance some future trends. For example, it eliminates from Disney’s hands the monopoly of animated musical productions, introducing other genres and themes that are proven that they are interested in the Fandom: the K-Pop sells, and is a practically virgin material in the world of success animation. We are facing unstoppable force within the tastes of thousands of spectators. Lie groups. And linked to the latter, we must not forget that Hentr/X and Saja Boys, the leading groups of ‘The K-Pop Warriors’ are entirely virtual. Its sales and their achievements (for example, have reached number one of platforms such as Spotify) rival those of authentic groups, which opens the doors to more experiments of this type. The creation of fictitious artists, whose life was modeled by marketing departments, was common note in the K-Pop, but with this confirmation of the success of the idols Virtualthe genre continues to widen borders towards unknown limits. Header | Netflix In Xataka | In South Korea there is a curious phenomenon that keeps economists and fans of the K-Pop in suspense: the return of BTS

Three essential pieces of current cinema depend on its success

There are hardly a few days left for the premiere of ‘Superman‘, a movie whose premiere we have been waiting since James Gunn announced the plans for his renewed DC universewith which Warner would borrón and new account with respect to everything that his superhero cosmos had meant so far. That is, ‘Superman’ plays much more than it seems. Its success or failure can bring consequences that do not dissipate for many years. Good prospects. To begin with, it should be clarified that a flattering future is opened to Gunn’s movie. It is true that your Budget has been very considerable (It is estimated that between 225 and 363 million dollars). To be profitablesome sources point out that they would need to exceed 500 million global dollars to be considered a success, and others raise that figure to more than 700 million to justify the relaunch of the DCU. Gunn has rushed to Define the size of those figures. In any case, the forecasts are good but not extraordinary: in principle, and depending on the source, there was talk of collections between 125 and 200 million dollars, but the presale has reduced expectations a bitthat now are between 90 and 145 million. The first receptions of criticism, yes, They have been excellent. Essential for three key pieces of current cinema. In short, the success of ‘Superman’ can affect three important cinema pieces mainstream Hollywood. On the one hand its success is key to Warner’s maltrecha. On the other, it is the starting point of a new superhero universe, with all that implies. And finally, ‘Superman’ is framed in the genre of superheroes, which has been going through ups and downs. The success or failure of ‘Superman’ will mark the future of all these variables. Warner needs it. Warner has been submerged in a Very delicate financial situation. His caresses with HBO have long since They bring tailbut they don’t raise their heads Nor in the film division: In the first quarter of 2025, Warner Bros. registered net losses of 453 million dollars. And eye, it is still a 53% reduction compared to the same period of the previous year, since in 2024 the losses were fired up to 11.3 billion dollars, compared to the 3.100 million of 2023. Because despite adding 110.5 million users in Max, the streaming business fails to compensate for losses from other areas. Superman, that symbol. More specifically within Warner, ‘Superman’ has special relevance within the superhero universe of DC. It is not surprising that the first film of this relaunch of the seal is ‘Superman’ (not Batman or Wonder Woman): the Kryptonian is a clear symbol of Warner’s vision of the genre (different from Marvel’s, more realistic, those of DC are full heroes, of a piece, more fantastic). A box office failure would be not only a puncture for this film, for this hero, but for a whole philosophy: Superman, as a symbol of the DC universe in its entirety, needs to succeed to boost the seal. What comes behind. If Superman is successful there are already future prepared premieres, such as ‘Supergirl’ (June 2026). Very sensitively, the DC calendar is being deployed much more slowly and carefully, Warner clearly wants to be cautious and distance from what has ended up condemning Marvel: excess premieres. This long parenthesis until the next premiere of DC makes it clear to which Superman is not a link in a chain, but a founding stone that Warner needs to work and make badly forget badly too recently as disastrous’The Flash‘ either ‘Black Adam‘. The emporium of the superheroes. For a long time, the one who was the Dominant genre in Hollywood It crosses a serious phase of ups and downs. It is true that there is still a box office, but we are no longer facing the great guaranteed successes of Marvel’s early days, and that Disney itself was responsible for burning. We have gone through one year of Impasse (where there was only one premiere, ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’, which was a capital success, yes, but Out of the continuous MCU), And Marvel has returned this year with ‘Captain America: Brave New World‘ and ‘Thunderbolts‘, which add the whopping of 800 million dollars of collection … but they are insufficient to be profitable. And now we are faced with great expectation: ‘Superman’ starts a new stage for Warner, and ‘The fantastic 4: first steps‘It also opens this year, with very good expectations and a possible face washing for Marvel. And in 2026 two possible box office pumps such as the new sequel to Tom Holland’s’ spider-man and the Return of the Avengers with ‘Doomsday’. Despite these expectations, superheroes are no longer the dominant force in the box office, as demonstrated by films like ‘NE ZHA 2‘,’Lilo and Stitch‘ and ‘A Minecraft movie‘, away from superhero cinema but that have been the greatest successes of 2025. Little heroic superheroes. That is the superhero cinema situation, after two years of very specific successes. Hence the importance of ‘Superman’ and ‘The Fantastic Four’, not only for their respective franchises (as seen in the case of Superman), but for the Hollywood industry itself and the public, which begins to be tired of cyclic stories and people with super powers. Superman, essential piece. In the same way that happens in his fictional universe with the character, the ‘Superman’ film is perhaps the most important film of the year from the point of view of the industry. The relevance as creative of James Gunnwho is trusting to give a face washing not only to the DC universe, but to the whole superhero genre, turns this film into a very special bet. The great investment that Warner has made, one of the largest in recent years for the company, also puts in check the accounts of the producer. A series of bets to which the entire industry now looks closely. In Xataka | We have analyzed the scores of Marvel and DC movies to solve … Read more

Wimbledon has replaced all his line judges with a success. The only problem is that tennis players do not believe it

Wimbledon has replaced This year for the first time in its history to its line judges for a technology that is an evolution of the traditional eye of the hawk. Despite the accuracy it brings, several tennis players They have expressed their discontentespecially following the controversy with the party of Kartal and Pavlyuchenkova. What’s happening. Several tennis players have publicly expressed their doubts about the electronic system. Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu, the British numbers, have questioned the accuracy of decisions, while the Switzerland Belinda Bencic It was more direct: “I do not trust the system. Nor is it that I want to speak it too much, but it is really stressful.” The reluctance about this new system are increasingly common in tennis. Although the hawk’s eye has accompanied the games for many years already, The replacement of the judges It marks a general discontent in several professionals of this sport and fans. AND The case of Pavlyuchenkova He has put the situation more inri. Failure in three key situations. The incident that has been playing the most in networks was during the match between the British Sonay Kartal and the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on the central track. With the marker matched 4-4, a Kartal ball clearly came out, but the Hawk-Eye system remained silent. Without the usual sound signal of “out”, the referee ordered to repeat the point, causing The frustration of Pavlyuchenkova: “You have stolen the game.” The ruling lasted 6 minutes and 49 seconds, during which the system lost three decisions. The AI ​​is working. The organization has revealed that the problem of Pavlyuchenkova was actually a human error: an operator accidentally deactivated part of the cameras with a click on their computer. Sally Bolton, executive director of All England Club, He has defended that “the ball monitoring system has worked optimally and effectively” throughout the tournament. After the incident, they have modified the software so that the cameras cannot be deactivated manually when there is an ongoing game. How the system works. The Live Electronic Line Calling (Live Elc) that Wimbledon uses is An evolution of the traditional hawk eye that we have been seeing since 2007. The key difference is that it now works in real time: use a network of cameras with artificial vision that tracks the ball and automatically emits an “out” when it goes out. Before, the hawk’s eye was only used to review decisions when players requested it; Now he is the main referee of all lines. It has been working for years. Studies show that electronic systems in sport are significantly more precise than human judges. An investigation He revealed that line referees make mistakes in 27% of cases where the check -up review is required, which is equivalent to an error every 17.4 games. The system has demonstrated its reliability in multiple sports for more than a decade, and both the Australian Open and the US Open have integrated it in its entirety in recent years. AI and arbitration, whenever complaints. Resistance to technology in arbitration is not exclusive to tennis. THE VAR IN FOOTBALL It generates constant controversies. In addition, Hawk-Eye is also implemented in volleyball, Cricket, and even in football for ghost goals, situations in which there has also been controversy with technology. And it is that sport is usually very reticating to technological changes. We don’t trust technology. Machines fail less than humans, but Perception is usually different. And it is that many problems attributed to AI are actually errors in the implementation or in human decisions that accompany the system, as has happened this time in Wimbledon. Technology is not infallible, but it is statistically more reliable than any available human alternative. And why don’t we trust? According to Gina Neff, a teacher in Cambridge, “right now, in many areas in which AI affects our lives, we believe that humans understand the context much better than machines,” he says. “The machine makes decisions based on the set of rules for which it has been programmed. But people are really good when it comes to multiple external values ​​and considerations as well – what is the right decision may not seem like the fair decision,” he continues. “It is the intersection between people and systems that we have to do well.” “We have to use the best of both to make the best decisions.” Cover image | Shep Mcallister In Xataka | 150 years ago the English played the first football matches in Spain. Now there is a fierce fight for finding out where

The test was a success

If your basic subsistence needs were covered, would you look for a job? That is an almost philosophical and inherent issue of human nature that many sociologists have asked and Economic policies responsible. Sam Altman, without going any further, raised establish a universal basic income to cushion the Impact of AI on the labor market. In the world different experiments have been carried out on the effectiveness of providing a pay that covers the basic needs. One of those tests It was carried out in Barcelona Between 2017 and 2019 and the participants were delivered up to 1,297 euros per month. The results of that test They have just been published. Basic Universal Income in Barcelona. The city launched one of the most ambitious social experiments that have been carried out in Spain: the B-MINCOME PROGRAMwith a total cost of 4.8 million euros. 822 households from different vulnerable neighborhoods of the city, They received a monthly income (Provision of municipal support for inclusion or SMI, for its acronym in Catalan), which reached up to 1,297 euros for families of four members, or 663 euros for a single -person home. This amount corresponds to an estimate equivalent to 70% -80% of the local poverty threshold. These homes were distributed in two control groups (in principle they were going to be four control groups): Basic rent (SMI) linked to voluntary participation in formative activities and non -supervised social inclusion. Basic rent (SMI) in limited modality, which reduces the benefit to the same extent that a salary is received. Basic rent (SMI) with gradual withdrawal in sections, conditioned to the perception of a salary between 25 % (each additional euro reduced the provision 25 cents of the first 250 euros) and 35 % (each additional euro reduced the provision 35 cents of more than 250 euros). One SMI euro for each euro of salary: the failure. One of the strong points of this study is that researchers could check the Effects of basic income approached from different conditions, and their effects are decisive. The study revealed a 22% drop in the chances of working in the group to which the limited modality was applied. That is, for each euro they received from a salary, a euro of basic income was discounted. That economic loss discouraged the search for a job. This fall not only affected the receiver of the benefit, but also affected the whole of the home, reducing the probability that any adult of the family nucleus seeks a job, perpetuating the dependence of the subsidy. According to the study, in this group both part -time and full -time employment was affected, the latter being responsible for two thirds of the general effect of abandonment of employment. That is, the greater the wage remuneration obtained, the more labor insertion is discouraged. Basic rental with discount. Instead, The results For the group that only received a discount percentage for each salary euro received (between 25 and 35%), the probabilities of labor reintegration increased by 6.5% that those who did not receive any help. That is, by maintaining a certain level of salary increase with respect to basic income, the search for a job to improve family income was encouraged, making compatible and beneficial receive the benefit with developing full -time employment. In addition, this model was more efficient for the administration since in the case of the total withdrawal model, each transferred euro supposed 34 cents of additional public spending. In the discount model, the cost was only 12 cents for each euro delivered. That is, the impact on employment was better and the minor cost when the design applied a partial discount. Work at home and take care. The most striking impact of the experiment was concentrated in homes with children of the group to which the total withdrawal model was applied. In these cases, some adults, especially women, reduced their participation in the labor market to devote themselves to unpaid household workscare of dependent people and children. Researchers speak of a “replacement between paid work for care work.” Some of these families opted for take care of your children or dependent relatives without fear of falling into social exclusion. According to the researchers, this decision “could generate positive externalities, such as improvements in the education and health of children or reductions in adolescent crime”, in addition to improving family conciliation to the rest of the family members. The conclusions coincide with Germany. The results of the B-Mincom are not isolated in the international scene. In Germany a similar project in which being the beneficiary of a basic monthly assignment of the employment situation caused participants to improve their training to obtain better jobs. The fact of Maintain the safeguard From an insured income, the German beneficiaries encouraged to venture to change to better paid jobs, to study and form and even reduced anxiety levels and other mental problems by having the certainty of reaching the end of the month thanks to the vital basic income. However, the most relevant conclusion that the Barcelona test leaves, like the German, is that it is not enough to assign a subsidy to a certain population profile at risk of social exclusion, but the important thing is to apply the appropriate strategy to encourage their progress, not stagnate that group in what the researchers called “Poverty traps“That perpetuates its dependence. In Xataka | Germany believes having found the most German solution to its productivity problems: work more Image | Pexels (Markus Spiske)

The key to China’s success with rare earths are not the rare earths: it is the magnet

The response of the Chinese administration to the tariff pressure to which the United States wanted to submit in early April was immediate: significant restrictions on the export of rare earths. A measure that ended up relaxing this week, with the granting of licenses of export for six months. A truce to which the United States accessed by lowering another of the key elements in this commercial war: The admission of Chinese students in American universities. These are one of the most important pieces of the geopolitical board: they are scarce chemical elements, difficult to extract and refine, and a key resource For the technological, automotive and energy industry, among many others. China is controlling access to these elements to defend their interests, but the key is not just to isolate its rivals of this precious material: is in the disability outside China to take advantage of them. China is the fundamental piece in its prosecuted. China controls rare earth production by 70% and 90% processing them. In the case of heavy strange earth, a subgroup of them even more scarce, their participation in the refining is 99%. According to the newspaper The New York TimesChina has up to 39 university programs so that its students can train and develop their career in the chemical industry specializing in this field. It is just a sample of the importance it has for the country led by Xi Jinping to continue controlling this geopolitical weapon. This graph is the best visual test of China’s domain in rare earths. The access toll. Although the focus on how they are affecting the restrictions on the export of rare earths to the supply chain is currently, there is a key that has gone unnoticed: the real problem is not access, it is the difficulty of working even in the case of obtaining them. When the Ministry of Commerce of China and the General Administration of Customs They imposed access controls for the export of medium and heavy rare earthsthe supply chain staggered. From their entry into force, all exporters were obliged to obtain specific licenses for each shipment, even if they are products in which they have already been refined, such as magnets. Why touch the rest. These licenses are a complex bureaucratic process, slow and studied case by case. Although the primary political objective is the United States, European companies that need heavy land (or materials manufactured with them, such as magnets), are seeing supply interruptions. Suzuki has already arrested swift production in Japan Due to the scarcity of pieces, Musk You are having trouble building your robots and, in Europe, the secretary general of CLA (European Association of Automation Suppliers) made an urgent call: production is entering the paralysis phase. “With a deeply interconnected global supply chain, China’s export restrictions are already paralyzing production in the European supplier sector.” The magnet as geopolitical treasure. William Huo, ex-intel and one of the most prominent figures in the critical analysis of Western industrial policy, summarizes it in the best possible way: West has been focusing on optimizing spreadsheets instead of factories, And now he is not able to manufacture a single magnet. The industry depends on the Chinese refining of rare earths to manufacture high performance magnets. Without them, there is no competitiveness in electric cars, defense, nuclear or consumer technology. The rest is not prepared to refine rare earths. “Middle East has oil. China has rare earths.” They are words of Den Xiaoping in 1992, who was the top leader of the People’s Republic of China. The country has been acquiring the necessary knowledge to extract and refine these materials, while the rest of the world enjoyed a comfortable (and economic) dependence. West has tried to self -abuse with at least 10% of the remaining rare lands. Countries like Norway and Sweden are finding new deposits, and have confirmed the intention of exploiting them not beyond 2030. None of this is enough. Refining is the main bottleneck for the use of rare earths in industry, an expensive, sensitive process and with complex waste management. In Xataka | China has built the most elegant economic power lever in modern history: rare earths

This map distributes the “heart” of Europe over the Iberian Peninsula. And reveals the key to the success of the region

Maps are useful, fascinating and sometimes almost almost An art form. However, they do not always allow us to understand real dimensions and distances well. Especially when we talk about broad territories. A map published in Urbanity.one (and shared by Madrid projects) With a peculiar approach: its author has taken some of the main cities of Central Europe, the metropolis of the one known as “Blue Banana”and has distributed them on a plane of the Iberian Peninsula respecting The real distances. The result reminds us of two things. The first, the considerable size That has Spain. The second, how close the cities of Central Europe, a crucial factor to understand the history and economic development of the region. As a picture is worth more than a thousand words, at the end of the 1980s the Geographer Roger Brunet decided to invent A visual metaphor to refer to the most populous and urbanized region in Europe. He called her The “Blue Banana”. Maybe it sounds strange, but it makes enough sense when a map is taken. If the cities of the European industrial axis are connected, covering from England to the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and northern Italy, that is: the drawing of A huge banana Located more or less between Manchester, Munich, Zurich and Rome. How big is that “Banana” imaginary? The first response to mind is obvious: very much, right? In Madrid it projects They have shared However, a map that helps to understand that this abstract axis is actually much smaller than what intuition suggests. At least if we compare it with Spain. The reason is very simple. Its author has selected the metropolis that are distributed by that theoretical axis that structures Europe Central and has arranged them on a map of the Iberian Peninsula respecting the real distances between them. The result It shows that Cambridge would be more or less where Vigo is, Rotterdam would stay up to Valladolid, Bremen in Pamplona, ​​Stuttgart almost where Alicante is and Paris would more or less occupy the place of Badajoz. In the center of the Peninsula, in Madrid, it would be located (kilometer up, kilometer down) Düsseldorf and the Barcelona space would occupy by Linz, an Austrian city. The cast may be striking, but it arrives with pulling Google Maps and its measurement tool for Check the distances. Between London and Paris there are about 340 km in a straight line, just under those that separate Madrid and Granada. If we pull a straight line from Rome to Munich would measure approximately 700 kilometers, a little less than Barcelona to Córdoba. Comparisons are interesting for several reasons. The main one is that they remind us The great size of Spain. The Iberian Peninsula measures just over 583,000 km2 and Spain occupies approximately 505,000taking into account the 12,500 km2 of island surface. That makes our country one of the most extensive of the community club, together with France and Sweden and Germany. A wide disposition of land is both an opportunity and a challenge in aspects as a distribution of the population or provision of services. The other great conclusion left by the map Shared by Madrid projects It is the close thing that are actually the Central European metropolis and their main industrial poles, population centers and strategic axes of political decision -making, a proximity that has influenced the development and integration of Europe. Images | Urbanity.one and Madrid projects (x) In Xataka | The demographic debacle in Europe, exposed on this map with a misleading guest: Monaco

An engine that the United States tried to build without success in the Cold War

The new space race has brought back the attempts to develop rocket engines much faster. And it is not NASA, but the European Space Agency who is chasing the old dream. Context. The thermal Nuclear Propulsion Motor (NTP) is an almost as old idea as the space race itself. In the same 1961 speech with which John F. Kennedy promised to take a man to the moon, he also requested funds for the Nuclear Rover rocket with the promise of “an even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space.” More than 60 years later, space nuclear dream is still a unfulfilled promise. Europe wants to try. Interplanetary trips twice as fast. That is the central promise of nuclear propulsion, and ESA believes that it is an attainable future to reduce the nine months of earth-marte travel to half. With the help of the heavyweights of the French space and nuclear industry (CEA, Arianegroup and Framatome), ESA has concluded in his study alumni that technology offers “huge increases in performance” and “can be operated safely.” Meanwhile, in the United States. NASA has had to end its last attempt to develop an NTP engine. He Draco projectdirect heir to the initiatives of the 60s (the Rover and Nerva projects), has fallen into the Trump administration cuts. The justification of the White House for cutting is that they are “expensive investments” and “there are other alternatives.” The news has fallen as a jug of cold water for those involved. Bhavya Lal, former associated administrator of the NASA, He said to Spacenews: “We have spent almost 20,000 million dollars in space nuclear energy since the 50s and the only system we currently have is a radioisotope generator the size of a 100 watt bulb.” Many possibilities. One thing is the generators of the Martian Rovers or the Voyager and New Horizons probes, which use the heat of passive disintegration of the plutonium to generate some electricity with their small radioisotope generators (RTG), and a very different one is an active fission reactor to generate a massive thrust (a NTP rocket engine). New Horizons illustrates the difference well. It was one Mission to explore Plutobut it passed through the dwarf planet without the capacity to enter its orbit, obtaining just 24 hours of data. With nuclear propulsion, I could have orbized for years, and the scientific return would have been immensely superior. Oh, irony. Jared Isaacman, Trump’s nominated to direct NASA that was removed when Elon Musk lost its influence on the White Househe was a supporter of the development of this type of engines. The NTP are “exactly the type of thing in which NASA should concentrate its resources,” he said on one occasion. Now, Without Isaacman And with the Canceled Draco project, Europe embarks cautiously on the path of nuclear propulsion while the United States step back. Kennedy’s promise is still waiting. Of course, the things of space go slowly, and there are still a few viability studies before the European thermal nuclear propulsion engine takes shape. Image | POT In Xataka | Electronuclear and Nuclear Fusion Propulsion are the options of science to take us to deep space

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