thought

Something is going wrong with AI. The US is turning to energy solutions that it thought were buried to power data centers

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The race to develop and operate increasingly powerful artificial intelligence models comes at a cost that is rarely at the center of the technological narrative. It is not in the chips or the software, but in the huge amount of electricity needed to keep active data centers running around the clock. In the United States, this pressure is already being translated into concrete decisions: polluting power plants that were in retirement are being restarted to cover increasing peaks and tensions on the grid. The paradox is evident, the most ambitious advance in the technology sector depends, for the moment, on energy solutions from another era. The problem is not so much an absolute shortage of electricity as a time lag. The demand for data centers linked to AI it’s growing much faster than the ability to launch new electrical generation, especially renewable, in short terms. Building large energy infrastructures takes years, while these complexes can advance in much shorter time frames. Faced with this temporary shock, network operators and electricity companies are turning to what already exists and can be activated immediately, even if it is more polluting. PJM in context. The clash between electricity demand and supply is perceived with special clarity in the PJM region, the largest electricity market in the United States, which covers 13 states and concentrates a very significant part of the country’s data centers. We can understand it as a large regional electricity exchange that coordinates generation, prices and network stability in real time. There, the growth of data centers linked to AI is putting to the test a system designed for a very different consumption pattern, making PJM the first thermometer of a problem that is beginning to appear in other areas. What is a central peaker. The calls central peakeror peak, are facilities designed to come online only during short periods of peak demand, such as heat waves or winter peaks, when the system needs immediate reinforcement. They are not designed to operate continuously, but to react quickly. According to a report According to the US Government Accountability Office, these facilities generate just 3% of the country’s electricity, but they account for nearly 19% of the installed capacity, a reserve that is now being used much more frequently than expected. South view of the Fisk plant in Chicago The case of the Fisk plant, in the working-class neighborhood of Pilsen, in Chicago, illustrates well how this shift translates on the ground. It is an oil-fueled facility, built decades ago and scheduled to be retired next year, that had been relegated to an almost testimonial role. The arrival of new electrical demands associated with data centers changed that equation. Matt Pistner, senior vice president of generation at NRG Energy, explained to Reuters that the company saw an economic argument to maintain the units and that is why it withdrew the closure notice, a decision that returns activity to a location that many residents believed was in permanent withdrawal. When the price rules. The change is not explained only by technical needs, but also by very clear market signals. In PJM, the prices paid to generators to guarantee supply at times of maximum demand skyrocketed this summer, more than 800% compared to the previous year. An analysis by the aforementioned agency shows that about 60% of oil, gas and coal plants scheduled for retirement in the region postponed or canceled those plans this year, and most of them were units peakerjust the ones that best fit in this new scenario of relative scarcity. The bill for this energy shift is paid above all at a local level. The power plants peaker They tend to be older facilities, with lower chimneys and fewer pollution filters than other plants, which increases the impact on their immediate surroundings when they operate more frequently. Coal is also postponed. The phenomenon is not limited to power plants peaker fueled by oil or gas. On a national scale, several utilities have begun to delay the closure of coal plants that were part of their climate commitments. A DeSmog analysis identified at least 15 retirements postponed from January 2025 alone, facilities that together represent about 1.5% of US energy emissions. Dominion Energy offers a clear example: In 2020 he promised to generate all its electricity with renewables by 2045, but after the company projected that data center demand in Virginia will quadruple by 2038, it is now taking a step back. Images | Xataka with Gemini 3 Pro | Theodore Kloba In Xataka | A former NASA engineer is clear: data centers in space are a horrible idea

We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

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insomnia is for many people a serious problem with which they deal daily, both day and night, and whose treatment is always based on three pillars: sleep hygienecognitive-behavioral therapy or hypnotic drugs. However, Sometimes what is useful for one person is useless for another.. Something that we now know is because there is not just one type of insomnia, but five. The study. With Spanish origin and published in the Journal of Sleep Research confirms what many specialists were suspecting: insomnia is not a unique disorder. As Francesa Cañellas, from the Son Espases University Hospital, points out, research has proven that there are five different subtypes of insomniaa finding that promises to revolutionize the way we treat sleep problems. Its evolution. The first hypothesis that was raised about the variability of insomnia comes from 2019, when some dutch researchers They already saw that this disorder had five faces. The problem is that these differences had to be proven according to the personality traits and biography of each of the patients. That is exactly what the Spanish team has done. Financed by the Spanish Sleep Society (SES), the study has analyzed data from eight sleep units in Spain using the Insomnia Types Questionnaire (ITQ). Using the patients’ responses in these questionnaires and the data obtained from each one’s sleep, it has been seen that these five profiles are true. Although the problem is that the most severe type is the most common. The different types. The interesting thing about this study is that it does not classify insomnia by the number of hours spent sleeping, but by personality traits or level of distress. Based on this, the classification proposed is the following: Type 1: a very complex group, since their peculiarity is that they have high anguish within them. In this way, they are patients with high levels of neuroticismtension and depression. Type 2: patients who have moderate distress, but who can respond to positive stimuli. In this way, they are able to overcome the problem thanks to cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is the usual standard treatment. Type 3: in this case the patients do not feel much anxiety, but they do have a great insensitivity to pleasure, which is known as anhedonia. This is a problem, because being emotionally flat, conventional treatments are not very effective. Type 4 and 5: They are the mildest forms, since they are due to specific problems in the life of each patient that increase their level of stress but without a psychological burden behind them. The bad news. Although it has been possible to classify insomnia into different types, the reality is that 82% of patients belong to subtypes 1 and 3. These are the ones that respond the worst to treatments and that cause greater psychological damage to people. Logically, these are the people who most frequently go to medical consultations and sleep units because They literally can’t take it anymoresince it is unlikely that a sleeping pill will solve your problem. In fact, the study highlights that these two groups are the ones with the highest consumption of hypnotics and anxiolytics, often with poor results. A precision medicine. The importance of this work lies in the fact that there is no effective standard treatment for insomnia. In this way, if a type 2 patient receives psychological therapy they will do wonderfully, but for a type 3 patient this treatment will do almost nothing. Likewise, type 1 may require a psychiatric approach to treat underlying anxiety and then treat the insomnia problem. With all this, we seek to stop treating the disease in isolation, and conceive that it will be associated with a person who has a specific biography and a personality that may require different care. Images | Solving Healthcare In Xataka | How close (and how far) we are from not sleeping at all: for the first time in history, we have a small way to try it

Zara has found the formula to produce more photos in much less time. The answer was not where many thought

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Every time a big fashion brand mentions artificial intelligence, the reflex is almost automatic. We think about the possibility of models replaced by avatars, sessions that are reduced to a minimum and increasingly automated campaigns. It is a logical reaction, fueled by what we have already seen in the sector in recent months. But not all bets go that way. In the case of Zara, the question is not whether AI enters the creative process, but how it does so and what it decides to preserve intact. Not all AI in fashion is the same. In recent years, the sector has been trying very different paths under the same label. There are brands that have opted for generate complete campaigns with images created by generative systems, and others that have explored the creation of digital “doubles” of models to reuse their image in marketing. This context explains why Zara’s announcement triggers almost automatic suspicions. But it also forces us to refine the focus, because replacing a session is not the same as reusing a photograph, nor is it the same to displace people as to reorganize how visual content is produced. What exactly has Zara announced. Reuters reports thatZara has begun using AI to help create new images of real models in different outfits and accelerate visual production, in a movement that is part of a broader trend in the sector. As explained by an Inditex spokesperson, AI is being used to complement existing processes, not to replace them. The company presents it as a way to gain speed in the production of images without considering a total change of model in how its visual communication is built. How the “nuanced” approach works. From what has been published so far, the approach aims to take real photographs of human models and use AI to edit them and show those same models with other combinations of clothing, without repeating the session. The British newspaper CityAMfor its part, includes the anonymous testimony of a model according to which Zara asked for permission to edit its images with AI and thus show different items. This difference is important, because we are not talking about generating a campaign from scratch or creating a complete digital replica, but rather about expanding the number of final images based on previously photographed material. A precedent that marked the debate. Months before Zara’s move, H&M had contributed to tense the conversation with a much more visible proposal. In March 2025, the swedish company announced that would begin to create digital “twins” of 30 models to use in social networks and campaigns, always with prior permission. The initiative included compensation and control of rights by the models, but it also provoked criticism and once again put on the table the fear of a progressive reduction in work on traditional sets. The other end of the spectrum. The clearest contrast is offered by Mango. The company presented a campaign for its youth line generated entirely with AIa much more radical approach than Zara’s. In its case, AI is not limited to expanding combinations from a previous session, but is placed at the center of the creative process, although with subsequent intervention by human teams for selection and retouching. Mango frames this decision within its 2024-2026 strategic plan and presents it as a commitment to efficiency and innovation, thus marking a clear limit compared to hybrid approaches. Even so, the discomfort does not disappear. Some actors in the sector warn that the growing use of AI could reduce the number of assignments for photographers, models and production teams. It does not speak of a specific impact, but of a cumulative effect that can alter an entire ecosystem, from established professionals to those trying to make their way. The concern is not only focused on a specific brand, but on the sum of decisions that, little by little, change how many times a camera is turned on. Images | Zara | Highlight ID | M. Rennim In Xataka | All tech companies are putting AI in all their products. The problem is that nobody wants them

They found a cube-shaped skull in Tamaulipas and thought it was a migrant. Science has turned history upside down

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Modern archeology has just thrown us one of those pieces of the puzzle that forces us to rewrite, in part, what we knew about different ancient cultures of northern Mesoamerica. Something obligatory, since a team from the National Institute of Anthropology and History has identified a find in Tamaulipas that is as unusual as it is fascinating: a skull with an intentional deformation in the shape of a “cube”. “Parallelepiped” deformation. The discovery took place in the archaeological zone of Balcón de Montezuma, in the Sierra Madre Oriental. As detailed in the official INAH bulletinthe remains belong to an adult man over forty years old who lived during the Classic period between 400 and 900 AD Although the most surprising thing may seem given the curious deformation of the skull, for anthropologists the real news was in a modification of the “erect tabular” type. in its “parallelepiped” variant. How did it come to this? To have a skull with this peculiar shape, it is suggested that the ancient settlers of that area had to use wood compression devices such as slats. These would be applied to the back of the head (the occipital bone) and the forehead to restrict the natural growth of bones from childhood. Because it is precisely when they are malleable to adjust them to what you were looking for. Who was it? This is where hypotheses begin to emerge. Anthropologists point out that this type of deformation is more typical of the Mesoamerican southeast. But these bones have been found in the northern area. So the question was clear: Was this man a foreigner who came to the north? The answer, thanks to the analyzes of strontium isotopesit’s a resounding no. The conclusion that has been reached is that the bones belonged to a local man who was born and raised in the Sierra Madre Occidental area. And this is something that changes the narrative completely: we are not facing a migrant, but rather evidence of cultural adoption. Because. The fact that a local inhabitant decided (or his parents decided for him when they were very young) that the skull had to be modified with a technique that involved two splints makes sense. The hypotheses initially point to the membership in a local eliteand this modification could be a distinctive sign to indicate that they were in a higher stratum than the rest of the inhabitants. But it is also something that can suggest a cultural connection, since there was a great flow of ideas and aesthetic fashions that was much more fluid than previously thought between different cities in the area. That is why it may be that having a skull like this was an indication of beauty or it was simply ‘viral’ at that time. Its importance. Until now, archeology had recorded cranial deformations in the area, but they were generally more inclined backwards. The appearance of this more elongated upward shape is something that had not been recorded before in this area. This is something that a priori will help discard the old idea that the northern areas were culturally isolated. On the contrary, this “cubic skull” is physical proof that the northern border of Mesoamerica was fully integrated into the ritual and aesthetic dynamics of the rest of the subcontinent. Images | Chelms Varthoumlien In Xataka | If Spain believes it has a problem with droughts, it is because it does not know what led the Mayans to collapse: 150 extreme years

We thought talking to ChatGPT and other AIs was private. We didn’t have these extensions stealing our conversations

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There are matters that we would not publish on social networks or comment out loud. However, there they go, flowing in a waterfall of messages towards an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, as if it were our best friend. There are no glances, no judgment, no awkward silences. There are answers that, many times, are limited to proving us right or convincing us. But beyond that, an uncomfortable question appears: what if everything we have told could end up in the hands of a third party? What if there is someone else reading those conversations? Opt out in training models or maximizing the security of our account may not be enough. There is another threat that is reaching millions of users these days, and they may not even be aware of it: browser extensions that spy on and steal what is said to chatbots. At the top of the list is Urban VPN Proxy. A Chrome extension with more than 6 million users, rated 4.7 stars and that, until the publication of the cybersecurity report that we will talk about today, showed a “Featured” badge on Google, something that we can still verify in a version archived at the Internet Archive. The discovery. What has set off the alarms is a report published by Koia company specialized in cybersecurity. It is not a generic warning or a hypothesis, but the result of analyzing what these tools do in the background while we browse. When looking at popular extensions, the kind that are installed to gain privacy or security, their researchers detected a worrying pattern: some were capable of reading and sending conversations held with artificial intelligence chatbots outside the browser. A much larger attack surface. The investigation indicates that Urban VPN Proxy did not target a single AI provider, but rather a broad set of popular platforms. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini either Microsoft Copilot appear among monitored services, greatly expanding the volume and diversity of data potentially captured. These conversations are not trivial: they often include intimate questions, financial information, or details of ongoing projects. Therefore, access to this type of exchange involves a very delicate level of exposure. How conversations are captured. According to the research firm, the mechanism does not depend on vulnerabilities in the chatbots themselves, but on the privileged place that the extensions occupy within the browser. Urban VPN Proxy monitors active tabs and, when the user accesses an AI platform, injects code directly into the page. This code intercepts the requests and responses exchanged with the server before the browser displays them on the screen, allowing access to the full content of the conversation in real time. What Urban VPN Proxy extracted were not jumbled fragments, but entire conversations with their associated context. Koi documents the systematic capture of user messages, AI responses, identifiers for each chat, and temporal data that allows them to be sorted and related to each other. This type of information, crossed over weeks or months, allows us to draw very precise usage patterns. From work habits to personal concerns, the value of the whole lies precisely in its continuity and not in a specific message. The content script that forwards the data It does not depend on activating the VPN. One of the most important nuances of the report is that conversation capture is not tied to the use of the VPN service itself. The mechanism, they explain, works independently, even when the VPN is disabled. It is enough to have the extension installed so that the code responsible for intercepting conversations continues operating in the background. There is no user-accessible switch that allows you to disable this collection without completely removing the browser extension. Conversation collection was not present from the beginning. According to the analysis, Urban VPN Proxy did not include this behavior in previous versions of the extension. The turning point comes on July 9, 2025, when an update is released that activates the capture of conversations with AI platforms by default. From there, any user with the extension installed and automatic updates activated began to execute that new code without an explicit notice comparable to the change in behavior or having to expressly accept that modification. What does “AI protection” promise? In the extension’s tab and in its messages to the user, Urban VPN Proxy presents this feature as an additional layer of security. According to its description, it serves to alert when personal data is entered into a chatbot or when a response includes potentially dangerous links. The problem is that this layer of notifications is not directly related to the collection of conversations. Activating or deactivating warnings does not prevent messages from continuing to be intercepted and sent to the company’s servers. The investigation did not stop at Urban VPN Proxy. By tracing the origin of the code and its behavior, Koi found that the same conversation capture logic appeared in other extensions published by the same publisher. Some present themselves as VPNs, others as ad blockers or browser security tools. Together, there are more than 8 million users between Chrome and Edge, which expands the scope of the problem and explains why researchers talk about an ecosystem and not a specific anomaly. Identified extensions for Chrome: Urban VPN Proxy 1ClickVPN Prox Urban Browser Guard Urban Ad Blocker Identified extensions for Microsoft Chrome: Urban VPN Proxy 1ClickVPN Proxy Urban Browser Guard Urban Ad Blocker Who is behind. Urban VPN Proxy is operated by Urban Cyber ​​Security Inc., a company linked to BiSciencea data intermediation firm, a data broker, as described by Koi. Koi recalls that BiScience had already been the subject of previous investigations by other cybersecurity experts for the collection and commercialization of browsing data. The report frames this case as an evolution of these practices, going from collecting browsing habits to capturing complete conversations held with artificial intelligence systems. The finding also puts the focus on how the user is informed. The extension generically mentions the processing of data related to AI services … Read more

We thought only marijuana growers were stealing electricity. Now it turns out that supermarkets too

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While the city slows down and most businesses close, some supermarkets continue to operate normally. They open at dawn, keep the lights on and the cold rooms running. For years, this constant consumption barely attracted attention. Until last December 2, a joint action by the Civil Guard, the National Police and the Urban Police revealed that several supermarkets in Barcelona were obtaining electricity through illegal connections to the grid. Under the magnifying glass. It was not a specific case or a single neighborhood. The inspections were distributed across Nou Barris, Sant Andreu, Sant Martí, Gràcia, Eixample and Ciutat Vella. In total, 26 supermarkets, and in 24 of them the electricity did not go through the meter. The Civil Guard opened proceedings against 26 people, of Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationality, for an alleged crime of electricity fraud. They were not small isolated businesses. Most operated as franchise supermarkets, some open 24 hours a day and belonging to well-known chains, according to The Newspaper. The performance, named Nihariwas carried out with the collaboration of Endesa technicians and Labor and Social Security inspectors, and ended with the immediate cutting off of supply in the establishments, as reported by the Urban Guard. Electricity tapped into the network. The investigation began after a complaint filed by Endesa before the Civil Guard, as pointed out The Vanguard. The electricity company had detected a suspicious pattern: businesses that, due to their activity and schedules, recorded anomalous or non-existent consumption in their contracts. Once inside the premises, the technicians verified that the electricity was obtained through illegal connections directly to the general network or public lighting. Manipulations without any type of protection or technical review, designed to avoid paying the energy bill. The fraud amounts to 2.85 million kilowatts, a figure equivalent to the annual consumption of 814 homes. A crime with risk of fire. The Civil Guard remembers, as collected The Newspaperthat illegal connections lack safety systems, adequate insulation and protection against overloads, which significantly increases the possibility of short circuits and fires. The danger is aggravated by the location of many of these supermarkets: commercial basements of residential buildings, with a large influx of people and proximity to garages, storage rooms and common areas. In this sense, the Urban Guard emphasizes that electrical fraud It is not only a crime against the energy system, but also a citizen security problem. Much more than light. The operation uncovered a wide catalog of irregularities. During the inspections, the National Police identified 59 people. Of them, five have been considered victims of labor exploitation and another five are in an irregular administrative situation. In addition, the Barcelona Urban Guard drew up 87 minutes for administrative infractions related to safety, hygiene and regulatory compliance. Among them, blocked emergency exits, absence of fire extinguishers, impractical bathrooms, lack of mandatory signs, sale of expired or spoiled food, and carrying out the activity without a license. For its part, the Civil Guard opened 16 cases due to smuggling, incorrect labeling of products, unmarked surveillance cameras, sales receipts without the businessman’s data and manipulation of scales, with a weighing favorable to the merchant. The absence of a food handling card was also detected in some workers. The same fraud, another showcase. What was previously detected in boarded-up floors and linked industrial warehouses to illegal marijuana cultivation It now appears in all-night supermarkets. The investigation confirm that electrical fraud has ceased to be a strictly clandestine phenomenon and has become established, in some cases, in apparently normal activities facing the public. The scenario changes, but not the crime. And neither are the risks. Image | Release and freepik Xataka | Spain lights up for Christmas, but an uncomfortable doubt arises on some rooftops

We thought we “discovered” fire 50,000 years ago. We didn’t know how wrong we were.

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For decades paleontology has maintained a clear distinction in history: it is one thing to use fire and quite another to create it at will. Something that seems very silly, but is essential since until now the evidence we had on the table pointed to the ability to light a bonfire from scratch They dated back 50,000 years. But this has changed. A big change. A published study in Nature He told us that we were quite wrong about this. A team of researchers has pointed out that hominids already possessed technology to make fire voluntarily 415,000 years ago. That is, 375,000 years earlier than we thought. Although what is surprising is that it was not even our species, but the early Neanderthals. Something that has been known after studying a site found in Barnham in England that has given the necessary evidence to reach the end of the matter. How do we know? At the moment we do not have a time machine to travel to the past and see what happened in our history. That is why this discovery makes it surprising that they used reverse engineering to reach this conclusion. The elements that were available at the site were not just ashes, but the “ignition kit.” Researchers were able to identify fragments of pyrite and flint axes, which can be used to make fire. Although the key here is that the pyrite It is not native to that area, but hominids had to intentionally transport it to make fire voluntarily. The mechanism is, in essence, the prehistoric version of a modern lighter: striking the pyrite with the flint generates sparks capable of igniting dry tinder. Confirming it. With these indications, anyone could think that it could be a random fire, and that is why advanced techniques such as archeomagnetism, micromorphology and spectroscopy were used. In this case, the results indicated that the sediments had been heated to more than 700 ºC, which suggests that it was a concentrated and fed fire. This is also added to the fact that the flint axes presented specific cracks caused by cycles of heat and cooling, indicating that fires were made repeatedly. A big jump. The importance of this discovery is monumental since until now we assumed that complete control of fire was a late skill. This discovery sets the controlled ignition clock back by 375,000 years compared to previous evidence from French sites. This tells us that the minds of early Neanderthals, who were most likely found in that area, were more developed than thought. In this way, transporting pyrite implies long-term planning, which is not an instinctive reaction to the cold, evidencing a cognitive ability to think about the future. The domain of fire. Making fire at will is considered a great evolutionary advance since fire can lengthen the day for nighttime socialization or even cook food to obtain more energy with less digestive effort. This also represents a great geographical expansion for the species, since 400,000 years ago Europe was going through a very important glacial period, which made the heat of fire essential for the species to perpetuate itself. Images | Mladen Borisov In Xataka | Neither lions nor hyenas: at the top of the food chain 30 million years ago, there was a “pig” weighing more than a thousand kilos

We thought that Nike and Adidas were unbeatable. Asics is overtaking them on the right

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Running is more than a fashionable sport, it is a way to achieve social statusa lifestyle that not everyone understands. As with anything that has a large fan base, there is an industry making a profit and in the case of running the number one object of desire is shoes. When we think about sports shoes, the brands that come to mind for almost everyone are Nike and Adidas. However, for a long time have been ceding the throne to new brands. Asics is one of those brands and has already managed to take advantage of them in a highly coveted segment: that of running shoes over $90. Asics is going like a shot. They tell it in Nikkei Asia. In the last investors dayAsics boasted of having been crowned the public’s favorite running shoe brand in the premium segment. In the first nine months of the year they achieved a 17.4% market share in Japan, the United States and Europe, which places it in first place in the ranking. Asics has been able to take advantage of the running boom that occurred in the pandemic and its share price has increased eight-fold in the last five years. In August, Asics reached a market capitalization of 3 trillion yen (about $19.4 billion). Forecasts are very optimistic and indicate that profits this year will grow by 17.9%, reaching 800 billion yen ($5.17 billion). Source: Google Finance Margins. Nike and Adidas remain much larger in terms of total revenue, at $46.3 billion and $27.3 billion respectively. What is truly striking is that Asics’ profit margin is much higher. This year’s forecasts put it at 17.5%, more than double that of Nike, which posted an 8% margin in 2024. Adidas is at 5.6%. Rudder turn. Things weren’t always so good for Asics. In 2012 there was criticism of the brand because its athletes did not achieve good results at the London Olympics, there was even talk that one of them He retired due to a shoe problem. They also did not do very well in Rio 2016 or Tokyo 2020, so they created a new development team taking into account the feedback from the athletes and They defined their strategy for the coming years. Variety. Asics has opted to diversify and offer a wide variety of models within the premium running segment. Where the competition offers a handful of models, Asics has five large categories, each focused on a specific characteristic (rebound, stability, speed…) and within each category it has at least three models, making its catalog one of the most extensive and covering everyone from casual runners to professional athletes. Cheap shoes don’t sell. A curious detail is that, at the same time that they have increased their offer of sneakers above $90, they have reduced their catalog of cheaper models because sales are going down. It so happens that, after the pandemic, the running shoes that sold the most were the cheapest, but now what sells best is high-performance footwear. It makes sense: those who started running in 2020 have greatly improved their level and cheap shoes are no longer worth it. High-end running. Asics’ most cutting-edge running model is the Metaspeed Ray. They cost 300 euros and their main attraction is that they weigh only 129 grams, but the most popular running shoes They are the Novablast, which cost half the price. Nike has always been the benchmark in sports footwear and competes with the Pegasus 41 and the Vaporfly 4, but in the running shoe showcase it is no longer the queen. In addition to Asics, there are other brands such as Brooks, Saucony or Hoka that have also made a name for themselves in recent years. Image | Dmitry on Pexels In Xataka | With the Vaporfly Nike already made us run “faster”: with Amplify it literally wants to give us a motor

Ryanair thought it could build loyalty with a subscription service. Until you’ve remembered what your real business is

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“It has cost more money than it generates” With a brief note and the statements of Dara Brady, CMO of the company, Ryanair has confirmed the closure of Prime, the membership program that sought to retain its customers with advantages that have generated greater costs for the company than benefits. The subscription service of the company has not lasted even a year before its cancellation. Surgical. A test, some results eight months later and a decision: close Prime. Ryanair has confirmed that it is closing its subscription program just eight months after it was launched on the market in a decision that is as firm as it is clean. Subscribers will maintain their benefits but those who had not signed up until last Friday, the 28th, will now no longer be able to do so. They report on the company’s website that customers will maintain their benefits “of exclusive savings on flights and seats for the remaining 12 months of membership.” However, the company’s Prime program already has its days numbered. two million. It doesn’t seem like much for a company like Ryanair, but it speaks volumes about the rigorous cost control that the company manages. The statement includes the words of Dara Brady, CMO of Ryanair, who points out that the program has collected 4.4 million euros in subscriptions but that the benefits delivered are greater than six million euros. That is, in the eight months in which the service has been active, the company has lost less than 250,000 euros per month in the new program. Doesn’t seem like much for a company that has obtained 2,540 million euros in the first quarter of 2025. What did they offer? In its announcement last March, Ryanair offered the following benefits For your subscribers: Priority sale on selected flights Exclusive discounts for some flights Free seat selection for the member and one companion To access these benefits, the client had to pay 79 euros per year. According to the company’s accounts, seat selection alone already amortized the investment from three flights a year. With four flights made per year, we would be amortizing 26 euros on average. The subscription extended for a maximum of one year or 12 flights per year. In addition, I had travel insurance to cancel flights due to injuries or illnesses, the delay of other flights or theft of luggage. Of course, those over 70 years of age were excluded from sickness coverage. Unattractive. “With more than 207 million passengers this year, Ryanair will remain focused on offering the lowest fares in Europe to all our customers, and not just this group of 55,000 Prime members.” The closing of the press release published by the company is a clear confirmation of what happened. The most attractive thing that Prime offered was that the customer could choose (and save money) in the choice of seats but it did not even guarantee that two passengers (one being “non-Prime”) could travel together. It is an incentive that has not been attractive enough for a company where the customer looks for the cheapest way to travel and chooses to add services little by little, depending on how much money you are willing to pay. Nothing premium. Ryanair’s test has convinced the company that it has no room to delve into policies that bring it closer to premium or higher-cost companies. Many of the airlines with higher prices offer cards or loyalty services to keep their customers retained, but this way of acting has not caught on among the Irish company’s customers. The reasons are obvious. When someone chooses Ryanair it is because they expect the lowest possible price for a short flight. And you are willing to sacrifice by traveling with less luggage or accepting 100% digital boarding. You either take it or leave it. And Ryanair knows that the customer will leave it when the competition offers that same flight at a cheaper price. On the other hand, customers who are loyal to higher-cost companies obtain other advantages that do receive greater attention on flights of higher cost and time. For example, loyalty cards companies like Iberia They allow access to VIP lounges or priority boarding, secondary values ​​for those who aspire to travel through Europe at the lowest possible price. To this we must add that the high price paid for the ticket ends up subsidizing these companies for the economic effort they have to make to deliver the benefits to their customers. Photo | Markus Winkler In Xataka | Now we know why Ryanair charges its passengers for everything: it is the key to having a profit of 2,540 million euros

Data centers consume a lot of water, but it is probably less than we thought. It’s a book’s fault

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We can criticize the AI ​​boom for many reasons, but there is one that deeply affected society: the environmental impact, more specifically water consumption of each interaction with the AI, necessary to be able to cool the servers. The problem is realbut everything indicates that it has been magnified and the origin would be a miscalculation in a popular book. the book. It is ‘Empire of AI’ written by Karen Hao and which we already talked about in Xataka. After interviewing hundreds of former employees and people close to the company, the author constructs a detailed and highly critical account of OpenAI, more specifically its CEO Sam Altman. Among the criticisms of this ‘AI empire’, Hao mentions the excessive water consumption of AI, going so far as to state that a data center would consume 1,000 times more water than a city of 88,000 inhabitants. The criticism. Andy Masley tells it in his newsletter The Weird Turn Pro. According to their calculations, in reality 22% of what the city consumes or 3% of the entire municipal system. Furthermore, Masley states that the book confuses water extraction (temporary withdrawal that is returned to the network) with real consumption. The calculation error. The author herself has responded to the article de Masley citing the email he sent to the Municipal Drinking Water and Sewage Service of Chile (SMAPA), from whom he requested information on the total water consumption of Cerrillos and Maipu, the towns he used to make the consumption comparison. The problem is that Hao requested the amount in liters, but they responded without specifying the units and everything indicates that they were actually cubic meters, hence the large discrepancy. The author has consulted again with the SMAPA to clarify this information. It seems that, indeed, there is an error. Estimates. How much water AI consumes has been a recurring question in recent years. In September 2024, a study published by Washington Post He calculated that, to generate a 100-word text with ChatGPT, 519 milliliters of water were needed. The calculation was made taking into account the total annual consumption of data centers and the type of cooling used. It’s truly outrageous. What companies say. AI companies are not very transparent regarding the water and energy consumption of their data centers. The big technology companies give the total annual consumption data in their sustainability reports. We know that a large part of the consumption goes to data centers, but it is not possible to know the real consumption of each search. Google has been the only one that has published specific energy and water consumption data from its AI. According to the company, the water consumption for each Gemini consultation was 0.26 milliliters, or in other words, about five drops of water. We cannot extrapolate this data to all data centers or all companies, but it does seem that previous estimates are quite exaggerated. Water controversy. All of this doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem with water and AI. In fact, the Cerrillos data center where the alleged calculation error is It was never built because the Chilean justice system paralyzed it. due to the climatic impact it was going to have, especially in the context of drought in which the region found itself. Data centers need a lot of water, so much so that initiatives are emerging to cool them submerging them in the ocean. The other problem. Water is just one of the problems data centers face, energy demand poses an even greater challenge. In 2024, Data centers already accounted for 4% of total electricity consumption in the United States and in the surroundings of some of these beasts the electricity bill has risen 267% in recent years. Big tech is already warning: there is no power for so many chips and they are being raised since create nuclear power plants until take their data centers to space. Image | Google In Xataka | What is happening in the US is a warning for Spain: data centers driving up electricity bills in homes

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