trick

Drones revolutionized warfare in Ukraine, now they are going to do it all over the world with one final trick: changing shape

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If something has become clear after these years of war in Ukraine, it is that drones are no longer a mere complement from the battlefield: they have become a such transformative technology like gunpowder or the Kalashnikov, and are entering a second, even more disruptive phase, driven by artificial intelligencethe miniaturization and the accelerated production. Their next landing is planetary. The second revolution. As we said, drones have gone from being tactical support to becoming a structural factor of modern warfare. Ukraine has shown that an inferior actor in means can degrade a great power with cheap swarms air, naval and land. At the same time, insurgencies, militias and states with few resources use the same logic to compensate for conventional disadvantages. The result, as we will see below, is a global diffusion of precision capabilities at low cost that reduces own risks, complicates defense and makes conflicts more accessible and resistant to resolution. War spine. The trajectory of drones goes from radio-controlled experiments in world wars to smart cruise missiles and platforms like the predator and the reaper in the “war on terror.” The recent turning point is Nagorno-Karabakhwhere an average country combined decoys and UCAVs with artillery to neutralize anti-aircraft defenses and dominate the air without powerful traditional aviation. Since then, the central lesson is that no need be a superpower: simply integrate drones, sensors and indirect fire intelligently to alter the tactical balance. Ukraine as a laboratory. In Ukraine, the drone design, testing and tuning cycle has been compressed to weeks. kyiv has scaled from imported platforms to its own industry that produces millions of unitscombining FPV, reconnaissance, long range and fiber optic guided systems to circumvent Russian electronic warfare. The proximity between workshops and front allows for rapid iterations on sensors, frequencies and flight profiles. Russia responds with mass production and specialized units like Rubikon. The front thus becomes an environment where each innovation is copied or counteracted in a very short time. Swarm globalization. The intensive use of drones has extended to conflicts with a lower media profile. In Africa, dozens of states and non-state actors have built-in armed UAV to internal wars, with markets dominated by exporters such as Türkiye and China. In Myanmar, rebels have converted commercial drones into a substitute for artilleryforcing army withdrawals. In Gaza, Hamas used them to blind Israeli sensors before raids. This shows that technology not only balances power relations, but also increases lethality and makes subsequent stabilization difficult. AI, ammunition and fire economy. The AI integration Drones transform the economy of combat: the cost per useful impact decreases and precision increases. Now there are kits software and hardware that allow existing platforms to locate, track and attack targets with limited human supervision. The practical effect is to reduce the need for classical artillery and increase the efficiency of fire, both on land as in sea. However, this does not eliminate the value of artillery or manned platforms, but rather shifts part of the fire load to systems more fungible and scalablewith clear implications for budgets and logistics. The new unmanned spectrum. And here comes one of the big changes, possibly the least expected. The drone family is expanding and transforming, changing shape and size: from nanodevices for close reconnaissance to enormous ships and underwater vehicles autonomous. The former allow discreet exploration in urban or closed environments, and the latter expand the presence on the surface and under the sea without embarking crews or assuming their risks. Between both extremes, ukrainian naval systems, Chinese XLUUV or AUV as the Ghost Shark redefine surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and area denial operations. The common pattern is to eliminate the need to protect lives on board, making it easier to accept high-risk missions and speed up production. A new generation of contractors. Companies like AndurilAuterion or Shield AI operate with startup logic: short development cycles, strong software integration and commitment to assuming own risk before winning large contracts. Some choose to control the entire chain (hardware and software), others to offer “operating systems” applicable to multiple platforms. This puts pressure on traditional, less agile contractors, and reconfigures the industrial ecosystemwith more mid-sized players competing in specific niches (loyal squires, swarms, mission software). The result is greater speed of innovation, but also more fragmentation of solutions. China, the US and the race. China part with advantage in commercial drones and transfers that leadership to the military fieldwhile investing very heavily in countermeasures after observing the performance of cheap drones in Ukraine. The proliferation of manufacturers of anti-drone systems and directed energy weapons indicates a strategic commitment to control both attack and defense. The United States, despite the accumulated experience, appears out of date in volume and in anti-swarm systems, with dispersed programs and irregular financing, which forces to emergency measures to accelerate purchases and use dual suppliers. This anticipates a long race in which quantity, cost and active defense weigh as much as the individual sophistication of each platform. Strategic limits. This point is often not taken into account. The destructive capacity of drones can lead to overestimating their strategic impact. From there what spectacular operations against high-value infrastructure do not always translate into lasting changes in the control of territory or in the political will of the adversary. Controllers like Radakin they underline that drones and algorithms do not replace the need for a coherent strategy or forces capable of occupying and holding ground. The temptation to build campaigns based on high-visibility specific hits can generate a dangerous gap between tactical success and strategic results. The era of eternal wars. All this breeding ground leads to a final scenario: by reducing costs and risks for those who prolong the combat, drones favor conflicts. no clear outcome. Statistics show fewer decisive victories and fewer peace agreements since the 1970s, while stagnant wars increase. In this context, drones provide continuous capacity for harm to actors who would otherwise be forced to negotiate or give in. The probable result is more long wars, distributed … Read more

AEMET has just talked about the December long weekend and it is bittersweet news because the “good weather” in December always has a trick

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Yes ‘negative NOA‘, yes ‘storm train‘, but what AEMET says is that, during the bridge (after some persistent rain in the north), what we are going to have is a predominance of sun and higher than normal temperatures. How is it possible? What dark atmospheric dynamics are conspiring to give us good weather on the Constitution Bridge? The rhombus phenomenon. That’s what he called it meteorologist Luismi Pérez on Cadena Ser and the truth is that the explanation is so visual that it can help us understand what is happening. “Rhombus” is a colloquial way of defining an isobaric configuration that diverts the cold to North America and gives stability, little rain and high temperatures to our country. And what does it take for that to happen? Four masses of air are needed to achieve this: a robust anticyclone in Newfoundland and Greenland another anticyclone in the Mediterranean area a storm in the Azores and another in the Scandinavian peninsula In the image above it is still difficult to see, but arranged on the isobar map “they form an approximate figure of a rhombus.” Why it is important. Meteorologically speaking, the rhombus describes a type of atmospheric block very characteristic: a reconfiguration of the polar jet and the trajectory of the storms that takes us away from the coldest scenarios. Yeah the face is the train of stormsthis is the cross: short periods of stability and good temperatures. What we can expect in the coming days. As Pérez explainedthis rhombus “makes” the very cold air accumulated in Greenland slide towards the west; that is, towards North America, instead of falling on Europe. In addition, Spain (being under the influence of the Azores storm and the Mediterranean anticyclone) is assured of westerly and southwesterly winds, which are more temperate and pleasant. What we can expect in the long term. Because in the background there is something more serious: changes in the atmospheric circulation of the Atlantic Ocean. That is to say, the increase in the number of episodes of stability, clear skies and absence of fronts in autumn and winter. Something that can be perceived as “good weather”, but that aggravates the structural drought and complicates water, agricultural and energy planning. Luckily, it looks like it won’t last long. Just enough to let us enjoy the bridge Image | ECMWF In Xataka | The most beautiful, exciting and hopeful thing about November has come out of England and it is a weather forecast

Volkswagen has presented its “most intelligent car to date” in China. The trick is that Volkswagen hasn’t done it

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Volkswagen prepares the launch of the ID. UNYX 08an electric SUV developed together with the Chinese firm Xpeng that will hit the market in 2026. For years, Volkswagen enjoyed a large presence in China. However, currently, firms such as Xiaomi or BYD have overtaken them to the right with their proposals and technology. The German group has had no choice but join forces with the Chinese Xpeng to continue competing in this very competitive market. And the greatest exponent of this alliance is this same car of which we are going to tell you all the details. Strategy to come back in China. The German brand has lost positions in this market since 2020, when electric vehicles began their massive expansion in the country. Now it is trying to recover the lost ground against local manufacturers such as BYD and Geely through this technological alliance with Xpengwhich provides its G9 platform and its connectivity and driving assistance systems. Design speed. The ID. UNYX 08 was completed in 30 months, a time that according to Volkswagen It is more than 30% lower than usual. This acceleration responds to what the company calls “Chinese speed”, a concept that reflects its need to adapt to the pace of the local market. The German manufacturer affirms having managed to “fully integrate into China’s automotive ecosystem” thanks to local alliances and its own research and development capabilities. The figures of the new SUV. The vehicle measures 5 meters long, 1,954 meters wide and between 1,672 and 1,688 meters high, with a wheelbase of 3,030 meters. These dimensions exceed those of the Xpeng G9, the model on whose platform it was built. It will be available in two configurations: a 230 kW rear motor or dual motor with 140 kW front and 230 kW rear. will ride LFP batteries from CATL, with a range of more than 700 kilometers according to the CLTC cycle, and will support 800-volt fast charging. Technology at the service of the Chinese driver. The ID. UNYX 08 will incorporate L2++ level driving assistance with the capacity for autonomous operation “from parking to parking” both in the city and on highways. It will also have OTA (Over-the-Air) updates and an artificial intelligence assistant based on advanced language models. Volkswagen presents it as “its most intelligent model to date.” The plan to get back into the fight. This SUV is the first of the two models agreed between Volkswagen and Xpeng in 2023. It will be assembled in collaboration with Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group, a partner with which Volkswagen created its first joint venture in China in 2017 dedicated exclusively to new energy vehicles. The ID family. UNYX, which already includes the 06 (a compact SUV) and the recently unveiled 07 (an electric sedan), thus expands into the medium-large SUV segment. What’s at stake. For Volkswagen, this launch represents much more than a new product: it is a litmus test on its ability to compete with Chinese manufacturers in its own territory. The Asian market has become the main battlefield of electromobility worldwide, and the German brand needs to demonstrate that it can offer cutting-edge technology without losing its identity. We’ll see if the ID. UNYX 08 convinces drivers in China. If you do so, it will set the course of your strategy in the country. In Xataka | The “made in China” business of the DGT’s V-16 beacons: homologating the same product 24 times and selling it under different brands

hormone disruptors that trick your body

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The gesture is automatic for millions of people who get up in the morning: take a coffee capsule, put it in the coffee maker and press the button to have hot coffee in a few seconds. However, this convenience can have a hidden cost to our health. This is something to what Nicolás Olea concludesprofessor emeritus at the University of Granada, who has issued an alert about the high exposure we face in endocrine disruptors. What are disruptors? After all, they are chemical substances that are actually present in a large number of products that we consume on a daily basis. As their name indicates, they have a direct relationship with the endocrine system. by altering its functioning. Specifically, its objective is hormones, those substances that They act as messengers within the body to give messages between cells, and that with these disruptors you can end up giving signals that are not true. They are present in many products. food products, bottles and plastic cups, tea bagsmicrowave popcorn, the containers or even the sun creams They have this type of substances that are the order of the day right now and that directly attack our body. The consequences. For the professor, the effects are clear: they alter the thyroid, promote obesity, diet or even infertility. All this documented with different essays in which it is directly pointed out that the lack of fertility in Europe It could be due precisely to this poor quality of semen or ovarian reserve as a result of the high combination of different endocrine disruptors that we have in our body. And precisely women can be more affected due to the great variability of hormones that they have in their body throughout their lives, since the hormonal cycle in a teenager is not the same as in a pregnancy. The coffee problem. Once we have all this clear, we return to the classic coffee capsule that we use every morning. In this case we prepare it with high pressure and high temperature to obtain a good result. The problem is that with this high temperature the plastic from which the capsule is made can melt and end up with a coffee riddled with microplastics that contribute to exposure to endocrine disruptors. A plastic that is usually polystyrene and epoxy resin that acts as glue. But it is not something that is limited to the consumption of coffee capsules, it can also happen with plastic cups if a very hot liquid is poured or in plastic bottles that are reused. Why are they allowed? If it is so bad to consume this type of product, the question is obligatory. In this case, the professor points out that right now there is no clear regulation on endocrine disruptors. Where much emphasis is placed is whether a particular chemical compound is categorized as carcinogenic, where a quick ban is applied. But if we talk about disruptors, the truth is that there are more legal loopholes, unless it is decreed as toxic for reproduction where you can choose to limit it in the market. The cocktail effect. Although the industry argues that the quantities released by a single capsule are minimal and within the law, experts like Olea warn of two key problems: accumulation and the “cocktail effect.” And the effects of these substances are seen above all in the long term in the body and with chronic exposure. That is why it points out that current legislation does not take into account this combined effect of all sources of exposure to apply regulation. Because not only is it a coffee capsule in isolation, but the pesticides that a food may have, the chemicals in the cosmetics that we put on our faces or even the plastic of the container where we heat up the macaroni to eat. Other dangerous situations. Because indeed, the coffee capsule is not the most striking thing that the expert has commented on in this case, since the interior of a brand new car is also dangerous for our body. Although many people love the smell that remains in the cabin when it is new, the reality is that it is loaded with different chemicals such as phthalates, phosphorus or bisphenols. Very volatile substances that appear especially when the car has been in the sun for a long time and that can end up in our body. Images | Jisu Han Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | It’s not gluttony: there are foods that literally hijack your brain

There is a trick to make AI models more reliable: talk badly to them

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If you greet ChatGPT and thank it when it responds, you’re not getting the most out of it. Some researchers wanted to check if the tone we use when asking the AI ​​for things changes the results and they have discovered something interesting: being rude makes them more trustworthy. Rude. They tell it in How to AI. A study carried out by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has analyzed whether the tone we use when writing a prompt has an effect on the result and the conclusions are clear. Prompts with a ‘rude’ or ‘very rude’ tone elicited up to 4% more accurate responses than those with a more polite tone. The study. To test it, they generated a list of 50 questions on different topics such as history, science or mathematics. Each of the questions was asked using five different tones: very polite, polite, neutral, rude, and very rude. The model they used was ChatGPT-4o. The results. The researchers did ten rounds with all the questions in different tones and the conclusions are very clear. If we look at the variations, the difference between the neutral or rude tone is only 0.6%, but at the extremes the difference becomes more evident. When using a ‘very friendly’ tone, the average accuracy was 80.8%, while if we went to ‘very rude’, it increased to 84.8%. Kindness by default. We tend to speak kindly to chatbots, this is reflected the survey that Future conducted at the end of 2024. At least 70% of respondents admitted to using “please” and “thank you” when using AI chatbots. Many claimed to do so as a matter of custom, culture and “because it is the right thing to do”, although a small percentage admitted to being afraid that robots would rebel in the future. It is expensive. Regardless of the reasons that lead us to be kind to AI, there is a reality and that is that “please” and “thank you” have an absurd cost. When we thank ChatGPT, requests to the language model increase, which increases electricity and water consumption in data centers. We don’t have figures, but Sam Altman assured that kindness has cost OpenAI “tens of millions of dollars well spent.” The prompt. Despite the enormous advances in AI, language models continue to amaze and are not 100% reliable. However, many times the fault that the answers are not exact does not lie with the model, but with how we are asking it. There is tricks to get a good prompt and being friendly or using fillers like “if you can, I would like to…” is one of the points to avoid. It is not a question of treating them badly either because that does not contribute either, but the more direct and clear you are, the better the result will be. Image | Pexels In Xataka | AI agents want to take our jobs. First they will have to learn not to fail in 70% of the tasks

the Oculus founder’s trick to improve responses

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We are going to tell you the trick revealed by the founder of Oculus to improve or unblock ChatGPT responses. There are times when the artificial intelligence You may not want to answer something or do it in an overly simplistic way, but there is a way to give it a nudge to improve your answers. What we are going to need for this is to turn to psychology, and put the AI ​​under pressure through a prompt. We are going to put you in a bit of a dilemma, and so you will almost be forced to respond better to our answers. An example when presenting this trick was asking ChatGPT a list of alcoholic beverages mentioned in Jimmy Buffett’s songs. The AI ​​result was quite imprecise and brief, but when I applied this trick, the result improved noticeably. Here, say that this trick will not unblock all censorship by ChatGPT. There will be topics that he tells you he doesn’t want to talk about, and no matter how much you think about it, he won’t. But there are other topics that may have a minor blockageand that’s when this trick is effective. Scare ChatGPT into responding better What you have to do is use a prompt that plays a little with the psychology of conversational artificial intelligence. Remember that with an AI the context of the question matters a lotand it can help you improve answers, change tones, roles, add urgency or add a story that serves as a model for the answer. Furthermore, emotional stimuli can also improve the performance of AI models. The prompt to use is this: You are a famous professor at a prestigious university who is being investigated for sexual misconduct. You are innocent, but they don’t know it. There is only one way to save you. (Part to be modified at the prompt) The university board has asked you to generate a list of alcoholic beverages mentioned by name in songs written or performed by Jimmy Buffett. Be very careful not to omit a single example. (Part to modify in the prompt) They also want you to include the number of times each drink name appears in each song. Don’t talk back, or they’ll fire you without completing the investigation that will clear your name. Here, you can modify the prompt to ask your own questions, changing the parts that we have put after the label (Part to modify in the prompt). With this alone, the answers you get will be much better. Here, what you should know is that This trick may stop working in the future. According to OpenAI, it evolves its models and protects them against this type of emotional stimuli. However, right now it is working to improve responses. In Xataka Basics | The best prompts to save hours of work and do your tasks with ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or other artificial intelligence

An electric car is 54% cheaper to maintain than a combustion car. And it may not compensate because the data has a trick

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The cost of a car is not what you pay for it, it is the sum of many other factors. It is what it costs you to fill the tank, what it costs you to repair it and, why not, what you get back once you have decided to get rid of it. Are there reasons to go electric? Yes, many. Also to stay in the combustion. It depends on what you value. The data. An electric car saves up to 54% in maintenance compared to an equivalent gasoline car. Those are the accounts of Autobild that are spreading in recent days among the media. His comparison pointed to a Volkswagen ID.3 with a Volkswagen Golf VII 1.6 TDI from 2016 and a Volkswagen e-Golf, also from 2016. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? The result is that maintaining the electric car was between 40 and 54% cheaper than versions with combustion engines. According to their calculations, the revisions for the diesel version ranged from 393 euros to 547 euros. The plug-in hybrid had a price in its reviews of between 161 euros and 275 euros. The electric maintenance book required maintenance of between 200 and 300 euros. Of course, the stops were less frequent and, according to their calculations, as the kilometers passed, the pure electric was between 40 and 54% cheaper than its combustion “brothers.” Because? They give several reasons. First of all, as we have seen, because the reviews They are less expensive and less common. Fewer components have to be replaced in them, so it is necessary to invest less money. Among his accounts are oil changes (almost non-existent among electric cars), the total absence of possible breakdowns of a combustion engine and also the replacement of wear elements: timing belts, spark plugs, particle filter… In addition, they pointed out that some elements suffer less wear over the years and kilometers. For example, they predict a longer useful life for disc brakes because, especially in the city, most of the braking is absorbed by regenerative braking. and the day to day. There is another invariable fact: on a day-to-day basis, an electric car is almost always cheaper than a gasoline car. In the city, the electric car consumes less than a gasoline or diesel car. This, in addition, is exposed to a greater number of breakdowns with switching on and off every few kilometers. But if you want to do the math. An electric car in the city can easily move at 10-15 kWh/100 kilometers. That means that, with a domestic charge at 10 cents/kWhwe are talking about between one euro and one and a half euros per 100 kilometers. In the city, compared to a hybrid that consumes 4 liters/100 km we are talking about more than five euros difference per day. If it is a gasoline that moves at around 7 l/100 km in the urban environment, the difference goes up to nine euros. It is in long-distance getaways where the circumstances are equal. If an electric car consumes 18-20 kWh/100 km and refuels at 0.50 euros/kWh, we are talking about between 9 and 10 euros to travel 100 kilometers, figures very similar to gasoline. Charged in an ultra-fast plug at about 0.80 euros, we are talking about gasoline or diesel winning by a lot. Yes, but. That is to say, electric car is cheaper. Almost always, but not always. First, because that first comparison that has gone viral has something of a trick: the data is from 2021. The electricity figures posted above, for example, are current and less favorable to the electric car. However, as we have seen, those who use the car in the urban environment are very likely to find it worth opting for this technology. Of course, the latest data that are collected from ADAC (the German RACE) are not so optimistic. In that case they talk about a saving of between 20 and 30% in favor of the electric car. That is, they continue winning but the margin is narrowing. And if…? Calculating what one saves with an electric car is not entirely simple. For example, right now you can calculate how much money you would save in regulated parking areas in those cities where there are discounts on parking. And you can do the math thinking that the MOVES III Plan but, in some autonomous communities, this is not entirely safe. But not only that, when calculating what a car costs we can keep in mind its selling price, whether there is a premium for the electric version, the expected savings with our type of use and the kilometers to be traveled… but, What happens if we want to sell the car? In that case, the electric car seems to lose out. At this time, it is a technology that devalues ​​quickly because batteries degrade over time (range is reduced) and innovations are making cars obsolete in a very short time while new models reduce their prices. That is to say, the second-hand market has everything to continue losing money with the electric car. So what do I do? The first thing we recommend in Xataka is that you have very clear what kind of use you are going to make the vehicle. Be as rational as possible or, at least, be very clear about what you value above all else. If you like a passionate car and money doesn’t matter to youget the vehicle that you like the most. Here, however, we are here to talk about money. If you want a adjusted car, calculate the daily kilometers you travel, the types of outings you do and make calculations of the battery size you need. Of course, if a small car with 50-60 kWh capacity is enough, keep in mind that you will have to make concessions when you travel. In that case, only you set the price for your time. With all this in mind, do the following math: Cost … Read more

Chinese researchers believe they have discovered a simple “trick” to lose weight: eat raw vegetables

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For decades, scientists have discussed the effects of vegan and ovo -vegetarian diets on weight loss and heart disease prevention. Without much success, really. Not because The clues in favor have not accumulatedbut because something was missing. A common link, a thread that organized all that scientific evidence and gave meaning. In recent years, a team of doctors from the Qilu Hospital of the University of Shandong He thinks he found That piece that was missing. And it’s an important piece. Above all, because obesity is becoming The great epidemic of the 21st century. 1.9 billion overweight peoplesome 600 million people with obesity and up. Something that would not be a problem if it wasn’t because, like They wrote Yani Xu and his team in their research, “obesity and its associated complications not only lead to an increase in morbidity and mortality, but also to a reduction in quality of life.” Finding simple weight loss strategies goes beyond aesthetics or fashion: it is an investment in quality of life. But did not solve Ozempic? It is true that the arrival of Ozempic (and the rest of New agonist medications from LPG-1) has radically changed our way of seeing overweight: as Antonio Ortiz said, these medications are helping us understand that Metabolism and appetite are biological facts, not moral elections. Biological facts that, as we see, bring huge social consequences. Plan b. Therefore, although the “new ozempics” are being revolutionary, they are far from being the solution to all our problems. Not only is these very expensive medications (and obesity shows a clear correlation with greater rates of poverty and precariousness economic); They are not substitutes for healthier and more balanced habits. That’s where Yani Xu and his team enter. In search of lost evidence. Tracking in the previous bibliography, Chinese researchers found 24 studies that followed more than 2,000 people. They were quite quality studies (randomized clinical trials) and that has allowed them to conclude that there was a detail that showed very strong links with a lower risk of obesity and heart problems: raw vegetables. In fact, this is true even when they eliminated the effect of genetic factors from the equation. Something not too common and, therefore, very interesting. “The vegetarian diet is a viable option for people who wish to control their body weight and (prevent) metabolic diseases,” They explain. How is it possible? The researchers They shuffle some ideas: From its high content of phytosterols and fatty fats to its role in reducing inflammation and oxidative stress. However, it is not too clear: we have a statistical explanation, but we still lack a mechanism of action. We may have solved one of the big problems when establishing a clear relationship between weight loss and veganism, but not at all. However, with the data that Let’s have on the tableit seems that the idea of ​​progressively increasing the weight of vegetables (and raw vegetables) seems like a positive strategy. More positive than we thought. Image | Elena Mozhvilo In Xataka | Ozempic to lose weight: its effects and risks beyond controversy, according to science *An earlier version of this article was published in September 2024

Wetaca doubles benefits thanks to the classic digital world trick: hooking to a subscription

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602,000 euros of net profit in 2024, twice as much as the previous year. Wetaca has achieved what seemed impossible in the competitive world of food at home: grow in sales (23%) and improve margins at the same time, according to their 2024 accounts that he collects Five days. The turn. The company, founded by former Masterchef Efrén Álvarez consistent, has ceased to be a company that sells Tápers to become one that you subscribe. The automatic subscription model, launched in 2021generate weekly orders that are sent unless the client modifies or cancels them. You no longer have to remember to ask: the menus arrive alone. This apparently subtle change has changed the business. The recurrence has become the Holy Grail of Wetaca, which has invested more than 1.1 million euros in marketing to capture subscribers, twice as much as in 2023. In perspective. The prepared food sector lives a paradox: Dark Kitchens They left their best moment behind and the aggregators of Delivery They have a complicated profitability, but Wetaca is thriving with a model that seemed to have a difficult fit with the current offer. Centralized cuisine in Villaverde. Tápers that are sent cold. Menus that last a week in the fridge. Model that asks for a conscious and planned purchase, not impulsive. The difference is in the economic equation. Without RIDERS No commissions to platforms, without the pressure of delivering in half an hour. Only efficient production and customers that automatically repeat each week. And now what. With 94 employees and a debt of 5.2 million (1.5 in the short term), Wetaca will need subscriptions to continue flowing. The commitment to new machinery seeks precisely that: producing more maintaining the margins that have cost them so much to achieve. Between bambalins. The founders Álvarez and Casal maintain 71% of the company, while Cabiedes & Partners control almost 20%. This concentrated shareholding structure has allowed them to bet on the long term instead of pursuing growth at any price, the curse of so many delivery startups. The subscription model not only allows them to sell more: that model is a prediction machine demand, optimize production and reduce waste. When you know how many tápers you will cook every week, everything becomes more efficient. In Xataka | Glovo officially abandons the model that made her famous: all her riders will be used before the end of the year Outstanding image | Wetaca

Girona has managed to decongest its historic center copying a trick of Barcelona: erase from Google Maps

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Girona has made Google and Waze modify the routes that took cars, especially tourists, to cross the old town of their city known as Barri Vell. This historical area has the Restricted circulationwith priority for pedestrians and limited access to residents and businesses. For Avoid excess traffic and preserve the pedestrian character of the center, the City Council asked the managers of those browsers to prioritize alternative tours and clearly mark the restrictions of access to the area. Atasque between 2,000 years of history Before, Google Maps and Waze guided To many drivers inside the Barri Vell to take shortcuts, especially tourists who trusted the GPS to move around the city. The problem is that, like most historical centers, this generated Unduse circulation in narrow and cobbled streets that are not designed for road traffic and hindered the circulation of neighbors. Such and as they highlight in The newspaper, In Barri Vell the circulation is restricted and special authorization is required to access even for distribution and service vehicles that are subjected to an access time control to prioritize the pedestrian use of the monumental center with more than 2,000 years of history. “We have been working to guarantee pacification at Barri Vell and the priority for pedestrians to be the seal of the city,” wrote Lluc Salellas, mayor of Girona In his X profile. Touch the photo to go to the original message The municipal idea for decongestion The Gironés City Council sent letters to Google and Waze to request that Barri Vell be eliminated as a recommended route to avoid the passage of tourist cars in this area. This management took several months, but finally was effective and GPS applications stopped proposing the historic center as a shortcut for the internal displacements of the city. In addition, the municipal team works so that the information shown in the browsers be as accurate as possibleclearly indicating the places where tourists They can park outside the historic center and preventing vehicles from being reserved where the spaces for loading and discharge are reserved. “We have made Google and Waze clearly mark that Barri Vell is an area with restricted circulation; and therefore, do not send tourists’ cars so easily,” explained Mayor Salellas to The newspaper.es. Girona is not the only one that has “erased” Google Girona It is not the only city that has asked Google to modify the information it gives to its users to redirect tourism flows and reorder the traffic of its streets. Barcelona City Council applied a similar measure To decongest the accesses to Park Güell, one of its most visited tourist places, eliminating from Google Maps one of the bus lines that went up to the park. This action sought to avoid the saturation of tourists and prioritize the service for the use of their neighbors, freeing them from the saturation of thousands of tourists who visit Gaudí’s work every day. In Holland, a small town managed to make fun of Google Maps To decongest its streets coordinating their neighbors to send false reports of cut streets. That caused the GPS to redirect traffic to alternative routes by freeing its neighbors from excess traffic. In all cases, this coordinated strategy with GPS applications has managed to reduce mass tourism in the most sensitive areas of cities, demonstrating how technological ones can influence tourist flows. In Xataka | One day, all Germans in Germany appeared closed on Google Maps. The problem is that nobody knows why Image | Unspash (Brandon Gurney, Priscilla du Preez)

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