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four times more visitors than neighbors and a turn to luxury

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Ibiza is one of the biggest holiday destinations in Spain. Also one of the places that most clearly suffers the effects of mass tourism. That’s nothing new. The overcrowding of the island has generated a billionaire businessbut it has also led the neighbors to go out into the street (same as in other points of the Balearic Islands) to denounce its effects, especially in the real estate market. There is, however, a point in Ibiza where the weight of the tourism and its tendencies are felt in a special way: It’s Canarin Santa Eulària. In a way it acts as a huge tourist ‘laboratory’. One town, two realities. If something characterizes the great destinations (in Spain and any other place in the world) it is that their routine is very different depending on the time of year we are talking about. The high season has little to do with the low season. In It’s Canar That dichotomy is felt in a special way, as just remembered elDiario.es, which has revealed a peculiarity of the neighborhood: its tourist offer quadruples (at least) the number of residents registered. One figure: 7,600. According to the Hotel Federation Fehifin the area there are 7,645 tourist places, four times more than the number of residents registered (1,689). As a reference, the ‘Balearic Sea Report’ estimates that in 2023 they will operate in the entire Balearic Islands. 607,500 places legal tourist activities, while the INE counted in the region just over 1.2 million of residents. Although to the ‘legal’ accommodation offer of the ‘Balearic Sea Report’ we must add the one that operates outside the lawthe regional ‘photo’ is different from that of es Canar. “A ghost town”. This duality between summer and low season is deduced from the statistics, but above all it is felt on the street, as recognize some residents to elDiario.es. “What shocks us the most is winter because Canar becomes a ghost town,” says a neighbor. As temperatures and daylight hours rise, the neighborhood itself is transformed. “It’s a bit overwhelming because… Who isn’t overwhelmed when suddenly there are a lot of people in the area where they live?” he adds. In winter, even the surrounding hospitality offer collapses, which is reduced to its minimum expression. Beaches, market… and relaxation. It is not Canar (far from it) the only area from Ibiza or the Balearic Islands whose routine is marked by the flow of tourists. Its offer, however, has made it a popular destination among those looking for family-friendly tourism. To your beach offer adds its urban center, the port, the beach bars, activities and one of its great attractions: the hippie markets. “The truth is that it is tourism, as far as possible, very familiar. (almost all are British families) and respectful. Since COVID-19 it seems that there is also more national tourism, it is not like in Sant Antoni or Platja d’en Bossa”, comment the same resident. Part of this influx of visitors who choose to stay in es Canar do so in large two- and three-star tourist complexes. Changing the model. If the neighborhood is interesting, beyond its registration data or tourist offer, it is because it also reflects a trend that can be seen in other tourist areas of Spain: the commitment to tourism premiumthe one with the greatest purchasing power. It is something that is detected clearly in Madrid or Barcelona, ​​where have been shot luxury hotels and cruises. In recent years, businesses focused on a clientele looking for a higher category have been opening in the surroundings of es Canar and, if everything goes according to plan, in a short time the neighborhood itself will strengthen its offer in that sector. “Non-shrill luxury”. a few days ago Ibiza Newspaper revealed that work has started to build a new five-star hotel in the area. The idea is to provide it with 116 rooms and for it to open for the 2027 season. Its promoters they are already negotiating to choose an operator, but they advance that, although they want to target a higher segment, they will bet on “non-strident luxury.” “This is not going to be a hotel with rooms at 2,000 euros a night. It is a five-star hotel but not very luxurious. We do not aspire to have a media chef.” Images | Wikipedia 1 and 2 Via | elDiario.es In Xataka | Mallorca has been the dream of thousands of European expats for years. Now it has its own ‘Little Sweden’

Brands are eager to turn our cars into a subscription service. Honda has reminded us again

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Buying a car today can be a whole box of surprises. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes, as recently happened to a Honda Passport owner, for the worse. And just as has shared user on Reddit, the function to open your garage that previously came as standard, has become an option included in a subscription package offered by the firm. The story has some nuances that are worth mentioning, but the reality is that this example has become another reflection of something that has been happening for years in the automobile industry: manufacturers are determined to turn your vehicles into recurring revenue platformsand software is your main tool to achieve this. From opening the garage with a little button in the car, to doing it from an app The Honda Passport in question has removed the rearview mirror with integrated Homelink, the system that allows the car to be synchronized with the garage receiver via radio. In your place now offers the function as standard through the MyQ applicationintegrated into HondaLink. For it to work, the user needs an internet connection in the car, Apple CarPlay or Android Autoand you must also install a MyQ receiver connected to the home Wi-Fi at home. The result is a system that provides more technical complexity to do something that was previously solved with a small radio control attached to the visor. Sling confirmed According to CarBuzz, customers receive a free 30-day trial period, after which they must contract a three- or five-year subscription. If they don’t, the feature is still accessible through the standalone MyQ app, and Honda also sells a rearview mirror with Homelink as an additional accessory for around $170. That is to say: What used to come as standard now has to be paid separately. The main advantage of the new system (being able to check if you have left the garage open from anywhere with a connection) makes some practical sense. But the price of the subscription, between $129 and $179 for three or five years, plus the possible connectivity costs of the vehicle itself, turns something so simple into a payment chain that is difficult to justify. BMW and heated seats: the case that started it all To understand where we are today with the issue of subscription services in vehicles, it is worth remembering the most talked about episode in recent years. In 2022, BMW began to offer in some markets (South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany, among others) the possibility of activate seat heating through a monthly subscription about 18 dollars a month. The problem here is that the hardware is already installed in the car from the factory, and it is the owners who had to pay a monthly subscription to unlock this feature. Both the press and the users attacked them so much that they had to back away. In September 2023, BMW Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Pieter Nota will confirmed to Autocar the end of that practice: “What we no longer do, and it is a well-known example, is to offer seat heating in this way. Either it comes from the factory or it doesn’t.” But BMW did not abandon the subscription model, but rather reoriented it. The brand confirmed that it would continue to expand the services and functions it offers through subscriptions, but that it will stop charging for hardware functions already installed in the vehicle. After the move, the firm continued with its plans to add subscription services, but this time only in its software, such as driving or parking assistance systems. Through your ConnectedDrive platformoffers functions such as adaptive suspension, high beam assistant, adaptive cruise control or even welcome animations with the lights, through subscription. Mercedes: up to 80 horses per subscription BMW’s example ended up spreading to many other firms. Mercedes-Benz launched its “Acceleration Increase On-Demand” function in 2023 for the electric EQE and EQS models: for $60 per month or $600 per year in the case of the EQE, or $90 per month and $900 per year in the EQS, owners could unlock between 60 and 80 additional horsepower and cut the acceleration time from 0 to 100 km/h by up to one second. They also added a single payment option for life, which is around 2,000 or 3,000 euros, depending on the model. Mercedes’ logic with which it tried to distance itself from BMW’s case was that standard hardwired functions, such as seat heating, would not be offered as “digital extras”, leaving subscriptions for software upgrades. However, the principle is the same– The car has the necessary hardware, but the feature is blocked until the user pays. Mercedes-Benz aimed reach 2,000 million euros of revenue from software subscriptions in 2025, with plans to reach between 7,000 and 9,000 million euros before 2030. This growth would be driven above all by its own operating system (MB.OS) and its autonomous driving system. If we think about it coldly, electric cars usually have lower maintenance costs than combustion cars, which reduces the income of dealers and the brands themselves. Software subscriptions are presented as a way to compensate for that loss. Tesla, GM and Ford: the model that already works Tesla has been the benchmark for this model for years, and in its case the discussion has important nuances. Your system Full Self-Driving Supervised (supervised autonomous driving) could be purchased for about $8,000 as a one-time payment or as a monthly subscription. And we tell it in the past tense because earlier this year, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla would offer this mode only as a subscription service and not as a one-time payment. The good news is that those who had paid to get the lifetime feature will continue to have this feature. The subscription option costs about $99 per month. Perhaps the main difference here with BMW or Mercedes is that Tesla updates its software continuously with new capacities, which gives greater meaning to the recurring fee model. In the case of General Motors, … Read more

97% of a key mineral for Europe comes from China. Spain has a plan of 197 million to turn it around

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Constant technological development has unleashed a silent but relentless geopolitical war. At the center of the target are rare earths and critical minerals, essential for manufacturing everything from mobile phones to electric cars or wind turbines. Nowadays, how to explain Europa PressEurope is in a situation of extreme vulnerability: 97% of the magnesium we consume comes from China and 98% of the borate we import from Türkiye. However, the solution to this deep dependence could be buried under Spanish soil. A new plan. As detailed in the National Mining Exploration Program 2026-2030 (PNEM), the official document promoted by the Government of Spain20 of the 34 raw materials that the European Union classifies as fundamental have been detected in the Iberian Peninsula. Of them, 17 are considered strategic due to their high technological and defense impact. To map and take advantage of this “treasure”, the Executive has launched an ambitious plan. The financing table of the PNEM itself projects a total investment of 197 million euros for the five-year period 2026-2030, adding public financing, aid and private investment that is expected to be mobilized. A breath for Europe and an opportunity for Spain. The European roadmap, crystallized in the Fundamental Raw Materials Regulation (Critical Raw Materials Act or CRMA), is very clear: guarantee access to a safe and diversified supply. By 2030, the European Union has set a goal of extracting at least 10%, processing 40% and recycling 25% of its domestic demand for these materials. In this context, Spain is not a secondary actor, but is the only producer of strontium in Europe, hosting 15% of the world’s reserves in the Montevives and Escúzar basin in Granada, and holds the position of second largest copper producer on the continent. according to data provided by Europa Press. The main focus of exploration is located in the Variscan or Iberian Massif, an extensive geological strip that crosses the west of the peninsula from Galicia to Andalusia, passing through Cantabria, Asturias, Castilla y León and Extremadura. The official document highlights, within this great massif, the so-called Central Ibérica, Ossa-Morena and South Portuguesa Zones as priority areas for general exploration. The private sector takes positions. On a practical level, intentions are already being translated into business movements on the ground. In Extremadura the Junta has granted a license to explore an area of ​​49,500 hectares in the Cáceres regions of Los Ibores and Campo de Arañuelo. In Andalusia, specifically in Jaén, the Australian company Osmond Resources will promote the Orion projectcovering 228 square kilometers in the former mining region of Linares-La Carolina to search for unusually high concentrations of rutile, zircon and rare earths such as neodymium. For its part, the European Commission has already blessed seven strategic projects in Spanish territory to protect the supply, located in enclaves of Ciudad Real, Orense, Cáceres, Badajoz, Huelva and Seville. Cutting-edge technology versus “pick and shovel”. The National Mining Exploration Program does not contemplate blindly digging holes. The Ministry’s text outlines six great performances interconnected to locate these raw materials. The process will begin with an exhaustive review of historical data and geoscientific reports, followed by the preparation of highly detailed geological-mining cartography. From there, technology will take over. Geochemical soil prospecting campaigns and complex isotopic analyzes will be carried out to find anomalies in the terrain. In addition, cutting-edge geophysical techniques will be deployed, using everything from airborne gravimetry and magnetometry equipment (planes and drones), to remote sensing using high-resolution hyperspectral and satellite images provided by the European Space Agency. All of this will be complemented by carrying out physical surveys to confirm the mining interest of the anomalies. Finally, as the official plan highlights, all this huge amount of data will be processed using algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning to generate predictive models of mineralization. The inevitable clash: Mining vs. Biodiversity. However, technology collides head-on with strict environmental reality. The clearest example is in Campo de Montiel (Ciudad Real). There, the company Quantum Minería has been trying to exploit a promising monazite deposit to extract rare earths. But the project has encountered strong neighborhood opposition due to the very high water consumption it requires and an unexpected defender: the iberian lynx. The recovery of this feline’s territories in the area has become a major legal obstacle for the mining company, paralyzing permits due to fear of destroying its habitat. Although before the environmental alarms go off, it is important to make a fundamental point: this National Program serves to know what we have, it is not an authorization to dig it up. The Ministry’s own document clarifies that the plan does not establish “binding or indicative objectives” for exploitation. That is, it is a purely prospective roadmap and data collection that does not compromise or zone the territory to open real mines. The mine is in the “garbage”. Faced with this paralysis and the immense difficulty of opening new mines in natural areas, Spain has an ace up its sleeve: secondary mining and the circular economy. The National Program reserves one of its main transversal lines to respond to article 27 of the European regulations (CRMA), thoroughly investigating the economic potential of mining waste facilities that were closed or abandoned in the past. The Ministry document remember thatalready in the 80s, an inventory was prepared that cataloged 21,673 waste structures (rafts and waste dumps) spread throughout the national territory. Now, the State’s objective is to review this catalog and promote geochemical characterization work to recover those fundamental raw materials that, at the time, were not of interest or could not be extracted and were discarded. As pointed out Europa Press, Research teams from the University of Seville led by professors Joaquín Delgado and Antonio Romero are already working in Río Tinto (Huelva) designing experimental plants to recover valuable metals and rare earths from the acidic waters of abandoned mines. Even beyond the mine. A clear example of this circular bet is the RC-Metals projectled by the National Center for Metallurgical Research (CENIM-CSIC). … Read more

turn a missile into an explosive “storm” in full descent

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In the most advanced missile defense systems, each interception can cost millions of dollars and requires seconds of decision perfectly coordinated. It turns out that these systems were designed under a key assumption: that each threat would be identifiable, unique and treatable as a single objective. Iran has found a “hole.” Multiply a missile. In the last weeks of war, Iran has found a gap in the “millionaire” shield of Israel: convert a missile into everything a “rain” of threats in the middle of the descent, in a matter of seconds and just at the moment when the defensive systems have less room to react. The key is not to launch more missiles, but to change their nature at the critical moment, transforming a single interceptable target in dozens of submunitions that fall at high speed over large areas. It is a subtle but decisive change, because it breaks the logic on which anti-missile defenses are designed: detect, track and destroy a single target before impact. The “rain” that overflows the system. The analysts counted in The Guardian that Iranian cluster warheads release between several dozen and up to nearly a hundred submunitions at high altitude, dispersing them over areas that can span dozens of kilometers. At that point, the system stops dealing with a missile and starts dealing with multiple simultaneous threatsFurthermore, each one with a different trajectory and impact point. The result is an instant saturation where what was a controllable problem becomes a chaotic scenario where the defense must decide in seconds. what to intercept and what notknowing that it can’t cover everything. Chart providing an overview of the typical trajectory of a ballistic missile compared to other missiles and hypersonic boosted glide models The structural failure. The success of this tactic lies in exploiting a fundamental limitation: the systems like David’s Sling or even the iron dome They are optimized to intercept before dispersal, not after. If the missile is not destroyed in high phases (especially in the middle phase outside the atmosphere), the window of opportunity closes quickly. Once the submunitions are released, intercepting them individually is, in practice, unfeasible even for the world’s most advanced defensive networks. The invisible cost. Beyond the physical impact, the Iranian strategy introduces a problem economic and logistic. Intercepting a missile is already very costly, and trying to neutralize dozens of submunitions it is much moreto the point that the exchange stops making sense for the defender. Each attack requires interceptors to be expended expensive and limited against much cheaper threats, progressively eroding arsenals. Thus, even when most attacks are intercepted, the simple act of forcing defense already fulfills a strategic objective. Less missiles, more effect. Paradoxically, Iran does not need to launch large salvos to maintain the pressure. The reason: its current doctrine aims to combine moderate volumes with amplified effects, relying on hard-to-locate mobile launchers and a decentralized command structure designed to survive intensive bombing. This allows you to sustain constant attacks, even if they are few, but with the ability to impact specific objectives and keep Israeli defenses active continuously, forcing them to react again and again. A preview of the war to come. As we have been seeing in Ukraine and since the beginning of the war in the Middle East, what is happening with Iran’s missiles It is not just a tactical adaptation, but a preview of how can they evolve high intensity conflicts. Turn a single system into multiple threats, saturate advanced defenses and wear down the adversary without need for numerical superiority redefines the balance between attack and defense. And if this logic is extended (and everything indicates that other actors are watching it closely), current anti-missile systems could face a challenge for which they were not designed: not stopping missiles, but stopping real storms of explosives. Image | Yoav Keren In Xataka | The US is going to end its war in the Middle East with a very uncomfortable reality: Iran had years of advantage underground In Xataka | If the question is “how close are we to an escalation in Iran,” the answer is US A-10s flying there

We were going to turn trash into clean energy. Now the biogas sector faces its biggest challenge: convincing neighbors

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Spain may be emerging as great power in solar and wind energybut there are other green energies that choke him. The Spanish state is not having a nose for biogas. Or rather: it doesn’t smell good, in the most literal sense of the word. However, the sector has practically gone from zero to one hundred in record time: in just two years there are more than 200 biogas projects on the table in different processing phases. And they bring with them a problem: biogas is the green energy that no one wants close to home. The problem: energy transition vs. social rejection. In the roadmap for Spain’s energy transition (the PNIEC 2030), whose ultimate goal is for the state to achieve emissions neutrality by 2050, biogas has its role. But to make it possible, it is an essential requirement to build and launch plants. And here it collides with a wall of social rejection in the form of citizen platforms, not so much to the technology itself, but to the implementation model. There are no shortage of reasons: from the classic fear of bad smell to the lack of territorial planning, promoter companies that present projects without setting foot on the territory and talking to those who live there, the gigantism of some facilities or the shadow of macro farms as arguments, such as They explain for El País the emeritus professor of Environmental Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia Xavier Flotats and the biologist and researcher at the National Museum of Natural Sciences Fernando Valladares. Why is it important. That biogas appears in Spain’s energy transition strategy implies that, sooner or later, it will materialize; the key now is in the as. It is also a direct path to energy sovereignty that replaces natural gas. Just take a look at the electricity price map in Europe To understand it: countries that depend on imported fossil fuels suffer from price volatility, while those who have opted for their own alternatives They achieve greater independence and stability. But its value goes beyond energy. These plants generate organic fertilizers that replace chemicals derived from petroleum and offer a real solution to waste management. The slurry or agricultural remains will be produced the same, with or without a plant; The difference is that biogas allows them to be turned into a resource instead of leaving them as an environmental problem. Context. A biogas plant is essentially a stomach where bacteria break down organic waste without oxygen, known as anaerobic digestion. From here two products are obtained: a gas rich in methane and a fertilizer. Depending on the gas obtained, the plant is simply biogas or biomethane: biogas is methane combined with carbon dioxide in almost equal parts, so it is a “weak” fuel that is usually burned on site to generate electricity or local heat. However, biomethane plants add a refining step (removing carbon dioxide) to obtain a gas similar to fossil natural gas. In Europe, the biogas sector is a consolidated industry with more than 19,000 plantsof which almost half are in Germany. A picture says a thousand words: this Europe biomethane plants map of Gas Infrastructure Europe shows the density in states like Germany or Denmark compared to the Spanish desert. The ecological dilemma. For engineer Xavier Flotats, the general rejection is a contradiction: “For some activists, it is better that a landfill is emitting methane into the atmosphere than taking the waste to a biogas plant to do something useful with it.” And he goes deeper by explaining that although this outgoing digestate has 95% of the input composition by weight, its composition changes, it is mineralized and converted into fertilizer. Valladares assures that biogas plants are greenwashing in that the process does not make the waste disappear, they only remove 5%. And that “Biogas plants cannot be understood without the macro farms industrial poultry, pigs and cows.” For the biologist at the National Museum of Natural Sciences, the only viable plants are few, small, safe and expensive. Marina Gros, representative of Ecologistas en Acción recognizes that “There are discrepancies within the organization because there is debate, there are different visions.” And in fact, have published a guide to evaluate case by case. The elephant in the room. Beneath the biogas dilemma inevitably lies the controversy of macro farms: In the event of a possible deployment of plants, the reality would be that part of the biogas produced in the state would depend on its slurry. There are those who see this as taking advantage of an already existing problem, but for other people it represents a facelift to a type of industrial livestock farming designed to maximize productivity at a lower cost compared to animal welfare and the environmental balance of the territory. Separate the wheat from the chaff. Faced with this flood of projects, experts agree on the importance of distinguishing sustainable plans from those that are not. Some signs that indicate that a project is reasonable include choosing a location close to the waste it manages and operating on a regional scale, with a plan to use the digestate as a local fertilizer and a design that guarantees total watertightness. On the contrary, there are signs that are authentic red flag: that the plant is far from the waste but close to gas pipelines, the absence of plans for digestate, the reception of waste in open pits, competition with other plants for raw materials or a logic of an industrial macroplant detached from the territory. In Xataka | A strange source of energy is putting Europe’s energy unity at risk: manure In Xataka | The ace up Spain’s sleeve to grow even more in the renewable energy landscape: biomethane Cover | Spencer DeMera and Eli DeFaria

turn a neighborhood into an unbearable oven

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In some cities around the world, the shape of a building has come to alter its environment greatly. more than expected: from skyscrapers that generate dangerous winds at street level to facades capable of concentrate sunlight as if they were giant mirrors. Contemporary architecture, in its search for recognizable icons, has shown that even the most invisible details can have very real consequences. From icon to problem. At the end of the 20th century, the city of Los Angeles decided to build one of the most ambitious concert halls in the world and commissioned the project to Frank Gehryalready converted into a global figure after the success of Bilbao Guggenheim. The result was the Walt Disney Concert Halla shiny, curved steel building that promised to redefine contemporary cultural architecture. However, in this commitment to formal spectacularity, the a basic factor: the actual behavior of materials in a dense urban environment. What should have been an icon became a source of risk, capable of reflecting sunlight with such intensity that it turned nearby streets and homes into authentic ovens. The invisible failure. The problem was not simply aesthetic, but physical. Some of the stainless steel surfaces, especially the more polished ones with concave shapes, acted like parabolic mirrors capable of concentrating solar radiation at specific points in the environment. This effect, amplified by execution decisions that altered Gehry’s originally intended finish, generated extreme glare and raised the temperature in nearby areas to dangerous levels. What on paper was a play of sculptural light became a real thermal phenomenondemonstrating how small deviations between design and construction can trigger unforeseen consequences in large-scale projects. Heat, complaints and public alarm. Shortly after its inauguration in 2003, the complaints from neighbors and workers of nearby buildings. The main problem? The reflection of the sun on the façade generated heat spots that They exceeded 60 degrees Celsius, affecting homes, sidewalks and even traffic, where drivers reported dangerous glare. The building, intended as a cultural symbol, began to be perceived as a threat urban. The local press documented how some areas became practically uninhabitable during certain hours of the day, turning the work into a paradigmatic case of how iconic architecture can fail when it ignores its impact on the immediate environment. An unusual solution. In the face of growing public pressure, the solution was as radical as it was symbolic: sand the building. Specialized teams subjected part of the façade to a process “sandblasting” to remove the polished finish and reduce the reflective ability of the steel. In practice, this meant physically altering one of the most distinctive features of the original design. And although Gehry defended that the problem derived more of the execution From conception, the episode made clear that even the most celebrated works can require drastic fixes when they come into contact with reality. As various media reflected at the time, the icon had to be “domesticated” in order to coexist with the city. Lessons from a partial failure in modern architecture. The case of the Walt Disney Concert Hall It was neither a structural collapse nor a total failure, but it was a strong warning on the limits of spectacle architecture. He demonstrated that formal innovation, when not accompanied by a deep understanding of factors such as solar radiation, the urban environment or real materials, can generate problems as serious and unexpected. Not only that. It also highlighted the fragility of the balance between aesthetics, engineering and habitability in contemporary architecture. The legacy. There is no doubt, today, the concert hall continues to be one of the most admired buildings in the world and a cultural reference in Los Angeles. But his story carries an uncomfortable lesson: even the most prestigious architect and a client with unlimited resources can overlook the most essential. In their search for a global icon, they forgot for a time that architecture is not only looked at, you also live. And in this case, for a few months, living near the work could mean something as simple and brutal as enduring unbearable heat generated by the building itself. Image | Pexels, Wally Gobetz, Slices of Light In Xataka | If the solution to the housing crisis is to “build high”, Spain has the best possible example at hand: Benidorm In Xataka | If the question is whether a skyscraper can be erased without demolishing it, Paris has the answer: yes, in exchange for a fortune

Elon Musk often promises impossible things like Terafab. The problem is that sometimes he manages to turn them into reality.

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It was up to Elon Musk to revolutionize the automotive industry with Tesla and the electric car. Probably no one believed he could do it. Then he did the same with the aerospace industry with SpaceX, and that was more of the same: it seemed impossible. It may be many things, but the truth is that although Elon Musk promises many things and does not always fulfill them when he says (hello autonomous car), has achieved unimaginable things. That’s why when you talk about Terafab, maybe we should give it a chance. Because this seems almost as impossible as his other feats. Terafab and Musk’s master plan. On Saturday night, from a power plant that has not been used for a long time, Elon Musk advertisement the last of the components of its master plan: Terafab. The objective is to create a chip factory in which Tesla, SpaceX and xAI will collaborate. According to Musk, this plant will be capable of manufacturing between 100 and 200 GW of computing capacity per year on earth, but it will reach 1 TW in space. The problem, as always with Musk, is distinguishing what part of the plan is engineering and what part is theater and fireworks. He doesn’t do it just because. At that event, the magnate explained that semiconductor manufacturers do not produce enough chips for their AI and robotics needs. And since TSMC and the rest of the manufacturers cannot meet Musk’s demand, he has proposed manufacturing them directly. You need them for your robotaxis and your humanoid robots, Optimuswhich he hopes will end up multiplying by 10 or 100 the production rate of his cars. But it also needs chips so that xAI can compete in the field of AI, and SpaceX needs them for its satellites. That is, it actually needs a lot of chips. Many. Chips from space. At Terafab they intend to create two types of chips. On the one hand, there will be those intended for autonomous vehicles or Optimus robots. On the other, the chips that already have their own name, D3, and that will be designed specifically for space, with products that use them that work in low Earth orbit and are powered by solar energy. For Musk, the idea “becomes an obvious decision”: there will come a point where putting payload into orbit is so cheap that host data centers in space It is cheaper than doing it on land because solar energy is practically unlimited there. Too many unknowns. Everything was very nice and promising, but once the speech and promises were over, the questions began. Building a state-of-the-art semiconductor factory is a colossal challenge. It’s not just a matter of money: it’s that advanced chip manufacturing is in the hands of three companies around the world (TSMC, Samsung and Intel), and requires photolithography with UVE technology which is only manufactured by the well-known Dutch company ASML. And here’s the thing, that Musk: Did not announce any agreement with ASML It has not shown orders that demonstrate that it will have these equipment He has not named a technological partner for the project No estimated dates or calendar have been given. And he hasn’t talked about the budget either. It’s all a gigantic unknown. The most ambitious vertical integration in tech history. On several occasions Musk repeated how at Terafab they intend to cover the entire development, manufacturing, packagingtesting and improvement in the same facilities. If we fulfill that promise, we would be facing another unprecedented achievement, because the semiconductor industry has been doing just the opposite for decades: hyperspecialization by different suppliers: some design, others manufacture, others package… Musk wants to do it all, and if he succeeds he will become a direct rival for Samsung or TSMC, which a priori he would no longer need. Promises and realities. This project seems especially diffuse, but with Musk anything is possible, as we have said. In recent years, yes, we have seen how several of his ideas or they have failedor they have been delayed, or they have been left in no man’s land. The robotaxis still haven’t arrived, the Cybertruck arrived late and it’s not settingand companies like The Boring Company or products like Solar Roof have had less reach than they promised, at least for now. Terafab seems like another impossible project from Musk. We’ll see if it ends up not being so. Image | tesla In Xataka | 8 years ago Elon Musk launched a Tesla Roadster into space: it continues to orbit and was mistaken for an asteroid

Europe has just taken a 180-degree turn in its nuclear policy and has left Spain completely out of the game

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The backdrop couldn’t be more tense. According to an official statement of the International Energy Agency (IEA)the crisis in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have deteriorated crude oil markets to the point of forcing the release of emergency reserves. In the midst of this climate of urgency, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has broken a historical taboo. During the Nuclear Energy Summit held in Paris, Von der Leyen has intoned the continental ‘mea culpa’: “Europe made a strategic mistake by moving away from a reliable and affordable source of low-emission energy.” The Brussels diagnosis. According to German Wellepoints out that electricity prices in Europe are “structurally too high” and hamper competitiveness. In 1990, a third of European electricity came from the atom; today it is only 15%. In fact, the former Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson, warned of “serious problem” What it will mean for Europe to disconnect 98 nuclear reactors in the short term without solid support. 200 million euros for the atom. To correct this “error”, Von der Leyen has put 200 million euros on the table from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. But here we must make a fundamental stop to understand the debate: this money is not destined to build traditional macro nuclear power plants like the ones we know, but to the Small Modular Reactors (SMR). It is not nuclear as we know it. As detailed Spanish Radio Television (RTVE), the new strategy seeks to reduce risks for private investors and create “regulatory sandboxes” for these SMRs to be operational in the early 2030s. This nuance dismantles much of the current noise: Spain is closing traditional first and second generation reactors that have exhausted their design life. The EU is not betting on reviving that old model, but rather on financing SMR technology that is not yet commercially viable on a large scale. France: sovereignty on the lectern, protectionism on the border. The great winner of this turn is Emmanuel Macron. Coinciding with the 15th anniversary of Fukushima, the French president defended in Paris that nuclear power is Europe’s shield against hydrocarbon blackmail. However, behind this speech lies a fierce protectionist strategy, since France acts as an electrical “plug”. While Germany pays more than €100/MWh for electricity and Spain or Portugal register zero or negative prices due to their enormous wind and solar production, France blocks the Pyrenean interconnections. Paris needs to make profitable at all costs an investment of 300 billion euros in its nuclear park. Passing up Iberian solar energy would put downward pressure on its prices. Thanks to this wall, France has broken his record exporting 92.3 TWh to its northern neighbors, pocketing 5.4 billion euros, while criticizing the Spanish model as “unstable.” And the situation in Spain. On the one hand, the Peninsula is the continent’s gas lifeline. The country owns 35% of the LNG storage capacity of the EU thanks to its seven regasification plants. But this fortress has run into a diplomatic obstacle. Following President Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to support the military offensive in Iran (under the slogan “No to war”), the United States has threatened Spain with a trade embargo. Taking into account that the US supplied 44.4% of Spanish gas in January 2026, the consequences could be notable: analysts predict increases of up to 18% in the gas bill and 17% in electricity bills. To escape this fossil dependence and not waste renewable energy when prices fall to zero, Spain has activated a shock plan silent. In a single month (January 2026), Spain connected 57 megawatts worth of batteries to the electrical grid, more than in the previous three years combined, preparing to store its cheaper energy. The decline of the green agenda? Von der Leyen’s turn is not only energetic, it also has deep political significance. In an opinion column in The Countryjournalist Claudi Pérez accuses the president of the Commission of inoculating a “Trumpist virus” in the EU. By stating that Europe “can no longer be the guardian of the old world order”, Brussels relegates the green agenda and the rules-based international order to the background, moving towards a more militaristic and deregulatory vision. This discontent was highlighted with the protest of Greenpeace activists breaking into the Paris summit shouting “Nuclear energy fuels war.” Europe finds itself trapped in an unsustainable contradiction: it showers public money on nuclear promises for the next decade, assuming the risks of foreign uranium, while blocking its borders from the sun and southern winds that already produce cheap energy today. Image | Audiovisual Service and Clickgauche Xataka | Spain and Portugal would love to share the “free” energy they are generating these days. The problem is called France

The head of AI at Alibaba leaves the company. That points to a 180º turn for the Qwen family models

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An employee leaving a company does not have to mean a radical change, especially when that employee has been the leader of an important project and his departure occurs just after the launch. This is what just happened with Junyang (Justin) Lin, the technological leader of the team qwen. A strange exit. On March 2, Alibaba launched a new model family lightweight with two fast models designed for edge use, a multimodal model for agentic systems and a reasoning model that stood up to much larger models. The next day, Junyang Lin announced on his X account “I am leaving. Goodbye, my dear Qwen,” without giving further details. And he wasn’t the only one. Also leaving the company were Hui Binyuan, a scientific researcher, and Yu Bowen, head of post-training at Qwen. No one has commented on the reasons behind his departure from the company and rumors that they had been fired They didn’t wait. However, according to Panda Daily, Alibaba said it had approved his resignation. ¿What is happening? Justin’s departure caused a stir among his colleagues, with some claiming that it was “the end of an era”. We are talking about the person who has led the Qwen team from the beginning and a great AI researcher, with an academic profile that exceeds 40,000 citationsso this decision has raised many eyebrows. Whether fired or resigned, Justin was a key figure on the team, but he also leaves just after a launch and several other employees have followed him. What is happening at Alibaba? Closed models. As we said, the parties involved have not offered more details, but the theories have not been long in coming and one of them is that Alibaba could be thinking of moving towards closed models. Alibaba has been making efforts to monetize its AI and closing their models could be part of the plan. It would certainly make sense for the project leader to quit at the prospect of such a profound change. There’s a new guy in the office. Shortly after the news broke, another one jumped out: Alibaba has signed Zhou Haowho until now was a researcher at Google DeepMind. Zhou will join the Qwen team as head of post-training, so he will directly replace Yu Bowen and not Justin. Zhou has been a key figure in the development of Gemini 3, the Seeker’s AI mode, and Deep Research mode. lto open source strategy. DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen… Chinese companies have become the standard bearers of open source AI, an antagonistic strategy with the closed stance of the US. But it is not a question of giving away AI just for the sake of it, but rather it is part of their roadmap: offering access to create a large user base and thus be able to be dominant in the future. Furthermore, Chinese companies know very well that the US is technologically ahead (Justin himself recognized it recently), so launching open and free AIs is a way to gain ground on them. However, in the long term it does not seem like a very good strategy because there will come a point where they want to monetize it and there is a risk of losing users who feel betrayed. We do not know if Alibaba has already started down this path, but if it has, we will soon see if this risk is real or not. Image | qwen In Xataka | China’s open AIs aren’t “beating” ChatGPT, they’re doing something more important: catapulting their industry

How to turn your cell phone into an mp3 player without notifications or distractions

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Let’s tell you how to turn your cell phone into an MP3 playerso you can dedicate it solely to playing music without any other distractions. You are going to do this so much with an old cell phone to which you want to give a new life as with a new one when you want to use it only to listen to music. Our mobile phone is the control center of our digital life, and at all times we receive notifications, notices, updates, and the eternal temptation to use it to write messages or browse social networks. But what happens when you want to isolate yourself from the world and have your phone only serve to listen to music and podcasts? In these cases, you may be tempted to simply buy a new device, a media player that is not so connected to everything and only serves that purpose. But before spending money, you should try doing this on your current mobile to see if it is enough. Let’s tell you two ways to limit your mobile to listen to music. One is going to be less aggressive, that of limiting all notifications and interruptions that could take you out of your musical bubble. And the second will be more aggressive, to directly limit your mobile. First decide where you will listen to the music The first choice you have is to decide where you are going to listen to your music. And here you will have many options, both music streaming services and other native alternatives to have greater control over the musical content you have. Here we leave you a list of alternatives which you can opt for: streaming service: Spotify and Apple Music are the most popular music streaming services, with other alternatives like Tidal quite close behind. If you don’t want algorithms, you can opt for Qobuz, which has better music quality, without music inserted as an advertisement, and a clean experience that is like entering a record store, without sacrificing the ability to have playlists. YouTube-based streaming: You also have available free alternatives to Spotifymany of which they use YouTube or other pages as a source. Come on, they create a streaming service with albums and everything, and use YouTube to extract the music from their videos. Create your own Spotify: You also have applications for create your own Spotify. They usually do this by having an application on the computer to turn it into a server, and then be able to play the music over the Internet on other devices. You will need to have your main computer on, although many will allow you to download music. The most popular option is set up your own Spotify with Plexbut there are other interesting alternatives. Have your music on your mobile and use a player: And then you have the more artisanal method. If you have digitized your music to convert your CDs into mp3, purchased digital music directly, or used any other method to build your own music library, you can simply put it in a folder in your phone’s memory and then use a music player. With alternatives like AIMP, Retro Music Player or Pulsar you can have everything: integration with lyrics, covers, tag editor, and everything you need. And finally, you must think If you will listen to the music having an internet connection or not. In the event that you are not going to have a connection, make sure that if you use a service that takes music from the Internet such as Spotify or the alternatives, you download the albums that you are going to want to listen to directly on your mobile. Set a focus mode The least aggressive way to limit your phone to focus on the music listening experience is set up a focus mode. With this, what we are going to do is prevent notifications from appearing or that no application or phone call can bother us while we have our mode active for when we listen to music. If you want to create a concentration mode on Android, you have to go to your mobile settings. Inside, click on the section Modes. Inside here, click on the option Create your own way to make a custom one. On iOS, the option is called Concentration modes. In both cases, you will have to give it a name and an icon. This is up to you, but I suggest it be something recognizable, such as a reference to listening to music and an icon like headphones. Each operating system has its options, but they are quite unified. The most important thing is that make two specific changes on Android or iOS when you are creating this mode: Don’t create a schedule: This is so that the mode is activated automatically at certain times. In this case, I recommend not setting a schedule and using it manually, activating it only when you are going to use it. Turn off notifications: Disable the option Allow all notificationsand don’t allow any app to send you notifications. Perhaps, you can set an exception such as very close family so that if they call you the call will ring, but what are notifications you can deactivate them all, so that you do not receive any notice, and thus you can escape and not look at what is happening. Make very few exceptions: On both Android and iOS you will be able to set an application as an exception so that its notifications appear. You may want to put something like emails, but always try to remove messaging and social media apps, and this way you will avoid the main distractions. There are apps that make your screens minimalist But of course, with all the changes we have made we have altered the behavior of the mobile, but we still have home screens full of app icons and distractions. Fortunately, There are applications to alter your home screen and make it have … Read more

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