Year Archives - Page 2 of 23

A year later, it has been such a success that her neighbors are already asking about her

July 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Solar electricity can be generated right under the wheels of a train without posing any risk. Switzerland has just confirmed this in a project that, after a year of having startedhas shown that the idea works, and is now beginning to arouse interest in France, Italy and Asia as well. What has happened? In April 2025, the startup Sun-Ways installed photovoltaic panels between the rails of a 100-meter section in the town of Buttes, in the canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, resting on the sleepers. They claim that it is the first installation of this type in the world, and its particularity is that the modules can be easily removed when maintenance work needs to be done on the track. Twelve months later, more than 11,000 trains have passed over the panels without any incidents being recorded. “We have achieved our objectives, both in terms of railway safety and electricity production,” explained Joseph Scuderi, founder of Sun-Ways, told Swissinfo. Why is it relevant? The main obstacle to renewables is no longer just technological, but also space. And it is necessary to find land to install panels without invading crop fieldsforests or protected landscapes begins to be a complicated task. Spain knows this debate well, with projects such as the Maestrazgo renewable macroparkwhich has generated friction due to its visual impact. This proposal presents an alternative taking advantage of an infrastructure that already exists and is hardly used for anything else. In detail. The energy generated is poured into the local electrical grid and, according to data provided by Sun-Ways, the installation has produced more than 16,000 kWh since May 2025, despite a one-month break due to snow and technical work. That figure is equivalent to the annual consumption of three or four households. Extrapolated to the nearly 5,320 kilometers of tracks that the country has, discounting tunnels and sections with little sun, Sun-Ways calculates that the entire Swiss railway network could generate up to 1,000 million kWh per year, around 2% of national electricity consumption. Between the lines. Two of the biggest fears surrounding this system have been dispelled during testing. The first, the accumulation of dirt on the panels. Scuderi had initially thought of cleaning them with a brush installed at the back of a train, but discovered that the very passage of the convoys, which travel up to 90 km/h on that section, generates a current of air that carries dust. The second, the possible dazzling of the train drivers, which has not materialized either. And TransN, the public operator that manages that line, has assured that it has not received any report from its staff in this regard. The company itself also confirms that there have been no conflicts with infrastructure, maintenance or train circulation. The other plus point: installation is quick. The panels, patented by Sun-Ways, are placed using a machine developed together with the railway company Scheuchzer, capable of laying up to 300 meters of panels per hour, according to collect Electrek. And when it is necessary to remove them to repair a track or change a sleeper, disassembling a module with three panels and six meters in length takes about ten minutes, according to reports. detailed Scuderi. The pending challenge. Julien Pouget, professor at the Valais University School of Applied Sciences (HES-SO), warns that transporting the electricity generated over long distances continues to be complicated, since current technology does not allow it to be done efficiently in sections greater than 500 meters, which is why a specific electrical architecture is needed to raise the voltage, as explained to the Swiss newspaper 24Heures. Together with other HES-SO researchers and Scuderi himself, Pouget intends to present a possible solution to this problem at a conference in Paris next August. And now what. The project has caused interest internationally. And the French railway company SNCF, which manages some 28,000 km of tracks and has set the goal of covering 20% of its energy consumption with solar energy by 2030, signed in February a technical cooperation agreement with Sun-Ways. In Italy, the startup is in contact with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana to organize a pilot before the end of the year, while in South Korea already there is an approved government project near the Osong station, and in Indonesia a solar engineering company is closely following the results obtained in Switzerland. Scuderi, for his part, hopes to shorten the three-year trial period set by the Swiss Federal Transport Office and obtain final approval as soon as possible, allowing, he says, his partners abroad to also advance. Images | Jean-Christophe Bott and Sun-Ways In Xataka | Spain produces so much solar energy that it is the envy of Europe. And even so, 70% of what you consume matters

Puertomingalvo, the Teruel town of 130 inhabitants, has been without free beds for the eclipse for more than a year

June 28, 2026 by usatoday24

The solar eclipse on August 12 will be an ideal opportunity to go sightseeing in places where we normally would not do so. There are many people who have chosen to organize their vacations around this great astronomical eventwhose entire strip will not precisely cross the most tourist places in Spain. It will not pass through Benidorm, the Canary Islands or the Costa del Sol. Yes, it will be seen in some fairly touristy spots on the Balearic Islands, but little else. Mostly it will discharge all its splendor in the famous emptied Spain. The Sun rulesso many people who possibly would not have had these destinations among their options for summer vacations have decided to enter these small towns and discover all their charm. Because, logically, there will be a lot to do beyond seeing the eclipse, whose totality will not last two minutes. Castilla León, Navarra and Aragón, for example, are home to many interesting towns to take advantage of the day of the eclipse and the days before and after it. For example, many people will choose to see it in Puertomingalvo, a beautiful Teruel town in which all its accommodations posted the full sign for these dates more than a year ago. Although it is not necessary to stay directly in the town to enjoy everything it has to offer. A changing population preparing for the great solar eclipse As it could not be otherwise, to get to know the town of Puertomingalvo a little better I have contacted Manuel Vázquez, the guide in charge of your Tourist Office. He says that, although there are currently about 130 people registered in this town in the Gúdar Javalambre regionin summer it is usually around 600 people. There are many second homes where some people who moved to Castellón or other more industrialized cities travel in summer in search of work. But there are also 11 accommodations that have been full for more than a year. It is true that in summer it is always full, but reservations for August usually begin to close in June, not a year in advance. Furthermore, Vázquez is a lover of statistics, so he has been studying the searches that have been made on the Puertomingalvo website. Thus, he has observed that, although last year searches in French stood out, this year they have far surpassed them in searches in Spanish. That does not mean that the town did not have national tourism. He had, and a lot. But maybe they were people who didn’t have to search the town. Now, thanks to the eclipse, there are many more Spaniards who have been interested in getting to know it. Hermitage of Saint Barbara of Nicomedia For all this, the Government of Aragon has also been preparing this and other nearby towns for a year for what is to come. “From the Government of Aragon they send us talks and information about how to use approved glasses“, prevent fires, etc.,” says Vázquez. “We are dedicated to informing anyone who needs it about the eclipse.” The town is located at 1,456 meters high and it has a very clear sky. Additionally, according to Vázquez, there has only been one summer storm around that time in recent years. Generally the skies are usually clear, so the weather will most likely behave when the day arrives. Much more than an eclipse The eclipse will be an ideal occasion for many people who did not even know Puertomingalvo to venture inside its medieval walls. In summer, with its population quintupled, the town bustles with a very complete program of festivals. “The schedule for August is crazy,” celebrates the tour guide. “Last year they made more than 100 activities in 30 days and this year many activities are also expected.” In short, people who decide to take advantage of the eclipse to visit Puertomingalvo will have a good program of activities. But, in addition, you will enjoy many places to visit. And, despite its small size, Puertomingalvo has a lot of heritage. It is part of the Association of the most beautiful towns in Spain and in 1982 It was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in the category of Historical-Artistic Complex. Upon arrival, the visitor can enjoy observing its walls, but inside the art and history do not end. The Castle stands out, where you can arrange a private visit, as well as the Town Hall building and the hermitages. All these buildings are from Civil Gothic and were built between the 14th and 16th centuries. You can also visit the Church of the Purification and San Blas, El Hospicio Poma, the laundries and the Hospital for the Poor, which has currently been converted into a hostel and library. On the other hand, Casa Llorens stands out, a very well preserved palatial house, which was built between the 16th and 17th centuries. Sport and Nature In the surroundings of the town there are numerous hiking trails which can be visited on foot, by bicycle or even on horseback. It is an ideal way to enjoy nature and sports at any time of the year. In summer, without a doubt, one of the most recommended is the Cascada del Arquero route, since you can end it with a swim in the river, ideal for the heat. Outside the town, you can also visit the remains of the Iberian town of Los Castillejos. In short, history, nature and the sky come together in a perfect combo for a different vacation. Puertomingalvo is a great location to observe the solar eclipse, but also to delight in everything it has to offer, both this year and whenever we decide to visit. Image | Pabloandr85, Juan Emilio Prades Bel In Xataka | Between 2026 and 2028 Spain will become an eclipse paradise. And we have new maps to know where they will look best

Polymarket and Kalshi have moved $130 billion so far this year. Zuckerberg has said he wants his share

June 27, 2026 by usatoday24

The so-called prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have ceased to be minority apps and have become a global phenomenon, one that has already moved more than 130,000 million so far in 2026. Apart from the ethical issuesit is clear that it is a good business and Meta is preparing an app to get fully into it. What is happening. They tell it in the New York Times. Meta is developing a prediction markets app that they internally call “Arena.” The app is designed as an independent application from the rest of the Meta catalog and, at least for now, it does not work with real money but rather transactions are with a points system as if it were a video game. At the moment, the project is in the experimental phase, but the company has marked it as a high priority. Why is it important. Polymarket and Kalshi have already managed to get rid of the stigma of gambling addiction in betting houses and casinos, disguising their service with an aura of finance and trading. That Meta enters this could be the definitive step towards normalization, turning betting into another activity within online life. Let us remember that Meta has a daily user base of more than 3.5 billion between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Furthermore, this would give Meta a new type of very sensitive data: it is not only what people see and publish, it is also what they think is going to happen. By crossing all the data, they could outline future beliefs and expectations. It’s not the first. Meta already tried his luck in this prediction markets in 2020, when They launched an app called Forecast which allowed predictions to be made about real-world events, such as the COVID pandemic that was ravaging the world at that time. The app was launched only for the United States and Canada and also worked with a points system. Meta’s goal at that time was not to make money, but to make online conversation more rational. “We were interested in prediction markets because, when they work, they help participants be rational,” said Rebeca Kossnick, project leader. It didn’t last long and In October of the same year they closed it. Prediction markets. At that time, prediction markets were niche apps that almost no one knew about, but in recent years they have become almost a cultural phenomenon that has been announced at major events such as the Super Bowl or the Golden Globes. So far this year, Polymarket has been in the news for various reasons, from bets on Maduro’s capture with insider information its recent blockade in Spainwhere legislation requires them to have a gaming license. We have also learned that the vast majority of users are not making money, rather they are losing it, while professional traders take the lion’s share of the pie. Even so, prediction markets are in fashion and Meta wants to take advantage of the trend. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | I don’t bet, I invest: Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing”

Polymarket and Kalshi have moved $130 billion so far this year. Zuckerberg has said he wants his share

June 27, 2026 by usatoday24

Every year a veterinarian, a jurist, a psychoanalyst and a gardener meet. They are the secret owners of rearmament in Europe

June 26, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1916, in the midst of the First World War, the German Empire created the Kriegsrohstoffabteilungan office dedicated to coordinate private companies to fuel the war effort. It was one of the first great modern experiments of war economy: industrial families, private capital and the State working side by side to sustain the conflict. More than a century later, Europe once again looks to those same dynasties to build its new military muscle. The silent heirs of rearmament. I told the story last weekend the financial times. Every year, in a discreet business hotel in Germany, a peculiar group gathers: a veterinarian, a stairlift salesman, a jurist, a psychoanalyst, a landscape gardener and several academics. At first glance they have nothing in common. However, they all share an access key to one of the most important companies on the new European military map. They are the shareholders by Wegmannthe extended and fragmented family that controls half by KNDSthe Franco-German giant behind the tanks Leopard 2 and Leclerc. For decades they were almost invisible. Now they are on the verge of an operation that can make them multimillionaires. The IPO of a war giant. It so happens that KNDS is preparing its IPO with an estimated valuation of between 15,000 and 20,000 million of euros. The plan goes through a complex reorganization: the German State wants to buy cabout 40% of the private part, while France would also reduce its participation to maintain a balance between both governments. The rest would remain floating in the marketan industrial and political operation at the same time. KNDS has become a centerpiece of European rearmament since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Berlin wants to ensure it maintains direct influence over a key enterprise for the continent’s military future. The rearmament business and its dividends. While Europe multiply budgets military and accumulating debt to finance new purchases, the private owners of KNDS have already begun to reap the benefits. Only in November did they distribute an extraordinary dividend of 1,000 million of euros together with the French State. Another additional distribution will arrive before the IPO. Annual dividends have nearly doubled since 2021, passing from about 34 million to 65 million in 2024. The company’s revenue also skyrocketed: from 2.7 billion in 2021 to 4.4 billion last year. European rearmament is generating new fortunes, and many of them are falling on names almost unknown outside very specific circles. An industrial history from more than a century ago. The origin of everything dates back to 1882when Wegmann was a railway carriage manufacturer in Kassel. As the decades passed, the company entered the military industry until manufacturing tanks in World War I and be part of the industrial machinery of the Third Reich in the Second, using forced labor. After the war she returned to the railway sector, although the rearmament of West Germany in 1955 took her back to the military business. Over there their relationship began with the Leopard 1, precursor to the current Leopard 2. Since then, the company was linked to the military history of Germany and, by extension, Europe. The Bode family and the problem of inheritance. A good part of the shareholding structure remains in the hands of the descendants by August Bodethe industrialist who took part in the company in 1912. Today at least twelve of his heirs retain more than a third from Wegmann Holding. The main figure It’s Felix Bodemember of the KNDS council and visible representative of the family. Together with his brother Stephan, they could share about 1.2 billion of euros if the maximum valuation is met. For decades, the Bodes have been the custodians of this industrial heritage, although within the family not everyone seems to share the same attachment to preserving it. Leopard 2 The Braunbehrens and the great branch of capital. The other large shareholder family is the von Braunbehrensa lineage much more intellectual than industrial. Among its members are musicologists specialized in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, philologists and academics. His shares, inherited from former Wegmann partners, have ended up pooled in a charitable foundation linked to Heidelberg. That foundation owns 24% of Wegmann Holding and could receive up to 2.4 billion of euros with the operation. It is one of the most curious images in this history: part of the money from European rearmament could end up financing studies on historical almanacs and traditional carpets. A company that almost disappeared. The path to this point was not always ascending. In 2015, the merger between German division and the French Nexter It was seen within the sector as a defensive move. KNDS was born in part to avoid falling into the hands of Rheinmetall, which had been trying to absorb it for years. At the time, the tank business seemed stagnant. The war in Ukraine changed everything. The Leopard returned to the center of European military debate and production needs grew rapidly. What a decade ago seemed like just another industrial company is today one of the nerve centers of the new continental defense. The paradox of the new European military cycle. There is no doubt, history leaves a curious image: while European governments approve pmulti-million dollar achievements of military spending and appeal to collective security, a group of discreet heirs, many long removed from day-to-day industrial life, is about to capitalize a good part of that new cycle. They are not businessmen made in the heat of war. They are heirs of an industrial chain that has been going through the great European conflicts for more than a century. For years his wealth remained almost motionless, managed in quiet meetings and buffet lunches. Now rearmament has put new value on that old heritage. The end of a century-old relationship. Inside by KNDS Many see this sale as the closing of an era. Younger generations no longer feel the same connection to the company that their parents and grandparents did. The idea of guarding a strategic industry for generations seems to dilute. … Read more

Today, at 9 p.m., we are going to pay the most expensive kilowatt-hour of all of 2026. And this is just the first heat wave of the year

June 22, 2026 by usatoday24

On Sunday, June 21 at 2 p.m., electricity was almost given away: it was paid at €0.02592 per kilowatt-hour, the lowest price in months. In a while, at nine at night, we are going to pay it at €0.89142, the most expensive price in all of 2026. Just over 24 hours difference and more than thirty times the price. What is happening here? The price of light. The wholesale market The price of electricity for today has already been determined: an average of 99.89 euros per MWh. That is, 75.96% more expensive than yesterday. Although the average is misleading (there is a huge difference between 32 at noon and 177 at night), the truth is that it helps to understand the problem. And that problem boils down to the fact that we are going to have dinner with energy prices that we have not seen since the cold wave of January 2025. What is this due to? In principle, three different things: the most obvious is the heat wave. It alone will trigger energy demand 6 GW more than normal, according to the consulting firm Optimize Energy. The second is the taxes that returned at the beginning of the month. And the last one is a small technical change that makes the valleys sink lower and the peaks rise higher. Now the market moves every 15 minutes instead of every hour. This, which, on average, should give the same result would allow the system to better match supply with demand. In theory, of course. The important thing is not the energy that comes in, but the energy that comes out. According to the system, due to the heat and the work schedule, demand will barely decrease until 10 pm. However, little by little, the sun will retreat, forcing turn on increasingly expensive plants. The rest is the market functioning: in a marginalist system, the last MW that enters is the one that defines the price of the rest. This Monday we have a ‘perfect storm’ and, consequently, an exorbitant price. And what can we do? If we have a fixed price, it should not affect us. If we have PVPC (and there are 10 million who have it), it is a good idea to spend only what is essential. But above all, think of this heat wave as a proof of concept. The truth is that this situation will occur whenever heat, little air and overpriced gas coincide. It is time to think about a domestic strategy to survive Spain’s great energy problem: the fact of have a huge amount of sun, but have nowhere to store it. Image | Torpical TidBits In Xataka | Renewable, coal or nuclear: where each country in the world gets its electricity from, in a detailed graph

In two days on Netflix, the film that last year caused people to riot in cinemas around the world

June 18, 2026 by usatoday24

When in a movie theater a baby zombie rides a chicken and the entire room, all teenagers, bursts into screams, throwing popcorn and TikTok is flooded with videos corroborating the chaos in the roomssomething has happened that has gone under the radar of industry forecasts. ‘A Minecraft movie‘ was not exactly the critics’ favorite of 2025, but it undoubtedly had one of the best box offices of the year. This weekend you can see why it happened in Netflix. In just two weeks, the film surpassed $550 million in worldwide receipts. It ended up close to a billion. A true phenomenon that revitalized the industry’s interest in video games, already highlighted by the success of ‘Super Mario Bros. The Movie’ in 2023 with its more than $1.36 billion at the box office. With Sonic, Mario and ‘Mortal Kombat’ having several sequels and a second part of ‘A Minecraft Movie’ scheduled for 2027, it remains to be seen if we are facing a momentary impact or a true trend. The movie does a good job in transforming the almost abstract original game into a story with minimal coherence: Steve (Jack Black) is a doorknob salesman with the dream of working in a mine and discovers a portal that transports him to the Overworld, the cubic world of Minecraft, where he is captured by Malgosha, a pig sorceress who seeks to dominate that world. Some time later he will join four strangers from the real world (including Jason Momoa) to find his way back home. The film’s impact not only translates into box office success, but also into a revitalization of the brand: by April 2025, ‘Minecraft’ had sold more than 350 million copies worldwide, consolidating its position as the most popular video game of all time. Following the film’s release, console and mobile sales of the original game grew by 35% and daily active users on console increased by 41%. A true phenomenon that demonstrates, once again, that while adults point to the moon with a solemn gesture, young people do, essentially, whatever they want. In Xataka | The latest from the director of ‘Longlegs’, streaming tomorrow: almost no one has seen it, but it is the most disturbing of the year

“We will lose one like this every year”

June 18, 2026 by usatoday24

In 1790, a retired military man named Hayman Rooke stumbles upon a gigantic oak tree in Sherwood Forest and describes it as a “majestic ruin” that even then seemed to be nearly a thousand years old. The tree would end up taking its name and surviving more than two centuries after that discovery. Today, his death leaves an uncomfortable question. The fall of a giant. The Major Oakthe monumental Sherwood oak linked for centuries to the legend of robin hoodhas died after more than a thousand years of life. Its disappearance is not only the end of one of the oldest and most emblematic trees in Europe and the entire world, it is also the most visible image of how some of the great modern evils have begun to claim even that which seemed eternal. This year it did not produce a single leaf. The giant that survived wars, kings, empires and revolutions could not overcome a chain of increasingly dry and scorching summers. The Major Oak in 2006 The great invisible enemy. The experts point out several accumulated factors, but there is one that stands out as the great “cancer” that has accelerated its fall: the global warming. Over recent years, extreme heatwaves and prolonged drought have put the tree under constant stress, especially following the historic summer of 2022, when the UK surpassed for the first time 40 degrees. Ancient oaks are designed to withstand centuries, but not to adapt so quickly to a climate that changes at an unprecedented speed. The lack of rain in the last five years and record temperatures have been, according to its caretakers, a decisive factor in its collapse. The Major Oak, by Henry Dawson (1844), Nottingham Museum When saving can also harm. The History of the Major Oak It is also the story of how human intervention, even well-intentioned, can alter natural processes that had been in operation for centuries. Over time, metal chains, supports, concrete fills, and lead and fiber coatings were installed to keep it standing. The problem is that the ancient oaks they age “inwardly”: They drop branches, reduce size and concentrate resources. Forcing it to maintain its giant frame caused it to continue sending water to branches it should have already sacrificed. The result was a kind of internal exhaustion that ended up strangling his own vital system. A collapsed root system. The underground analyzes revealed a devastating panorama: impoverished roots, suffocated and practically disconnected from their environment. Decades of mass tourism (about 350,000 visitors a year) compacted the soil until make you less fertile and less alive, while ancient changes in the water table due to mining aggravated the situation. During the last three winters tried to aerate and regenerate the soil to restore microbial life, and the first results were encouraging. But it was too late. The tree barely sprouted last year and this year it just didn’t wake up. The symbol of a silent extinction. The most disturbing thing is not that the most famous tree in the world has died, that too, but what it represents. According to the Woodland Trust“we will lose a tree like this every year. They do not have any specific legal protection and we are losing them because they are not given the value they deserve”, a phrase that completely changes the dimension of the problem. This is neither an exception nor an isolated relic: the monumental trees andthey are disappearing silent due to neglect, urban development, tourism, disease and, to top it all off, extreme weather. They are the “white rhinos” of British forests, almost unrepeatable organisms that take centuries to form and can disappear in just a decade. The death that continues to give life. Be that as it may, and although the Major Oak is deadwill still stand. And that matters. Its dead wood continues to be a fundamental ecosystem for insects, fungi, birds and hundreds of species that depend on this type of habitat at some point in their life cycle. In fact, a quarter of all forest species need dead wood to survive. Even without leaves, it remains one of the largest trees in Europe and retains irreplaceable biological value. In a way, his final lesson is precisely that: even in death, he still sustains life, although the warning is clear. If a thousand year colossus has fallen, many others may already be following the same path. Image | Nilfanion, Marcin Floryan In Xataka | Lowering the temperature of cities is as simple as filling them with trees: just what Spain is not doing In Xataka | There are people who plant tomatoes. This couple is planting chairs, and they turn out so well that they are selling them for a fortune

Meta spent at least $14 billion to win the AI race. It’s been a year and it’s still exactly where it was.

June 16, 2026 by usatoday24

In Silicon Valley, and in technology in general, being huge does not guarantee being prepared to win every race. You can have money, talent, data centers, billions of users and machinery capable of integrating anything new into products we use every day. Still, when the board changes, so does the question. Meta has been trying for years to demonstrate that it can not only distribute artificial intelligence at scale, but rather compete at the center of the conversation. The problem is, when we think about chatbots, it still doesn’t seem to be the first name that comes to mind. 14.3 billion dollars. Ea is the figure that Reuters put on the table for a very specific operation. On June 13, 2025, the agency reported that Meta would take a 49% stake in Scale AI for that amount, in a deal that valued the startup at about $29 billion. Scale itself spoke of a significant new investment from Metaalthough he did not publish the exact amount of the investment. We are not talking, therefore, about everything that the company has allocated to AI, but rather about an identifiable bet within a much broader bill. What Meta saw in Scale AI. It was surely not one of those companies that we had on our radar when we were talking about artificial intelligence. It did not have the public shine of ChatGPT nor the showcase of Geminibut it did occupy an important place in the machinery that makes it possible to train and evaluate models. His work revolves around data that allows training, evaluating and improving AI systems, including labeled or curated data for training. The name behind the operation. Meta was not only betting on Scale AI, it was also incorporating Alexandr Wang into its new stage in artificial intelligence. The agency noted that the main driver of the move was to secure Scale’s founder to lead Meta’s superintelligence efforts. Scale itself confirmed that Wang would join Meta to work on its AI projects. So the investment should not be read solely as an entry into the capital of a data company, but as a way to accelerate leadership and talent. Context. The investment came at a time when Meta needed to strengthen its position in the advanced AI race. It occurred in a context marked by the poor reception of Call 4its latest large family of open models, and due to competitive pressure against companies like Google, OpenAI and DeepSeek. It was not just a matter of having more resources or adding a new piece to the organizational chart. What was at stake was to regain momentum in a field where other names were marking a good part of the technical, business and public conversation. The visible part. The most recognizable result of this new stage is Muse Sparkpresented by Meta as the first model of a new family created by Meta Superintelligence Labs. The company assures that it already powers Meta AI in its app and on the web, and that it is being deployed in WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and its AI glasses. Here, precisely, there is an important point: Meta does not need to convince the user to install another application from scratch: it already has the channels. But converting presence within their own platforms into public relevance within generative AI is another battle. The limit. Just because the model is within WhatsApp or Instagram does not mean that people use it for many tasks. Muse Spark does not seem to be occupying the place that the GPT or Gemini models do, to name a few examples. Despite this, according to ReutersMuse Spark has performed well in languages and visual compression, although it has lagged behind in coding and abstract reasoning. Meta has managed to be present, but has not yet demonstrated that this presence is enough to change habits. Strategic turn. Muse Spark does not follow the path that had given Llama so much visibility: The Wall Street Journal described it as a closed model. The company itself speaks of an API in private preview for selected partners, not open and general access for any developer. That is to say, Meta has put a new model into circulation, but it has done so in a more controlled way, more integrated into its products and less open than the strategy with which it had tried to differentiate itself in AI. The crack. Meta can integrate AI into gigantic products, but the generative AI race is also played in another field: that of the names that the user recognizes when they need a chatbot. And there Zuckerberg’s company does not seem to occupy the same place as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Grok. The economic doubt has not disappeared either. And, a no small detail, advertising continues to be the engine of Meta’s income. Images | Mark Zuckerberg In Xataka | There is a company proving that AI can be the perfect interviewer for companies. His name is Orbio and he is from Madrid

China had not updated its EREV standards for nine years. Now that they sell a million a year, they are going to catch up

June 9, 2026 by usatoday24

The EREV (extended range electric vehicles, for its acronym in English), are beginning to have a lot of prominence in China. So much so, that in the country they have changed the regulations, publishing a complete review of their technical standard. This new revision, QC/T1086-2026, replaces a 2017 regulatory framework and will come into force on November 1. And it is that with more than 1 million units sold Every year in the country, the Chinese market begins to assimilate this type of vehicle that, outside of this region, is still relatively unknown to us. Why does it matter? The previous standard, in force since 2017, described the requirements in a mostly qualitative way, since the manufacturer defined its own specifications and the regulatory framework barely provided specific figures. Nine years later, the market has changed a lot. And according to industry data collected by CarNewsChinasales of EREVs in China exceeded one million units in 2024 and reached 1.2 million in 2025. So with those figures, it is logical to think that the regulations had to be revised. What the change consists of. Until now, the rules were somewhat vague, so this regulation aims to take a closer look at some EREV specifications and standardize them. An example is how much energy the gasoline engine delivers in each millisecond. And to give us an idea, now in the smallest generators (up to 67 HP), the maximum margin of error that will be allowed when delivering energy will be just 1.5 kW. For the most powerful engines, the deviation may not exceed 3%. That is, the motor must deliver energy to the battery more precisely and efficiently. According to CarNewsChinathe thresholds have been set based on real production data from manufacturers and suppliers, with the aim that all major manufacturers on the market can meet them without difficulty, but that lower-performance designs are left out of the standard. EMC and noise. One of the most relevant new features of the standard is the introduction of specific electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and noise and vibration (NVH) tests. The first extended range cars were basically standby generators that started when the battery was depleted. Today’s systems now have integrated energy management components that work in constant coordination with the battery, electric motors and vehicle control systems. This greater integration requires more demanding standards in electromagnetic interference and acoustic comfort. In fact, more recent models like the Aito M9which HIMA launched last May with up to 890 HP, or the IM Motors LS8 EREV, with 430 km of electric range, already reflect these changes, and are examples that have served to develop this new regulation. Durability for long term use. The standard also introduces two durability tests: a test of 750 hours with alternating load and another of 100,000 start-stop cycles. Both were developed with real-world usage data and damage equivalence models, and are designed to simulate approximately 300,000 kilometers of real-world driving, including urban conditions with frequent starts. Who is driving the market. The ecosystem of manufacturers that has driven this revision in the regulations includes both established brands and newer manufacturers. Li Auto, Seres, Deepal and Leapmotor have expanded their EREV offerings, while premium models such as the Aito M9 have helped position the technology in high-priced segments. Zeekr, Geely’s electric brandhas gone even further with the Zeekr 9X and 8X, since the former exceeded 50,000 accumulated deliveries in a few months after its launch and is scheduled to be exported to the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe during 2026. Cover image | HIMA In Xataka | This Aston Martin DB9 was sold for $57,000, but the craziest thing is not its price: it is the two flamethrowers it hides

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