News
Internet usage overtakes TV viewing
According to a study by the European Interactive Advertising Association (IALS), the number of hours that the average person spends connected to the internet in Spain now exceeds that spent watching television.
The study, conducted in 15 European countries, reveals that people in Spain spend an average of 13.3 hours per week connected to the internet compared to 13 hours in front of the television. There is quite a difference between age groups, with younger people spending most time online, while those over 55 years of age almost exclusively use only television.
Let the car take the strain
SIT back, relax with the day’s paper, or log onto your laptop… and drive your car on the motorway at 120kph.
This is soon to become a reality with the introduction of a revolutionary green idea to save fuel on main roads around Spain.
Called ‘road trains’, the hi-tech pooling system would allow convoys of up to eight cars to “drive themselves” while linked up by electronic shackles to a lead vehicle.
The driver in the vehicle at the front would do all the steering, braking, gear changes and accelerating and his or her decisions would be electronically transmitted to the cars behind.
The system’s designers claim it would reduce each vehicle’s fuel consumption by as much as a fifth thanks to the aerodynamic efficiency of being tucked in behind the vehicle in front.
Pioneered by a European Union thinktake Safe Road Trains for the Environment (Sartre), the idea is to be trialed in Spain, the UK and Sweden later this year.
Tests are expected to last for at least three years before the system is properly tested on public roads in Spain.
“This type of autonomous driving actually doesn’t require any hocus-pocus technology, and no investment in infrastructure.”
One of the scheme’s major advantages is that most of the required technology already exists.
Its main concern is how to make it work while ensuring drivers and passengers are at least as safe as if they were driving the car independently.
The world's healthiest pork
WITHOUT a doubt one of Spain’s genuine world-leading gourmet delights is Cerdo Ibérico – the pork from the black Iberian Pig.
What makes this meat so incredibly special is that for the last few months of each pig’s life, they are allowed to graze free-range in dehesas (acorn forests), munching their way through literally tons of bellotas (acorns), which have fallen from both holm and cork oak trees.
It is these acorns which gives the fat of the pigs its unique, sweet flavour, whether you are eating the ham or cooked pork.
Ave link to all cities by 2013
THE AVE will soon be flying through Andalucia’s regional capitals – despite a few glitches. A third of the work has been completed linking Malaga to both Sevilla and Granada, with a fully-operational system targeted for 2013. A track linking Antequera and Algeciras, via Ronda, is also scheduled but a definite completion date has not yet been set.
Fancy a siesta?
A survey has shown that only 40 per cent of Spaniards are still taking a siesta.
“It is little more than a myth that is interesting from a tourism point of view.”
That is the opinion of a sleep expert after a survey claims that almost 60 per cent of Spaniards never take an afternoon nap.
The study by the government discovered that of the 40 per cent that do take a nap only 28 per cent choose to do so in bed.
The study also found that men older than 45 are the ones more likely to take the traditional siesta tucked up in bed rather than on the sofa.