  We show that, for almost all $x$, the interval $(x, x+(\log x)^{2.1}]$
contains products of exactly two primes. This improves on a work of the second
author that had $3.51$ in place of $2.1$. To obtain this improvement, we prove
a new type II estimate. One of the new innovations is to use Heath-Brown's mean
value theorem for sparse Dirichlet polynomials.
