Month: March 2026

China spent 10 billion on oil it did not need. With Hormuz blocked, the puzzle finally makes sense

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As the West panics over the possibility of the barrel break the $100 barrieran eerie calm reigns in Beijing. The Asian giant observes the crisis with the coldness of someone who has already done his homework. During the last few months, the world has been debating the excess oil supply, but the real winner of this war crisis is not firing missiles, but has been filling its storage tanks for years in the most absolute silence. World geopolitics has been blown up a few weeks before the expected summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. As reported Nikkei Asiathe coordinated airstrikes of the United States and Israel (dubbed “Operation Epic Fury“) have culminated in the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran’s response has been a rain of missiles and drones on American allies in the region. The immediate impact has been felt in the water. The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 million barrels a day flow (20% of the world’s oil supply), is blocked de facto. As detailed Bloomberg, Rates to hire a supertanker on the route from the Middle East to China have skyrocketed by 600%, reaching $200,000 a day (or 525 Worldscale points for a Suezmax). Besides, France 24 points out that insurers They have increased war risk premiums between 25% and 50%. As reported cnnBrent crude oil jumped 6.5% in the early stages, touching $82, driven by fear of prolonged logistical disruptions. Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, warned the US chain that closing Hormuz would cause an immediate global energy crisis. China’s exposed vulnerability On paper, the Donald Trump administration’s offensive should be an absolute nightmare for Xi Jinping. As explained The TelegraphAmerican military adventurism is exposing the gigantic energy vulnerability of China, the largest oil importer in the world, which buys three-quarters of the crude oil it consumes abroad. Washington’s strategy seems clear: suffocate the “rebellious” suppliers that supply the Chinese industrial machinery at bargain prices. Earlier this year, the military capture of Nicolás Maduro has established what some analysts They already call the “Donroe Doctrine”. Trump has been explicit in his goal to control oil. If the United States manages to add Venezuelan production to that of Guyana and its own, it would de facto control 30% of the world’s reserves, according to JP Morgan. This movement cuts supply to China in the bud, evaporating imports that represented around 4% of its maritime purchases. according to data from Kpler collected by The Financial Review. However, Washington’s optimism collides with geology: the infrastructure is so in ruins that loading a supertanker today takes five days and the crude oil arrives so “dirty” that the Chinese and Indian refineries themselves have canceled orders, according to a Reuters investigation. Refloating this industry will cost 10 billion dollars annually for a decade, as Francisco Monaldi calculatesdirector of energy policy at Rice University. For its part, the current blow to Iran. From Chosun Daily details that China bought 80% of Iranian maritime exports last year (about 1.38 million barrels per day), which represents 13.4% of Beijing’s total maritime crude oil imports. As he points out Institute for Energy Research (IER) United States, cited by the same mediumChina has used the heavily sanctioned and cheap oil from these countries to cement its manufacturing competitiveness. Losing Iran and Venezuela would force Chinese refiners — especially the independent ones in Shandong, known as “teapots” — to look for much more expensive substitutes on the open market, threatening to import inflation and slow their economic growth. The master plan in execution If Western analysts expected to see China cornered, they were wrong. Beijing foresaw this scenario of isolation and has been executing a four-pronged master plan for years that today allows it to cushion the blow of Hormuz. While in 2025 the world feared a global oversupply, China dedicated itself to massive purchasing. Last year, China spent $10 billion buying an extra 150 million barrels that it didn’t immediately need, absorbing more than 90% of crude oil storage measurable globally. Supported by a new Energy Law that obliges the public and private sector to maintain reserves, Beijing today has strategic reserves equivalent to at least 96 days of imports, according to The Telegraph. Under the banner of national security, China is investing $80 billion annually in its state oil fields. In March 2025 they reached a production peak of 4.6 million barrels per day and they completed the drilling of the deepest oil well in Asia (10,910 meters). Its goal is not financial profitability, but pure autonomy. With Iran and Venezuela under fire, China has simply turned its head toward Russia and Saudi Arabia. According to oil price, Chinese refineries are absorbing record amounts of Russian crude oil (more than 2 million barrels per day in February 2026), taking advantage of the fact that India has given in to pressure from the US to stop buying from Moscow. Simultaneously, Saudi Arabia has cut the official price of its crude oil Arab Light to five-year lows to gain market share in Asia, which has led China to order between 56 and 57 million Saudi barrels by March. China’s definitive move is to abandon the oil board. As analyzed by Professor Hussein Dia in The ConversationChina’s massive commitment to electric vehicles (50% of new car sales last year) and renewable energy is a national security policy. How they collect in The Telegraph, The new five-year plan (2026-2030) seeks to peak oil consumption by accelerating the installation of solar and wind parks (430 gigawatts added last year alone). Unlike the ships in Hormuz, sunlight cannot be blocked by the US Fifth Fleet. The diplomacy of silence and the illusion of OPEC+ In the face of Khamenei’s assassination, the response of the Chinese Foreign Ministry has been one of calculated coldness. They condemned the act as “unacceptable” and a “violation of sovereignty,” but, as pointed out Chosun Dailythey carefully avoided directly mentioning Donald Trump. From Nikkei Asia explains this pragmatism: … Read more

has tested its humanoid robot in a real factory (and there is video)

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For years we have heard the same promise: humanoid robots working side by side with us in factories, warehouses or even in our homes. It’s an idea that appears again and again. However, when we go down from that stage to the ground of a real plant, the story changes quite a bit. There it is not enough to walk or grab objects; everything must happen precisely and be repeated many times without errors. In that context, each small advance begins to have a different meaning. The latest news from Xiaomi. Lei Junfounder, president and CEO, posted a message on his official WeChat account to update the status of the company’s robotics project. The executive explains that a humanoid robot developed by the company has already begun “doing practices” within one of its automobile factories. The manager also links to a published technical article describing the first tests carried out with the robot under factory conditions. Let’s see. What exactly has the robot done in the factory. According to the text, The humanoid robot has been put to the test in a very specific position within the automobile manufacturing process: placing self-tapping nuts on parts of the vehicle’s floor. In practice, the system collects these nuts from an automatic supply equipment and deposits them in the positioning tool where the automated screwing of the position is then carried out. The Chinese firm places this operation in the pressure casting workshop, on ground components after that process. Three figures that help understand the test. Xiaomi explains that the humanoid robot performed this work for three hours of continuous autonomous operation within that position. In that period, it achieved a success rate of 90.2% in the simultaneous placement of the nuts on both sides of the piece, a percentage that the company defines as the number of correct operations compared to the total number of attempts made. Another fact that stands out is the work pace, since the system managed to adjust to a production cycle of up to 76 seconds. This is an important fact because in an industrial line, each operation must fit into very specific times so that the process does not break down. behind the scenes. Xiaomi points out that its humanoid robot is based on the Xiaomi-Robotics-0 model, described as a VLA-type model that integrates vision, language and action within the same system. According to the company, this approach makes it easier for the robot to understand the tasks it must perform, perceive its environment and execute the movements necessary to complete them. The training is also complemented with reinforcement learning, a technique that allows the system to improve its behavior based on the experience accumulated in the physical world. The faults that the robot can find on the line. In its technical description, Xiaomi also points out several scenarios in which the operation may fail. One of the main problems appears during the alignment process between the self-tapping nut and the positioning pin, which must be well centered and seated before screwing can proceed. If this fit is not precise enough, a blockage may occur during the process and the assembly remains incomplete. Additionally, the orientation of the nut inside the robot’s hand can vary with each grip, and the company cites factors that complicate adjustment, such as the knurled structure inside the nut, the magnetic attraction force of the pin, and, in some cases, environmental interference or working angle limitations. The predecessor. To better understand this advance, it is worth remembering that Xiaomi has been exploring the field of humanoid robots for some time. In 2022 the company presented CyberOnea prototype that appeared at one of its events showing basic capabilities such as walking or holding objects. At that time the company itself made it clear that it was a project in an early stage of development. What we see now seems to be situated in another type of scenario: less demonstration on a stage and more tests within a plant, where the objective is to check if these machines can respond to the demands of a repetitive process. Looking to the future. The company also hints that this experiment is just one part of a larger project. Xiaomi points out that it is testing its humanoid robots in various jobs within the factory, including box transport tasks and operations related to the installation of exterior elements of the vehicle. In fact, in his WeChat post, Lei Jun states that the company wants to contribute to the deployment of humanoid robots in smart manufacturing and proposes a medium-term forecast. According to his estimate, in the next five years there could be large quantities of these machines working in his factories. Images | Xiaomi In Xataka | Huawei presents its AI supercluster to the world: it is a nod to Chinese Big Tech and a message to NVIDIA

so you can transport it to avoid sanctions

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Pets take up more and more space in our daily lives and, for many people, that also includes traveling by car. Taking the dog on an excursion, to a family member’s house or simply to the vet is part of the routine of thousands of drivers. The problem arises when this seemingly innocent gesture becomes a risk on the road and, furthermore, a possible traffic violation. In Mexico City, transporting an uncontrolled dog inside the vehicle can not only compromise driving safety, it can also be expensive. Why do we talk about fines. If in recent days there has been talk of fines for traveling with dogs in the car, it is not so much because a new rule has appeared, but because the amount in pesos changes over time. Many violations are calculated based on the Unit of Measurement and Update (UMA)an economic reference that is reviewed every year by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). For 2026, the daily UMA was set at 117.31 pesos and began to be applied on February 1. This adjustment automatically updates the cost of sanctions that were already provided for in the capital’s regulations. What the rules say about traveling with pets. The reference is in the article 38 of the Mexico City Traffic Regulations. This section regulates various behaviors that can interfere with driving, including the way animals are transported inside the vehicle. The text establishes that the person behind the wheel must not “hold, carry or place people or animals between their arms and legs.” According to the regulation, this situation can limit the driver’s movements and obstruct part of the visibility towards the road, two factors that increase the risk while driving. The fine and administrative penalty. The regulation also establishes the consequences for anyone who engages in this behavior. The penalty is calculated in a range of 10 to 20 times the current UMA, which with the value of 2026 is equivalent to approximately between 1,173 and 2,346 pesos. In addition to the payment, the violation implies three points less on the driver’s license. And, in the sections applicable to this case, the regulation also includes a point for vehicle registration, an additional penalty that should be taken into account. How to take the dog in the car without exposing yourself to a violation. The aforementioned official text does not prohibit traveling with pets, but it does require that they do not interfere with driving, so the objective is to prevent the animal from moving freely inside the vehicle. In Motorpasión México they explain A common option is to place it in the back seat with a breastplate or harness attached to the car. The idea is simple: keep the dog in a stable position and reduce the possibility of it ending up moving towards the handler’s area. The carrier alternative for traveling with pets. In addition to using a harness in the back seat, another recommended option is to use a pet carrier. Experts cited by UNAM Global point out These systems must be rigid, have good ventilation and have the appropriate size so that the animal can move with some comfort within its space. When the dog is used to this type of transport, the carrier can be an effective solution to keep it in a delimited area inside the car. In the end, the key is not whether or not the dog can travel in the car, but how it does so. As we can see, the Mexico City Traffic Regulations establish limits when their presence can interfere with driving. Following these recommendations helps to comply with this standard and reduces risks during the journey. Images | Blaire Harmon | Sandra Gabriel In Xataka | After 16 years, Mexico has managed to get a millionaire to pay his taxes. And they are going to use them to help young people

It is a nod to Chinese Big Tech and a message for NVIDIA

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Huawei has arrived at the Mobile World Congress with one objective: to show the world What good have these last five years been? of vetoes and sanctions. The company has just had the second best year in its history. It seemed impossible when The United States ostracized herbut this five years has served not only to regain the throne in the enormous Chinese market, but to build something: the idea that China’s technological evolution passes through its hands. As a result of this we have the advertisement at the Barcelona fair of a line of SuperPoD supercomputers with a single objective: that the Chinese Big Tech don’t have to depend from NVIDIA. Return. Huawei has been collaborating with SMIC -the great foundry of China- to create chips. Chips that feed both your consumer devices as other high-performance ones for large-scale computing. It is clearly difficult to do this without violating Western vetoes (for example, their mobile processors do not have 5G and are less powerful than those of Qualcomm or MediaTek), but they are making progress. The symbolic thing is that They have turned resilience into their best quality. If in 2020 they competed for the market with Samsung and Apple, achieving a profit of 129,000 yuan, in 2025 registered 127 billion dollars, something impressive if we take into account that, above all, They come from the local market. In this time, Huawei has positioned itself as a lifestyle brand that has consumer devices, but also home automation and even cars. But if there is a great frontier today, it is that of artificial intelligence. And Huawei knows that it was something that had to be attacked not only from the most local perspective, but by launching a global warning. SuperPoD. Because these supercomputers, really, are not new. The company presented them in mid-September last year with a more local focus, for China. And before looking at the products, you have to see what a SuperPoD is. These are high-performance clusters that bring together thousands of specialized AI chips. And those chips are not from NVIDIA, which dominates the global conversation in AI computing, but rather their own. It’s about your Ascendsome that have been developing for years and that China is waiting like May rain to break that hegemony of NVIDIA. The idea is the same as with other technological sectors of the Asian giant: not to depend on anyone else. They are the following: Atlas 950 SuperPoD– A cluster of up to 9,192 Ascend 950DT NPUs per system with up to 1,152 TB of unified memory. TaiShan 950 SuperPoD– First general-purpose computing SuperPoD with two models: 96 cores / 192 threads or 192 cores / 384 threads for, for example, massive virtualization or critical databases. Local ecosystem. Huawei’s approach is very interesting. The Ascend is not close to the power and sophistication of NVIDIA chips, nor to CUDA technology that has become the language of AI. However, if each chip individually cannot compete for the most demanding tasks, what Huawei has thought is that these chips be scalable. To do this, they have developed a connection technology with ultra-high bandwidth that allows all these chips to be connected to each other with the aim that, in practice, it behaves like a single logical computer. This connection technology has been named UnifiedBus and, in the statement, Huawei states that the idea is to “continue defending open source and open systems to accelerate developer innovation and the prosperity of ecosystems. That is something that resonates with the Government’s objective: that its companies such as Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba or DeepSeek, which have run into the arms of the latest NVIDIA chips As soon as the ban was lifted, they developed their technologies using ‘made in China’ solutions. Ambition at the cost of sanction. All this comes in a tremendously turbulent context. China is betting a lot on artificial intelligence and robotics as pillars of the country’s technological roadmapbut NVIDIA still has the best product. There is analysis that expose that the best of Huawei is still five times less powerful than the best of NVIDIA, and the United States has just made it clear that investment in AI is one in national security. All the mess between Anthropic and the Pentagon has to do with how the United States demands that the AI ​​of its private companies belongs to the State because they claim that the AI ​​of Chinese companies belongs to China, and China will not hesitate to do whatever it wants with that AI. Because computing power is, and will be, at the core of the AI ​​race, Huawei has shown that it is doing everything it can to deliver the best tools. And Western sanctions have only helped China ‘wake up’ and begin to shape these technological solutions at an accelerated pace. NVIDIA was clear. It remains to be seen whether customers around the world will adopt Huawei’s SuperPoD systems as an alternative to NVIDIA, but what is already on the table is that something is happening. At least, in China. In the middle of last year, the CEO of NVIDIA pointed out that before the vetoes, NVIDIA had 95% of the market share in Chinabut currently it is only 50%. These vetoes did not stop China, but rather accelerated the development of its own industry to the point that the competition, now, is fierce. In fact, the manager recently pointed out that it was absurd for the US to try to stop China with vetoes and sanctions, since China would achieve technological sovereignty sooner or later and that the ideal would be to take an economic slice while they could… and make Chinese Big Tech dependent on NVIDIA technology. And there Huawei’s approach is very curious because yes, its chips may not be the most powerful, but they are mass scalable and adaptable to the needs of each of the companies. Images | HuaweiXataka In Xataka | Huawei no longer competes: it is building its own … Read more

I am a paddle tennis player and finally a smart watch brand has remembered me

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I have carried a paddle tennis racket in my hand since I was little. I am worse than hunger, I am not hiding, but I like this sport and I must admit that I look with envy at the fans of, for example, golf or the running. As a lover of smart watches, I have always seen from afar manufacturers launch specific models and functions for runners and golf players with cool metrics, interesting analyzes and specific functions: yes, 3D courses, yes, footfall analysis, yes, that niche data that only the pros care about… And meanwhile, the padel players we were still thereusing the “tennis” mode that tells us little or nothing or, if available, the “paddle” mode that also does not give information about performance in the match. That’s why, walking through the halls of the Mobile World Congress, I couldn’t help but stop at the Mibro stand. Because? Because their watches have a paddle mode, but a useful one with relevant information for players of this sport. Yes, we really exist. Padel mode in the Mibro GS Explorer S-Ti | Image: Xataka My what? Mibro, “your brother in sport”, as one of the company’s workers at the stand tells me with a laugh. Mibro is a company of Zhenshi Information Technology, a Chinese company founded in 2015 with financing from Xiaomi and Nokia. The company specializes in sports wearables and has found a way to increase its presence in the European market in paddle tennis. In fact, they openly recognize it: it is not that padel is gaining traction in China, it is that they know that it is important in Europe and they believe they have a way to differentiate themselves there. And what do they offer? The company has a catalog of watches with a rather high-mid-range price. The most expensive model is the Mibro GS Explorer Swhich costs 349.99 euros and is made of titanium (it is the one in the photos and I must admit that it feels scary, although I would change the strap, which looks very good, for a silicone one for sports). However, it has cheaper models, such as the GS Active2which remains below 100 euros. The operating system is Mibro Galaxy OS 2.0, a very fancy to call an RTOS system that is very reminiscent of Huawei’s HarmonyOS. An example of the metrics associated with paddle tennis | Image: Xataka But let’s talk about padel. The key to these watches, and the reason why they have caught my attention, is because of their paddle tennis analysis. For the uninitiated, in paddle tennis there are different shots: forehand, backhand, volleys, spikes, layups, lobs, drop shots, etc. Understanding well which shots you are doing the most and why can help you understand a match and discover your areas for improvement. For example: if you have lost a match in which you have made many layups (cut, high and deep shot to keep the net), you may have to work on the volley and the force you apply when hitting, because they have been constantly knocking you out of the net with lobs (high and deep balls). If you have made many lobs and few volleys, layups or shots, it is probably because they have managed to keep you down and have not let you go up to the net to attack. Analysis of forehands and backhands | Image: Xataka And that’s where Mibro comes in.. As they have shown us at the stand, the watch is capable of detecting the number and percentage of each of the shots we make in a match. The watch allows us to know how many backhands, drives, layups, spikes, forehand and backhand lobs and forehand and backhand drop shots we have made and, for example, manually cross-check them with our heart rate to see which points have put us in trouble. Example of analysis of blows | Image: Xataka Speed ​​of blows | Image: Xataka It also counts calories and, even more importantly, the speed of the strokes. Although it is easy to associate paddle tennis with strong and very loud hits, the truth is that playing slowly is usually much more effective against players… nervous, let’s say. A weak ball to the side wall will probably do more damage than a strong shot or volley, in the same way that a layup does not necessarily have to be very fast. Knowing that information that, until now, we could not know, can be useful to focus training or take action. To recognize hits, the device is based on a six-axis accelerometer and intelligent algorithms, as is already done in many other watches and many other sports. How does it work? Unfortunately, and although we always want a padel, we have not had the opportunity to pick up the racket and throw some balls in the halls of the MWC, but the fact that it exists is already progress. Counting layups and shots | Image: Xataka An ideal world. At the expense of testing the watch in a real match situation, a function that would make a lot of sense (even via AI) is to be able to cross-reference the heart rate with the shot you have made or with the duration of the points, as well as the number of shots. That would allow us to see at what level of intensity we start to make mistakes, what shots we make when we are tired (perhaps we abuse the shot or miss more layups). The higher the intensity, the more the technique is distorted, and that causes errors. That type of information, well interpreted, is valuable if you are looking to train and improve. Images | Xataka In Xataka | I have been playing paddle tennis for years and I think Playtomic is an absolutely brilliant invention

His name is John, he studied at Wharton and manages olive trees from New York

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100 billion euros in farmland. That is what, according to an exhaustive report by Greenpeace and Datadistamanages venture capital in the Iberian Peninsula through some 900 investment funds. It is not a Spanish rarity: it is an international boom. In 2015, there were only 45 funds specialized in ‘agribusiness’ in the world; today there are more than a thousand. Back in Spain, since 2019 the purchase and sale of properties has grown by 20%. In 2023 alone, some 148,000 properties were sold. Nine out of ten; at least in Andalusia, They were bought without a mortgage. But this is not what is worrying. After all, we have spent years talking about the financialization of the field. What we didn’t know was the profound impact that this was going to have. How the Spanish farmer is changing. According to the report, there are three types of buyers: specialized investment funds, large industrial corporations and family fortunes. That is, the ownership of land is separating very quickly of it: what were previously businessmen or traditional owners with a certain connection to the territory, are now simply investors. And that has generated a new type of company: specialized intermediaries. Those that allow investors without any experience operate farms as if they were “franchises”. Companies like Balam or Todolivo offer comprehensive management of plantations (from genetic improvement and planting to harvesting). The problem, according to experts who are studying these transformations, is that changes in ownership and changes in management are leading to a change in productive structure of rural Spain. To put it bluntly: this approach does not generate meaningful local employment. Andalusia, to go with the most visual example, has lost 178,957 agricultural jobs between 2017 and 2014. Billions are entering the Spanish countryside, but that money does not reach the base. Why is it important? Because the rural world is being transformed at a forced pace: the generational change crisisthe lurches in the water regime and the problems with the CAP are the icing on the cake: sources of uncertainty that make it impossible to know where we are going. And that has direct consequences in our daily lives. For example, in the case of oil, we are not only going to see how EVOO price volatility increases even in good harvests. As if that were not enough, we are going to move towards varietal standardization (to focus on super-intensive varieties), a loss of rural population and an even deeper disarticulation (industrial, social and cultural) of emptied Spain. Image | Vasilis Caravitis In Xataka | In California, the funds discovered that there is no investment more profitable than farmland. Now it’s Spain’s turn

Dubai was a mecca for expats. Now they are driving 10 hours and paying thousands of dollars for a flight to escape from there

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Iran has shown it needs very little to upend Middle East air traffic and hit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where it hurts the most: the image of reliability that has been built for years at an international level, with great benefitsby the way. The wave of attacks launched by Tehran to neighboring countries that facilitate US military deployment in the region, such as Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the UAE itself, has affected thousands of flights and left a curious image: expats desperate to leave Dubai. There are those who are shelling out large sums to fly on private jets and those who have even driven 10 hours to get to Riyadh and get on a plane there. What has happened? If Tehran wanted to damage the image of stability of neighbors like the UAE, it was completely right. Although the country managed to intercept most of the drones and missiles launched by Iran, the truth is that some of the projectiles reached Dubai, the tourist and financial heart of the region. In practice, this translated into fires in luxury hotels, towers with windows shattered by explosions, a knocked out airport and, above all, considerable reputational damage for a city that has spent years building the image of a safe and comfortable destination for expats. Sums it up beautifully Elizabeth Rayment, a consultant caught off guard by the Iranian attack in Palm Islands: “You never expect to hear missiles flying overhead in Dubai.” Have there been more consequences? Yes. The most serious are undoubtedly the victims. Arab News I was talking yesterday about three deceased and 58 injured in the United Arab Emirates. There are not many if you take into account that the country’s authorities claim to have detected a total of 156 ballistic missiles and several cruise missiles, in addition to more than half a thousand drones, most of them intercepted and destroyed. The other consequence is the chaos generated in air traffic in the Persian Gulf, where some airports and airlines have had to suspend their operations, affecting both customers in the region and others who had planned to pass through Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Qatar to take connecting flights between Europe and Asia. Have many been cancelled? FlightAware estimates that around 2,800 operations and on Sunday more than 3,1500. Added to these are the flights canceled and suspended today by Gulf airlines. For reference, Financial Times assured this morning that more than half of the services that had been booked for today in the region have been cancelled. The Iranian attacks have altered to a greater or lesser extent the programming of Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways and the airports of Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, as well as other terminals in Kuwait and Bahrain. The BBC has chatted with travelers who have found flights canceled upon arriving at the terminal. There are those who already talk about the biggest crisis aviation since the pandemic. How do I leave the country? That is the question that expats and tourists have been asking themselves since Saturday. The Iranian attacks have surprised them in the region and now they find that there are few (or no) regular flights that take them to other parts of the globe. Faced with such a scenario, there are those who have armed themselves with patience, those who have drawn on their checkbook and those who have resigned themselves to traveling kilometers and kilometers to reach airports with flights. So I told it a few hours ago FTwhich speaks of “tens of thousands of passengers” stranded in the region and assures that there are Dubai residents who have traveled to neighboring Oman to get a flight. What’s more, some have even driven 10 hours to get on a plane in Riyadh. They don’t have it easy. Most scheduled flights these days between Muscat (Oman) and Europe are reserved. And what do they do? The wealthiest, pull out their checkbook and try their luck with private jet companies. EnterJet, which is dedicated to intermediating between customers and available planes, says that reservations have skyrocketed 40% since the weekend. The problem is that the sector also has its limitations. Its founder explains to Financial Times that “the only viable option” to operate is the Muscat terminal, which makes it difficult to obtain landing slots. Added to this are the difficulties in finding ships. The businessman hopes that as traffic recovers in the Gulf, private flights will increase. Are they very expensive? The situation in the Gulf has caused a curious effect: while the price of airlines such as International Airlines Group or Air France-KLM they resent the price of private services skyrockets. The JetVip agency (Oman) explains to Guardian that a flight to Istanbul on a small Nextant jet costs around 85,000 euros, about three times the normal price. The same media reveals that seats on private charter flights to Moscow are paid for about 20,000 euros… per person. Rates vary depending on the company, but they usually always range in the five digits, or even more. It may sound strange, but we must keep in mind that Donald Trump has hinted that the offensive against Iran could continue even further. “four weeks” and the question remains as to how Tehran will respond. Added to this is that over the last few years the UAE has managed to position itself as a priority destination for thousands of expatsa position largely based on reliability and stability that Tehran has now managed to damage with missiles. Images | Michael Ranzau (Flickr) In Xataka | The arrival of the B-2s to Iran can only mean one thing: the search for the greatest threat to the United States has begun

gigantic boards that monitor war conflicts

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This Saturday, February 28, Israel, with the help of the United States, began a bombing of Iran. Beyond the news, one of the current obsessions is to be informed in real time about the conflict. And this is where the vibe coding You have shown your best face again. Developers are creating online platforms to follow war conflicts in real time with a level of detail that, to date, was not possible with traditional websites. The obsession with conflict. The war has become a board. One that we not only want to be informed about, we want to monitor it in direct time due to its direct implications worldwide. This is where maps, alerts, and interfaces that “gamify” the information experience gain interest. And in recent times the vibe coding has made it clear. The great war board. The obsession with knowing every detail of the global conflict has led developers to create tools such as World-Monitor. Giant information panels in which the conflict can be followed in real time, through each and every one of the necessary pillars: A global map with alert level legend live cameras Live broadcasts from media such as Bloomberg, CNBC, Euronews Adjustment layers to focus attack zone, military bases, submarine cables, data centers, military activity, ship tourism, trade routes Analysis of country instability, overview of strategic risks Independent feed for each area, news, theme Gamifying tragedy. The case of World-Monitor is not isolated, alternatives such as Situation Deck make it clear that this type of panels situation room They want to offer a gamified experience. A visual experience that is more reminiscent of a tactical command center than a traditional medium. Beyond the moral debate, the work of developers vibecoding desktop solutions that offer a much more refined and updated vision than that of many media. Developers are building tools that, in many cases, are faster and more comprehensive than traditional coverage. In Xataka | Iran is going to need much more from China and Russia: the US has landed its fighter jets loaded with a weapon that changes everything, angry kittens

3.6 million people watched the Goya gala. Only a small part went to see the nominated films

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The gala of the Goya 2026 has scored a 26% screen share, its best figure since 2020 and the second highest since 2010, in a context of television consumption down. Paradoxically, this massive attention contrasts with a box office that remains stagnant and with an audience that prefers to see Spanish cinema on television platforms and events rather than in theaters. Technology and new consumer habits explain this gap. The figures. The broadcast of the gala on RTVE’s La 1 brought together an average of 2,396,000 viewers and reached a 26% share. In his analysisVertele emphasizes that linear television consumption has been significantly reduced in the last decade, with fewer people watching DTT at the same time than in 2010. That the gala reaches percentages comparable to fifteen years ago in an ecosystem fragmented by streaming and delayed viewing platforms suggests that the Goya remains an event capable of bringing together a mass audience in real time, in the style of a sporting event. These good figures are part of five consecutive years of growth for the gala in audiences, with an increase of 1.6 share points and 56,000 viewers compared to the 2025 edition. However, the majority of the films that competed for the award that night had not managed to recover their investment in theaters. Less box office. According to the official data published by the ICAASpanish theaters closed 2024 with 72.9 million spectators and a collection of 484.6 million euros, figures that represent a 5% decline in attendance compared to the previous year. The share of national cinema within this shrinking market was around 18.65%. But that percentage is not sustained by the auteur films that dominate the Goya nominations, but rather the exact opposite: family comedies and commercial thrillers. This can be applied to the big winners of this editionwhich we summarize in this table. All of them enjoyed subsidies between one million (except Sorda, with 800,000 euros) and 1,200,000. That is to say, they are films highly valued on the awards circuit, rather than by the general public. In this way, the market bifurcates, and the cinema that really fills theaters, such as the family comedies by Santiago Seguraare left out of the Goya. QUALIFICATION BUDGET COLLECTION SIRAT 6.5 million euros 2.87 million euros Maspalomas 5 million euros 716,000 euros Deaf 2 million euros 735,000 euros Sundays 4.7 million euros 3.7 million euros dinner 5 million euros 716,000 euros The captive 9.8-15 million euros 5.2 million euros lto Spanish exception. It is not something that happens in all countries: in France, the eternal model in which we want to see ourselves, French films raised 44% of the year’s box office. But at the same time, the three most watched French titles of the year (a comedy with disabled actors, an epic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas and a romantic drama) are films that also aspire to the Césars, their equivalent to our Goyas. Subsidies are also comparable in quantitybut here the number of releases has skyrocketed (168 in 2016, 364 in 2025), while the collection has decreased (from 111.5 to 85.6 million in the same period). And yet… the Goya audience demonstrates every year that there is interest in the industry. There is a potential audience that debates whether ‘Sirat’ deserved to win more awards than ‘Los Domingos’, but they did not go to the cinema for the premiere of ‘Sirat’. The hinge of the platforms. Three weeks after its very limited theatrical release, ‘The Snow Society’ landed on Netflix: in its first eleven days accumulated 51 million views and closed the first half of the year with 103 million views, becoming Netflix’s third most viewed film globally. The fact that he had that success right after leaving the theater sums up the problem. In October 2025 Netflix advertisement that they would spend one billion euros on Spanish production between that year and 2028. All this in Tres CantosNetflix’s largest production space in the entire European Union. Since its arrival in Spain, Netflix has produced more than a thousand titles with Spanish teams, generating 20,000 jobs in the sector. Amazon Prime Video follows a similar logic, although with less weight in its own original production. The money from the platforms has allowed Spanish cinema to produce on a scale outside the traditional financing system (subsidies, investment from traditional chains). For this reason, and in the face of competition from platforms, which produce and release almost immediately in their space, in 2022 the Spanish exhibitors They formally requested a minimum window of one hundred days between the theatrical release and the arrival on platforms, shorter than the windows in France (15 months) and Italy (3 months). At the moment, there is no regulation and each window is negotiated separately. The power of the Goya. However, there is a Goya Effect at the box office. Last year, when ‘El 47’ and ‘La infiltrada’ won the award for Best Filmthe two tapes their box office skyrocketed by more than 70%. It is something that carries lifetime happening with the Oscars, but here we do not have the muscle of international Hollywood distribution. In Spain, ‘Los Domingos’ continues in 50 cinemas and ‘Sirat’ in 35 throughout Spain. It is insufficient for them to experience notable growth. But these are the highest grossing ones: the Goya, their audience proves it, they generate real interest, but the majority of the winning films, such as ‘Sorda’ or ‘Maspalomas’, are already streaming. The impact of the awards does not benefit the box office because there are no open avenues to do so. In Xataka | Santiago Segura is so clear about his success that with ‘Torrente Presidente’ he is trying something: without a trailer or a pass for critics

Setting up guest Wi-Fi seemed like a good idea. Until the latest vulnerability has appeared: AirSnitch

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I’m the first one I have activated a guest Wi-Fi network to facilitate access to Wi-Fi connectivity for my friends and family, without compromising the security and privacy of the Wi-Fi network to which the rest of me is connected. devices in my home. The coffee shop I usually go to does it too. Separating the main network from the one used by visitors or clients seemed enough to prevent someone connected from snooping on other people’s computers, cell phones or printers. However, that model just took a major setback. A group of researchers has presented in the NDSS 2026 a attack called AirSnitch which shows that this separation can be broken even when the router has isolation between devices activated and uses modern encryption such as WPA2 or WPA3. The problem with AirSnitch is that it is not a brute force attack against these protection systems, but rather it has found an alternative path in which this protection simply does not arrive. AirSnitch is not an attack, it is an alternative AirSnitch is not an out-of-the-box malware, but rather a technique that exploits a vulnerability in the way many access points implement client isolation. This function, present in all home, business or public Wi-Fi networks, should prevent two devices connected to the same Wi-Fi from being able to communicate directly with each other. The problem, according to the study presented in it Network and Distributed System Security Symposiumis that this isolation is not part of a single standard and each manufacturer implements it in its own way. In their tests, the researchers analyzed 11 different devices, from home routers to professional equipment and alternative firmwares. They found vulnerabilities to AirSnitch techniques in all of them. In statements collected by Ars TechnicaXin’an Zhou, one of the authors of the work, stated that AirSnitch “breaks Wi-Fi encryption around the world and could have the potential to enable advanced cyberattacks. Our research physically taps the entire wire for these sophisticated attacks to work. It is truly a threat to the security of networks around the world.” How AirSnitch works The key is that, although the devices are “isolated” from each other thanks to the customer isolationshare certain internal mechanisms of the router that allow data traffic to be organized. AirSnitch takes advantage of that feature to trick the access point and make some of the information that should go to another device pass through the attacker first. In practice, this allows you to place yourself in the middle of the communication without the victim realizing it, generating what is known in cybersecurity as a Man-in-the-Middle (man in the middle), in which all the information on that device first passes through an intermediary. From there, the attacker can observe data and, in certain cases, modify it before it reaches its destination. That is, it is not about guessing the Wi-Fi password, but rather taking advantage of how the device itself router manages connections internal once someone is already connected. The researchers showed that this technique can facilitate additional attacks, such as redirecting the victim to fake pages or manipulating certain internal communications if they are not adequately protected. Isolation, which was supposed to prevent precisely this scenario, stops be an effective barrier. The main problem is that all devices connect to the same router that manages them. Why public networks are the most delicate scenario The risk is especially relevant in open or shared networksF for many people: cafes, airports, hotels or coworking spaces. In these environments, any user can legally connect through the password provided by the establishment and, if the access point is vulnerableattempt to exploit the flaw against other clients connected at that time. In one home network the impact is much more limitedbecause the attacker needs to know the password to enter first. That is, it has to be one of the guests to whom you have given the password, not someone external. Still, research shows that activating a guest network does not alone ensure that devices are completely isolated. Being a recent discovery, there is still no immediate universal solution for the end user. The fix depends largely on firmware updates by manufacturers or deeper changes in how they design their device isolation systems. Meanwhile, in enterprise environments it is recommended to segment networks more strictly, using configurations that truly separate devices into different internal environments and do not depend solely on a router function. For individuals, keeping equipment up-to-date, using strong passwords, and avoiding sensitive operations on public networks without additional protection are reasonable measures to reduce risk that continue to be in effect. Need a password to connect to a Wi-Fi network It is not a guarantee of security or privacy. In Xataka | VPN Buying Guide: Nine Services to Consider for Safer Browsing Image | Unsplash (Bernard Hermant)

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