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Volotea begins to charge extra due to the rise in oil prices on its flights. 97% of passengers have agreed to pay it

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More and more airlines are already taking measures to contain the energy chaos that has arisen as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. Although many of them have chosen to cancel a good number of flightsothers have chosen to make their tickets more expensive. One of them has been Volotea. And the Spanish airline has launched a price adjustment policy linked at the cost of fuel which can make the ticket already purchased more expensive up to a week before flying. Crisis in the Middle East. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuzthrough which it passes about 40% of oil consumed by European airlines, has skyrocketed the price of fuel and forced the sector to look for ways to avoid absorbing the blow on their own. Volotea has been the first Spanish airline to transfer this cost to the passenger explicitly and with its own mechanism. What exactly has he done. Since March 16, Volotea has applied what it calls the Fair Travel Promise: seven days before the departure of each flight, the airline consults the market price of fuel in public sources and, if it has increased compared to the time of the reservation, charges the passenger a supplement of up to 14 euros per person per trip. According to they count From 20 Minutes, most surcharges are between 7 and 10 euros. And the adjustment can also work the other way around: if the price of fuel drops, the company returns the difference. What options does the passenger have? The traveler who receives the surcharge notice has a period of 48 hours to decide what to do. You can pay the supplement and continue with your plans, request a full refund of the ticket, or take advantage of the time offered by the airline to modify or cancel the reservation for free up to four hours before takeoff. The company ensures that its customers are aware of this policy before booking, since they must accept it at the time of purchase. The numbers that Volotea manages. According to data from the airline itself, 97% of affected passengers have chosen to pay and keep their trip. The company interprets that percentage as a sign that the measure “is aligned with customer expectations,” in its own words. In addition, it has canceled a small percentage of flights due to higher fuel prices, although it assures that it affects less than 1% of its total schedule. Countermeasures. Not all airlines are acting the same. According to Expansioncompanies such as Air France-KLM, Qantas or Cathay Pacific already apply fuel supplements, while IAG (the group that owns Iberia and British Airways) or Ryanair do not do so at the moment. Groups such as Lufthansa or Ryanair itself have asked the European Union to study a joint purchasing model for kerosene, similar to the one that was launched with gas after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why can it go further? If the Strait of Hormuz blockade is prolonged, pressure on fuel prices could intensify. The Airports Council International (ACI Europe) and Ryanair already have warned that the problem of cancellations in the industry could worsen if supply suffers. Spain has some margin thanks to its national refining capacity (almost 9.9 million tons of kerosene per year, according to share El Mundo), but it is not a structural solution. Volotea has moved in a different way, and now we wonder if more airlines will join this strategy. Cover image | Dylan Agbagni (Wikipedia) In Xataka | Airlines are becoming more imaginative to save costs: Lufthansa is going to clean economy class less

In the midst of Claude Code’s meteoric rise, his code has been leaked. It is a sweet treat for its competitors

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One of the news of the day is the great code leak that it has suffered Claude Code. The entire architecture of the programming tool of Claude has been leaked, due to an internal error recognized by Anthropic. Your competitors are in luck. what has happened. The leak was not the result of an external attack or a hack, it was an internal failure: when publishing one of Claude Code’s updates, a 59.8 MB JavaScript source code map (.map) file was exposed, intended for internal debugging. According to sourceswas included by mistake in version 2.1.88 of the @anthropic-ai/claude-code package published this morning. Minutes later the party started. “Earlier today, a release of Claude Code included some internal source code. No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed. This was a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach. We are implementing measures to prevent this from happening again.” The consequences. For the next few hours, the more than 500,000 lines of leaked code were accessible and downloadable from a public GitHub repository. Since its publication, there are already more than 50,000 forks of the code. The leak shows the system of internal tools that the AI ​​uses to operate and, in addition, signs of functions that have not yet been released have appeared. This has allowed us to have in-depth access to the current anatomy of Claude Code, the internal plans for subsequent iterations and the main limitations it currently has. Why is it important. Although not Claude’s own model has been leaked, but rather the source code of his Code tool, the leak is a double blow for Anthropic. First, it is a severe setback for the company’s intellectual property, handing over its roadmap not only to competitors, but to actors eager to break Claude Code’s security barriers. More importantly, it is a blow to a company that since its inception has focused on being even safer than its competitorspublicly admitting that a file has been slipped in that should not have seen the light of day. What Anthropic has done about it. Anthropic’s reaction has been quick, removing the affected package to prevent new downloads and correcting the subsequent version. Despite this, the damage was done and the situation is irreversible. Go deeper. Claude Code has become, in its own right, one of the most popular tools among developers. According to data from SemiAnalysis, 4% of all public commits uploaded to GitHub are created with this tool, and it is expected to reach 20% in 2026. The Claude Code leak is a reminder that even the most advanced AI companies are not free from rookie mistakes. In Xataka |

“We felt cheated.” Even gas station owners are freaking out about the sudden, meteoric rise in oil

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The missiles fell and the energy markets soared. When the conflict officially began on February 28 between the US, Israel and Iran and its expansion through the Middle East, the energy markets responded to the new scenario and in more or less two weeks, the barrel of Brent has already risen by 50% according to EIA data. At gas stations, the price of fuel also rose overnight. The rapid rise in fuel. Below these lines you can see how the average price of fuel in Spain has evolved according to the data extracted from the Ministry of Ecological Transition of the States and compiled by the Dieselogasoline website. Thus, if we closed February with a price of €1,493/l for Unleaded 95 and €1,548/l for Diesel A+, March has been a relentless uphill climb for all fossil fuels. Today they mark €1,727/l and €1,935/l respectively. With this panorama and the figure of 2 euros/liter on the horizonthe first days already There were long lines at some service stations. before what was coming. Evolution of fuel prices in Spain in March. Dieselogasolina.com The perfect storm. With the blockade of the Strait of Hormuzthe place through which approximately 20% of the world’s production of crude oil and liquefied natural gas passes, confirmation that China turns off the tap of its exports to meet domestic demand, the slowdown in activity of some deposits and that large merchant companies are paralyzed or surrounding all of Africa to satisfy demand at the cost of a longer and more expensive route, it is clear that the scenario for buying oil looks bleak. In fact, not even the International Energy Agency release 400 million barrels of emergency reserves (the largest mobilization in history) was enough for the market to react. Ultimately, that number equivalent about four days of world consumption or about 20 days of what passes through the Strait of Hormuz. And it could be worse: as the spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps explained: “They will not be able to artificially lower the price of oil. Prepare for oil to reach $200 per barrel,” picks up Al Jazeera. Instability, the reduction in supply and its use as a measure of pressure summarize the black picture. But that gasoline is not that of war. Although the history of conflicts in the Middle East is an unequivocal precedent to glimpse the rise of fuel and everything, because in practice it has an impact on the logistics of the bulk of the activities: if the fruit store brings its delivery five times a week, those deliveries cost more. And if you travel 50 kilometers a day to get to work, it will also cost you more. Economy of the obvious. However, there is a harsh reality: that fuel that you are already paying at war prices was acquired previously. We are paying prices for the future, those for replacement. And not just consumers: also gas stations. As Michel-Édouard Leclerc, president of the E. Leclerc supermarket chain and its gas stations, said, to public broadcaster Franceinfo: “We felt cheated, just like the drivers, by the almost automatic speed with which prices rose.” In his case, he also announced the reduction of 30 cents at the group’s gas stations in France thanks to negotiations with suppliers. Who sets the price of fuel. In the Spanish state, prices have been free since 1998, as the CNMC explainsbut from here there are several actors that influence: The international market, based on the price of Brent oil or refined oil in the reference markets. The refinery or wholesale operator, which adds its operating and logistics margin until distribution. The gas station operator: if it is a flagship station such as Repsol or BP, the price is practically a matter for the parent company. If it is independent or belongs to a large surface (such as Plenoil or Leclerc), it has more room for fixation. Hence they are the cheapest. The State through taxesmore specifically the Special Tax on Hydrocarbons and VAT. In Xataka | The rocket and the pen: the theory that explains why the rise in gasoline is here to stay In Xataka | There is a hidden war to sell us the cheapest possible gasoline. One that Ballenoil and Plenergy already dominate Cover | Leclerc

We already know how much laptop prices are going to rise this year: absolute nonsense

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If you were waiting until 2026 to renew your equipment, trusting that interesting offers would appear, we have bad news. The laptop market prepares for a perfect storm that threatens to burst retail prices. A reasonable budget until now of about 900 euros will very soon become one of 1,300 euros, and it will do so without the product being better than last year’s. damn memories. The first big culprit of all this is the DRAM memory crisis and NAND storage chips. Supply and demand have remained absolutely unbalanced with the rise of AIand that has caused a tragic situation for end users. If previously these components represented 15% of the manufacturing cost, in 2026 they will represent more than 30% of those costs. Making a laptop is simply much more expensive today than it was yesterday. Intel doesn’t help. As if this were not enough, processors are also rising in price. Intel has already made a move by increasing the cost of its entry-level and previous generation CPUs by more than 15%. In fact, it is likely that things will not stop there: it is expected that by the second quarter of 2026, its mid- and high-range processors will also follow the same path, which will further suffocate manufacturers’ margins. And of course that will end up having the same impact: even more expensive equipment. The dictatorship of profit margins. Manufacturers are governed by elementary but unassailable financial mathematics: profit margins. So that both brands and stores continue to earn the same, the increase in costs ends up being passed on entirely to end users. The result is devastating: a 900 euro laptop could see its price increase by 40%. And here it is not that brands want to earn more: it is that manufacturing that laptop costs 58% more just in CPU, memory and storage. Manufacturers and stores therefore assume part of the impact, but of course most of it is received by users. According to TrendForce, the combined price increase of memory, SSDs and CPUs will cause the “bill of materials” for manufacturers to increase by 58% compared to 45% in the first quarter of 2025. Source: TrendForce. Technological eviction. For months we have been talking about how this fever for AI data centers has caused DRAM and NAND chip manufacturers to completely change focus. Before they manufactured for humans, now they do it for machines. This has caused a “technological eviction” effect in which chips for PCs and laptops are left without room in factories. The offer is reduced to the minimum expression because what is really profitable now is Micron, SK Hynix or Samsung is to make memories for AI chips. Small brands in danger. This crisis does not affect everyone equally. Large manufacturers can negotiate better prices and secure inventory thanks to their purchasing volumes, smaller and local brands are suffering especially. They face volatility that could leave them without inventory or with prices so high that they would be out of the game against large manufacturers. AMD is no longer the refuge of yesteryear. Historically, when Intel rose in price or had stock problems, AMD emerged as an even more relevant alternative. Now the situation is so critical that the shortage is also affecting the firm led by Lisa Su. It is true that AMD has gained market share thanks to its competitiveness, but there are already reports of lack of supply in its entry range. The uncertainty continues. The TrendForce study is clear: the coming quarters will be decisive to be clear about how this unique segment will turn out. With weak demand and skyrocketing production costs, the consumer is faced with an unsustainable situation: buy what’s left in stock now, or accept that the “standard” laptop may have risen in price forever? The era of the cheap PC could have come to an end, although there are striking surprises, such as the one Apple has proposed with the MacBook Neowhich goes just against the grain: it is modest, yes, but also an affordable option at a time when users are most stressed. Good play by Cook and his boys. The alternative: used equipment and components. Faced with this situation, users can resort to a plan B that is not ideal, but that offers them a certain escape. This is where refurbished products could make more sense than ever, and where the second-hand market may mean that users may prefer not to go for the latest of the latest – from this year – and opt for the latest of the latest – from last year. If many do it, of course, there is the other danger: that even those reconditioned and second-hand products also rise in price. In Xataka | RAM manufacturers have grown tired of technology companies buying “just in case.” So they got serious

the theory that explains why the rise in gasoline is here to stay

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Gasoline skyrockets. It is the consequence of the attacks on Iran and the country’s responses to the United States and Israel. In an enclave very exposed to any type of crisis, the Strait of Hormuz, oil transit is suffering harsh consequences. China already warns that it will not export its fuel. And, meanwhile, gasoline is rising at a dizzying pace. 20 cents. Tomorrow, Saturday, March 7, marks one week since the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Since then, hostilities in the Middle East have continued, with a response from Iran in which its neighboring countries and even the European Union have been involved. It was February 28 and gasoline was moving below 1.50 euros/liter on average. When we write these lines, March 6, the portal dieselgasolina.com which monitors the price of Spanish service stations offers a very different image: So far this month, prices have skyrocketed: Gasoline 95: from 1,495 euros/liter to 1,608 euros/liter. +11 cents/liter Gasoline 98: from 1,687 euros/liter to 1,766 euros/liter. +8 cents/liter Diesel A: from 1,447 euros/liter to 1,643 euros/liter. +20 cents/liter Diesel A+: from 1,549 euros/liter to 1,734 euros/liter. +19 cents/liter A week. Barely a week has been enough for the price of gasoline and diesel to skyrocket and, above all… there is no prospect of their ceiling. And the oil companies and service stations are already beginning to notify the Government that they are not willing to support a new gasoline subsidy, as would happen in 2022. This means that the prospects are not at all promising and the truth is that if we look at the progress of the conflict, everything indicates that we can expect the worst. Right now: Sign of the increase in price in a few days like a rocket. What we are witnessing, again, is the theory of the rocket and the pen. When the supply chain falters, the price of gasoline skyrockets. However, its descent lasts for weeks or months, reproducing the effect of a feather. And, as soon as the last war in the Middle East began, gas stations have already started raising prices. It doesn’t matter that the impact of a rise in the barrel of Brent is not immediate on the prices at which they buy oil, the truth is that there are gas stations where prices have increased by more than 10% in the first days of the conflict, as you can see in the image above. The diesel. Although the price of gasoline is rising, without a doubt the biggest loser is the diesel customer. Spain continues to be a country whose automobile fleet is made up mostly for this type of fuel and seeing an increase of 20 cents/liter, on average, in just one week is hard. Its price is already higher than gasoline. What was once a historical raritytoday it has become a certain normality. As we already observed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in this territory, diesel became more expensive because Russia was a big exporter of the same and European refineries had been reduced. That is to say, we had less fuel available on the market and for what there was we had two options: buy it at a high price or wait for the European funnel to ease. And the room for maneuver is small. But, in addition, since the War in Ukraine the State has been applying some measures that reduce the room for maneuver to try to patch the situation. Public transport is now much cheaper that then and gas stations and oil companies have already raised the hatchet against possible subsidies. A tax cut seems complicated. The State would be shooting itself in the foot, reducing revenue that also goes up when fuel prices rise. AND The European Union has been pressing for years so that diesel bonuses are eliminated and, therefore, taxes are equal to gasoline. Photo | Hamza Şamil Yavuz In Xataka | Europe has been demanding that Spain increase diesel prices for five years. And Spain is playing at being Spain

There is an unexpected victim of the rise in RAM memory prices: the very modern connected cars

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Which what’s happening with the RAM memories is making one thing clear: the best time to buy memory modules is yesterday. The price increase is so extraordinary which is already affecting other classic components of our PCs such as SSD units or graphics cards. However, the crisis that these components are generating goes further. Much further. Data centers devour memory. The AI ​​fever, we already know very well, has generated a voracious hunger not only for cutting-edge AI chips, but also for RAM and HBM memories that accompany these chips. As indicated in The Wall Street Journaldata centers (both conventional and those dedicated to AI) will consume more than 70% of the high-end memory chips that manufacturers produce in 2026. And if they could take more, they would take them. This is not (only) about PCs or mobiles. It is evident that the first affected by this problem are conventional desktop and laptop computers, as well as our mobile devices. Hundreds of millions of them are sold every year and they all have a certain amount of RAM that is now more expensive than ever. The shock wave is already causing other components such as SSD drives or graphics cards affected, but in reality memory chips are everywhere. And above all, in one. From TV to car. The frenetic rise in memory prices is certainly going to affect other segments that we had not thought about soon. Of course it will do so on other consumer electronic devices, and this certainly includes Smart TVs, which They have their own processor, memory and storage to offer us its functions. But the problem may be even more critical for cars, which for years were already computers with wheels and which are now even better and more powerful computers (and with more memory) with wheels. Memories of all kinds. Although car electronic systems have traditionally used RAM, the latest in most cases was not needed. But that was in the cars of a few years ago, because the arrival especially of the electric car and the fever for screens in our vehicles has made these needs different. Now our cars need various types of memory, but in some cases those modules are as good (or better) than the ones we have in our cell phones and computers. The ECUs. A modern car makes use of so-called ECUs (Electronic Control Units) for issues such as controlling the transmission, the airbag system or the engine itself. It is normal for them to have between 50 and 150 of these control units or microcontrollers, and almost all of them contain RAM for temporary data and a ROM for firmware and software. Infotainment systems. The most obvious component that surely comes to mind as that “car computer” is the infotainment system, which usually consists of a touch screen, navigation functions, support for CarPlay and Android Auto systems, and voice assistants. Although in many cars these systems use 1 GB or 2 GB of DRAM memory, there are more modern cars that They reach 4 GB and even 8 GB of LPDDR4 memory. And if we talk about some manufacturers like BYD or NIO, there are models in which They use 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory. The Ford SYNC 5 system, for example, is based on a Qualcomm SoC with 16 GB of RAM. Driving assistance requires memory. In addition to these components, there are others that also require the use of RAM. Advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) allow you to activate functions such as adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, automatic emergency braking or parking assistant. And to achieve this they use RAM with high bandwidth, which allows working with real-time images and processing of sensor signals. Samsung knows this well and in fact manufactures modules specifically oriented to this market. Tesla’s well-known autopilot hardware, Hardware 4 (currently used) makes use of 16 GB of RAMFor example. Micron already warned. In December 2023 Micron already indicated that “a car needs more memory than a (space) rocket.” The firm, an absolute protagonist in the field of RAM memory module manufacturing, indicated how in 2023 the average vehicle used 90 GB between RAM and NAND, but in 2026 that figure was estimated to be 278 GB and would reach 2 TB in high-end vehicles. That was good news for it and other manufacturers, and even then it pointed to how “generative AI is transforming automotive.” What they probably didn’t realize is that this revolution was going to need many data centers, and those data centers were going to need a lot of memory. And this is where we are. In Xataka | “Not a phone, it’s a car”: Volkswagen believes that screens in cars are going too far

The great Christmas revolution in Spain is not the millions of LED lights: it is the rise of "Good afternoon" and "New Year’s Eve"

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Don’t look for them in the RAE dictionary because academics have not yet found a place for them there, but over the last few years two words have been making their way into the national Christmas lexicon: “good afternoon and new year’s afternoon”. Just like Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, the canonical celebrations they have begun to complement. Actually both terms are self-explanatory: good afternoon and old afternoon They are nothing other than lateness (a phenomenon upward) transferred to the festivities of December 24 and 31. It’s that simple, that effective. The formula has caught on to such an extent in recent years that it has gone from being a diffuse and spontaneous phenomenon to a settled reality that moves thousands of peopleis organized with weeks in advancehas the institutional endorsement of the town councils and gives an extra boost to the coffers of the hoteliers. New times, new traditions. Christmas is (almost by definition) synonymous with tradition, but that doesn’t mean it’s immutable. On the contrary. Over the last few years, the holidays have been enriched with new habits that, through repetition, have already become established in Spanish ‘Christmas lore’: lighting parties of the lights, the fights between city councils to erect XXL luminous trees, the ‘pre-grapes’ and of course the good afternoon and old afternoon. New celebrations that take over from others that falter. ¿Good afternoon and old afternoon? Exact. Two expanding trends that are practically self-explanatory. The good afternoon and old afternoon They are nothing other than the adaptation of the late to the two big Christmas events: Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The party no longer starts at night, with a copious dinner. It begins at noon and in the afternoon, with celebrations that usually leave homes and move to public spaces such as restaurants, bars, streets and squares. It is not about replacing the family dinner on the 24th or the one that precedes the 12 bells on the 31st, but rather about rethinking the celebration with friends and family, adjusting their schedules to bring them forward towards the afternoon (even at noon) in a ‘challenge’ to the traditional dinners that go on forever and the old party favors. A proven success. It may seem simple, but it works. If you open Google and type “New Year’s Eve” You will basically find two things: announcements from town councils that inform about their celebrations (the list is extensive: Petrer, Cartagena, Torremolinos, Boadilla del Monte, Two Sisters, Fuenlabrada…) and articles of regional newspapers that they count how the “previews” of December 24 and especially December 31 have gained popularity over the years. “It’s like reliving a day of the Pilar Festival in the middle of Christmas. A terrifying vermouth, but with wonderful billing,” explained last year to the newspaper ‘Heraldo’ a hotelier from Zaragoza who told how the good afternoon and old afternoon They have carved out a niche for themselves in December. There is nothing written about how to celebrate them, but the most common thing is that the afternoons start in the hours before dinner, even around noon (about one or even a little before), and continue for hours, until eight. In Xataka Nougat has always been the most popular and democratic sweet at Christmas. Now it’s becoming a luxury Searching for the causes. that the old afternoon is gaining strength precisely now and not eight, ten or eleven years ago is no coincidence. Although it is not easy to determine the reasons that explain why a trend succeeds, the truth is that the boom in Christmas “previews” is preceded by factors that have paved the way for it. The first (obvious) is the expansion of late in Spain. Whether causality or not, as the population pyramid of the country is thinning at the base and widening in the age group between 30 and 50, evening leisure has been gaining weight. That is, venues willing to offer experiences similar to those at night parties, only at an afternoon time that prevents the client from staying up late or waking up the next morning exhausted and hungover. The legacy of COVID. Another factor that helps understand the success of the good afternoon either old afternoon It’s the pandemic. COVID not only forced us to spend weeks confined at home, it also (and perhaps because of that) rediscovered the pleasure of going out and enjoying the streets and terraces, which is precisely where they are celebrated the afternoons of December 24 and 31. This is how hoteliers explained it to them in 2024. The Digital Confidential in an article in which it was stated that attendance at the Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve previews shot up by 25% in just two years. {“videoId”:”x80zm7f”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”How your TOWN or CITY has changed in 40 years: this is the NEW GOOGLE EARTH feature”, “tag”:””, “duration”:”135″} Is there more? Yes. To all of the above, other equally important keys can be added, such as families being less willing to spend hours between stoves or the increase in ordered dishes to restaurants. If we enjoy more leisure on the afternoons of the 24th and 31st, it is simply because we organize ourselves differently on those days and we are less tied to the kitchens. Another key is the advantages to organize midday and afternoon plans instead of long dinners, especially if there are children involved. How icing is it the bet what have they done not a few town councils by the evening parties, especially in small towns where the afternoon has become an opportunity to celebrate (in community and with music) Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve. Images | Gijón City Council, Fuenlabrada City Council In Xataka |It has always been said that the King of Spain plays Gordo with the number 00000. There is a part of truth and part of a lie (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = … Read more

As Japan runs out of children, it’s starting to adopt some ceremonies for one group on the rise: dogs

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Does a few weeks Miki Toguchi, a 51-year-old Japanese woman, went to a temple in Tokyo so that little Kotora could participate in the Shichi-Go-Sanan ancient Shinto ritual during which we thank children for their birthdays and pray for their protection. The ceremony is usually performed by young people aged seven, five and three, which is why it is often called that: ‘7-5-3’. Kotora is now five years old, hence Toguchi’s determination to have him blessed. The funny thing is that Kotora is not a child. Not a girl. It’s a schanuzer miniature that upon arriving at the Tokyo sanctuary for the ‘7-5-3’ ritual, he met other poodles, pomeranians, chihuahuas, bichons… Together represent better than any statistics demographic drift from Japan. A different ‘7-5-3’ ritual. The story of Kotora (and others like it) has just been told The New York Times in an article in which he reveals how in the sanctuary Ichigaya Kamegaoka (Tokyo) dogs are slowly replacing humans in the Shichi-Go-Sana ceremony designed for children. The origins of the ritual date back to Heian period (794-1185 AD), a period with a high infant mortality rate, which explains why the country’s aristocrats celebrated when their children reached three, five and seven years of age. Parents came to the shrines with their little ones, showed gratitude and prayed that their offspring would enjoy long, prosperous and healthy lives. From children to dogs. The ‘7-5-3’ has maintained its spirit for generations, but as Japan ran out of babies Shrines like Ichigaya Kamegaok have had to make a living. The country may have fewer and fewer children, but their homes they have been filling of dogs and cats, so dozens of temples throughout Japan have chosen to adapt the ritual to animals. The idea is the same: the little ones are blessed, thanks are given for their lives and protection is prayed for… although in this case the little ones are not children, but poodles, Pomeranians, Chihuahuas, bichons or Akitas (among many other species), dogs that often appear before the priests with kimonos and amulets. For reference, TNYT remember that the Tokyo temple receives seven times more pets than infants every fall: about 50 children compared to 350 animals. “Obsolete shrines”. Kenji Kaji is a priest at Ichigaya Kamegaoka Temple and explains that he has had to tweak some sentences to fit the pets. It may not be an orthodox practice, but he himself acknowledges that there is a less attractive scenario: “The worst thing would be if both Shintoism and the shrines became obsolete.” So pray that families and their furry friends enjoy “happy” lives. For the ceremony they ask 5,000 yen ($32). In cases like Kotora, the temples have found two things: a new source of income and a way for young people to get closer to tradition. “People have gone from having children to having pets,” Toguchi confesses.. She doesn’t have children, but she wants her pet to participate in ‘7-5-3’. It is not an isolated case. Looking back. In 2023 Reuters spoke already from an ancient temple located 35 km from Tokyo, the Zama sanctuary, which had a special prayer area designed for pets and their families to participate in the Shichi-Go-San. At the time, Natsumi Aoki, a 33-year-old woman who had blessed her Pomeranians, lamented that there were not enough pet-friendly sanctuaries in Japan. Today The New York Times assures that in the country there are already “dozens” of sanctuaries willing to say prayers for dogs. Much more than a ceremony. That the ‘7-5-3’ is opening up to pets and there are temples in which more rituals are already celebrated for more dogs than children is more than a simple anecdote. It is a symptom of the social changes that Japan is facing, mired in a deep population crisis from which it cannot escape. In 2024 the country registered 686,061 birthsa disastrous fact for two big reasons. The first is that it marks a new historical low. Never since records began in 1899 has Japan received fewer babies. The second is that this rate of births was far below the rate of deaths. Last year they died in Japan about 1.6 million peopleso for every baby born, two deaths were recorded. The result is a vegetative balance in the red that cost the country the greatest population loss since at least the late 1960s, which is when records began. Fewer babies, but no pets. During the pandemic the country saw how they increased cats and dogs in homes, although at the beginning of 2024 the Japan Pet Food Association detected that this increase was slowing down. That does not mean that pets have become a business of millionaire with growth forecast. Images | Rosewoman (Flickr), Japanexperterna (Flickr), Radim Jaksik (Unsplash) In Xataka | Japan has been mired in a demographic catastrophe for years. Now you know the price to get out of it: foreign babies

After renting swimming pools during the summer, a new business is on the rise in Madrid: private terraces in winter

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In a chalet in Boadilla del Monte, a group of friends drinks their wine as the afternoon falls. In the center of Madrid, a couple celebrates a birthday on a stranger’s terrace. In Lavapiés, a group of twenty-somethings toast in a room. In all cases, there is something in common: none of them are owners, but for a few hours they can pretend that they are. Madrid is rented in fragments: swimming pools in summer, terraces in autumn and lounges in winter. The everyday turned into a stage, intimacy turned into a product. Renting all year round. What started as a summer curiosity —renting private pools by the hour— has become a new form of urban leisure. Platforms like Cocopool, Born as the “Airbnb of water”now they also rent interiors for the rest of the year. However, behind this fashion there is something deeper than a simple leisure trend: an attempt to buy a life. aestheticthat ideal of calm, natural light and well-being that we see every day on social networks. From the dip to the shelter. Renting pools by the hour is still very popular and there are more and more platforms where you can choose where to take your next dip. What seemed like a seasonal business has become deseasonalized. In 2022 Cocopool launched as the “Airbnb of swimming pools”. Now, as explained by its CEO Gerard Xalabardéthe company has come up with “new verticals that cover the same needs the rest of the year.” In autumn and spring, users can rent terraces and gardens; in winter, private lounges with fireplace, sofas and equipped kitchen. In Madrid, the company has 15 interior spaces and 62 terraces or gardens, with prices ranging from 15 to 300 euros, depending on size and luxury. The average cost is around 32 euros for interiors and 34 for terraces, according to company data. The wish of a life aesthetic. This boom not only responds to a practical demand, but also to an aesthetic desire. Renting a well-kept terrace or a designer living room is not just about seeking comfort, but —as Xataka Home explains— “engage in an aspirational lifestyle, even if just for a few hours.” What used to materialize in Pinterest photos or TikTok videos is now experienced in the flesh: a garden with garlands, a light wooden table, a blue pool without background noise. According to Trendsthe phenomenon aesthetic It combines nostalgia for bygone eras with an obsession with the visually perfect: a life that seems orderly, beautiful and under control. In parallel, one could speak of “silent luxury” as the new form of exclusivity: minimalism, noble materials, neutral colors and absence of ostentation. In other words, renting a beige living room is not just leisure: it is a little aesthetic therapy to escape, for a few hours, from everyday clutter. “All for hours.” Pool rentals were just the beginning. The logic of sharing has been extended to almost any experience: terraces, gardens, living rooms, naps and even weddings. But beyond business ingenuity, there is a clear drift: the capitalization of any redoubt of private life. The intimate becomes the stage, the everyday becomes the product. Fewer and fewer things escape the logic of express rental. What was once shared among friends is now reserved with a card. What was rest is now sold as an experience. However, there are also those who find in these platforms a practical solution, not a fantasy. aesthetic. In a city where the flats they shrink and houses rarely allow more than six people to gather, renting a terrace or living room for a few hours can be a reasonable—and affordable—way to celebrate a birthday, a family reunion, or a meal with friends. Not everything is posturing: sometimes there is simply a lack of space. Although, in the words of geographer Vicent Molins, “Madrid has become a product.” And economist Juan Torres López warns that this trend “erodes urban ties and deepens inequality,” because it turns coexistence into business. In other words: if everything can be rented, everything can no longer belong to us. A copy of a copy. In just five years, Spain has gone from renting other people’s beds with Airbnb to renting moments of life: a pool, a terrace, a nap or, soon, a wedding. Everything is offered by the hour, everything is measured in experiences. Platforms like Cocopool, HolaPlace or Nap & Go They capitalize on a shared desire: to experience what we see on networks, even if it is for a while. A more orderly, beautiful, more aesthetic. Maybe, as El País warned“the brand grows, but the city gets worse for those who live in it.” Or maybe we’re just learning to put a price—literally—on what used to be free: the feeling of belonging, of having something of your own. Because, in the end, that life that we so long for on screens is nothing more than a copy of another copy. And we, paying to imitate her, are also a little bit. Image | FreePik Xataka | Neither air conditioning nor fan: the best thing to cool off in summer is a swimming pool. On these platforms they are rented by the hour

The rise comes just when he is considering selling part of his business

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Warner Bros. Discovery has once again touched one of the most sensitive keys in the entertainment market: the price of HBO Max. The company has announced in the United States a new increase that coincides with a stage of internal transformation, marked by the review of its divisions and conversations with potential buyers. The movement confirms that the period of low prices to attract subscribers is fading. Instead, the giants of the sector seek to consolidate their business, even at the cost of raising rates. While new increases are announced in the United States, in Spain theirs is about to be applied. The adjustment was communicated at the end of September and will come into force this October 23with prices ranging from 6.99 euros per month in the basic plan with ads to 15.99 in the premium, and an annual option of 109 euros. It is the first rate review in quite some time and, according to the information available, there is no confirmation that it will be repeated in the immediate future. In the United States, the increase is already effective. Starting this October 21, new HBO Max subscribers pay between one and two dollars more per month depending on their plan. The basic one with ads now costs $10.99, the standard one $18.49 and the premium one $22.99. Current monthly customers will see the increase reflected in their next bill, starting November 20, while annual customers will notice it when they renew. Warner Bros. Discovery has assured that everyone will receive at least 30 days’ notice. A long anticipated move. In September, its CEO, David Zaslav, publicly acknowledged that the company saw room to charge more for its services. “We believe we are well below the price,” stated during a conference at Goldman Sachs. That idea sums up the moment the industry is experiencing: many platforms are seeking profitability after years of accelerated expansion. For now, nothing indicates that HBO Max will raise prices again in Spain in the short term. The company has not communicated any additional adjustments beyond the one that comes into effect this October 23. In any case, it is advisable to be especially attentive to subscription renewals and promotions from this moment on. On the verge of a large-scale transformation. The company has confirmed that it is moving forward with its plan to divide into two companies before 2026: one dedicated to streaming and content production, and another to the international television business. In recent months, the company has received interest from several firms and an offer from Paramount Skydance. According to its CEO, David Zaslav, the objective is “to identify the best way to value all the group’s assets.” Images | HBO Max In Xataka | That Apple is going to broadcast F1 is just the tip of the iceberg: its plan to become “the iTunes of sports”

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