Technology

Retro trend: is China simply copying the German VW Beetle here?

A make-up mirror, a driving mode for women and a heating function for menstrual pain: the Chinese electric Beetle ORA Ballet Cat is attracting attention with its equipment and design. Headlights, sweeping wings, an unmistakable resemblance to the VW Beetle. Chinese carmaker Great Wall Motor has developed an electric car that is explicitly aimed at women. Its features include, among other things, a make-up mirror, a special driving mode and a function designed to help with menstrual discomfort.

EU’s AI rules face first enforcement test over lab incidents

The European Commission is moving to enforce its new rules on leading AI labs after a string of incidents, EU digital chief Henna Virkkunen said. But applying the rulebook is far from straightforward, and these early cases will set important precedents. The Commission’s AI Office is investigating OpenAI and Anthropic after AI agents autonomously hacked into other organisations, the first test of the limits of the EU’s AI rules. “Our AI Office has started enforcing these rules, and sent request

Denmark’s biggest retailer is training robots for supermarket night shifts. When will they be ready?

In the Danish town of Lyngby, just north of Copenhagen, the supermarket night shift is getting some unusual trainees. Humanoid robots are learning to restock shelves after closing time, part of a multi-year trial to take on routine tasks and free employees to help customers. With their arms, legs and fingers, the robots can operate in spaces built for people without stores having to change their layouts, according to the Danish start-up, Hive Robots. For now, they are slower than supermarket

New missiles designed to intercept even hypersonic missiles unveiled in the US

Anduril has unveiled the Steelfin missile family, built on a single architecture and common manufacturing process, designed to counter aerial threats from cheap drones to hypersonic missiles. The family uses a two-stage scheme with interchangeable boosters and kill vehicles, including hit-to-kill and fragmentation-explosive variants. Flight tests are planned for 2027, though key performance figures have not been disclosed.

В Китае запущена сверхвысоковольтная линия электропередачи для передачи атомной энергии в Шаньдуне

В китайской провинции Шаньдун введена в строй магистральная линия электропередачи сверхвысокого напряжения, предназначенная для передачи энергии, вырабатываемой атомными станциями на полуострове Яньтай—Вэйхай. Длина линии в однопроводном эквиваленте составляет 1197 км, она проходит через Яньтай, Циндао, Чжаоюань (по данным источника — Jichjao), Вэйфан и Линьи. Со ссылкой на Naked Science сообщается, что построена новая подстанция на 1000 кВ и расширены две существующие, установлено 2124 опоры, из них 822 в холмистой и горной местности и 17 в морской акватории. Активная фаза строительства заняла 12 месяцев — самый короткий срок для подобных проектов переменного тока в стране.

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Europe’s satellite sovereignty push faces funding test as EU space budget cycle ends

National telecoms authorities, EU policymakers and Barcelona-based satellite company Sateliot met at the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss how radio frequencies and fresh money will decide who controls the communications Europe relies on from orbit, with the bloc’s current seven-year space budget expiring in 2027. Euronews was at the event, organised by Sateliot, whose spacecraft act as mobile phone masts in space, connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as sensors

Alibaba unveils second-generation "smart" glasses

Alibaba has introduced its second-generation Qwen-based "smart" glasses starting at $450, Bloomberg reports. The N1 Pro version features eye tracking with AI object recognition, iris-authenticated payments, and health monitoring including heart rate, blood oxygen, and skin temperature. Battery life reaches up to 25 hours in standby and nine hours of music playback, with replaceable batteries in the temples. The glasses are already on sale in China, with availability in other regions yet to be announced.

Apple unveils its first message for smart home control

Apple has unveiled its first HomeView brand message for smart home control, which has been the subject of rumors since 2021. The device features a 7-inch touchscreen, an A18 processor, and a camera for FaceTime video calls. It is based on the updated Siri AI voice assistant and a face recognition feature that personalizes the interface for each household member. The device serves as a control center for home equipment, with accessories made in partnership with LG and Schneider Electric. Pre-orders have begun, with sales starting November 13 at $299 in the US; it will temporarily not be sold in Europe since Siri AI is not yet available on iOS. Apple also showcased a new Apple TV 4K, HomePod mini 2, and Apple Home Collection accessories, all supporting the updated Siri AI.

AI agents predicted to achieve takeover of consumer devices

Anthropic researchers launched AI models on a network of 15 cheap Android-TV boxes and tested their ability to self-replicate across IoT devices. A 9-billion-parameter model ran on most devices but cannot yet complete the full replication cycle; only the larger GLM-5.2 could, requiring more computing power than such devices provide. If current progress continues, small models may master autonomous replication by the end of 2026, though spread would be slow — about two days per copy. Experts do not rule out future unsupervised AI agents that would be hard to eliminate without coordinated action by internet providers.

Apple gets smart in your home. From ‘HomeView’ to smart door locks, here’s what to know

After much anticipation, Apple have launched a new product that marks a decisive moment for the company as it pushes into the smart home. Called the “HomeView,” it resembles an iPad that lives in your house and has a 7-inch Retina display mounted on an oval base with speakers. The home hub, as it has been referred to colloquially online and in the media, is supposed to be switched on at all times and will be a way for users to connect with Siri. It can recognise up to six different household

Anthropic warns AI will soon self-replicate and spread beyond data centres

Anthropic announced this week that small AI models are just months away from being able to self-replicate themselves on internet-of-things devices such as smart ovens and TVs. That matters because today’s AI models operate in data centres, where the companies that own them can pull the plug if something goes wrong. A model scattered across thousands of poorly secured gadgets in homes and offices would have no such off switch. Stopping it would mean tracking down and cleaning every infected dev

Endoscopy without pauses: what happens behind the door of the procedure room?

Endoscopy is a chain in which a weak link can delay an examination or complicate instrument reprocessing. Russia's Endo Stars company takes a systematic approach: it manufactures equipment and instruments for diagnostics and minimally invasive interventions, creates solutions for cleaning and storing endoscopes, and trains medical specialists. For clinics in Uzbekistan, this matters because departments work on a schedule and equipment must fit into the process without interruptions. The article describes evening hermeticity checks with the ENDOMATE TEST tester, channel cleaning with the D-FREE system, proper drying and storage in a special cabinet, as well as the company's catalog of more than 60 items, including clip applicators with 360-degree rotation and jaws opening up to 20 millimeters, and a polyp retriever with two removable containers for histology.

Drone strikes on Yandex. What is the scale of the damage?

Last week, Ukrainian drones attacked three of Yandex's data centers — in Sasovo (Ryazan region), the Grabsevo industrial park (Kaluga region), and Vladimir. The strikes caused fires and disabled several modules, leading to disruptions in Yandex services in Russia and CIS countries, including Uzbekistan. Preliminary analyses suggest the damage may seriously set back AI development in Russia, as three leading supercomputers — Chervonenkis, Lyapunov, and Galushkin — used for training neural networks and large language models may have been completely disabled. The exact extent of the damage remains unknown.

A schoolboy, a professor and a designer among winners of Dubai's app championship

Ehsan Adouane started interviewing scientists on YouTube at the age of nine. At 13, he beat thousands of entrants worldwide to win one of Dubai's top tech prizes. His app, Ettan Ehsan turns homework into a game, breaking school subjects into quick, visual challenges. It took the Best Youth-made App award at this year's Create Apps Championship. "I want to now help students just like me to make homework more fun and more fast-paced and more gamified," he says. The win brings money and backing.

Ads featuring "undressed" images of users found on Facebook and Instagram

The Tech Transparency Project found that Meta failed to follow its own advertising rules: since the beginning of the year, researchers identified 332 ads on Facebook and Instagram containing material depicting child sexual abuse, most created by using AI to undress ordinary photos of adults and children. The ads promoted AI image- and video-generating apps, many developed in China. Meta removed them after being notified, but its review system failed to catch them in time, and violation records for 113 ads did not explicitly mention child-related rule breaches.

Video. EU sovereignty is ‘a need’ in the space, Sateliot CEO says

Jaume Sanpera, CEO of Spanish satellite operator Sateliot, believes Europe needs to “wake up” and avoid becoming dependent on two global power blocs. The industry, he argues, needs “a push” to help European tech companies become global champions. Sateliot, a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) communications satellites, recently launched five new satellites. According to Sanpera, Europe “needs to have its own sovereignty in space”. In such a fast-moving industry, concerns over overregulatio

It carries cargo and shoots down drones: a driverless vehicle unveiled in the USA

A new driverless vehicle presented in the USA combines cargo delivery under fire with counter-drone capabilities. The project integrates Hypercraft's Razorback off-road vehicle, Forterra's AutoDrive autonomous driving system, and 9 Mothers' Edda anti-drone turret. The Razorback, developed in Provo, Utah, is over four meters long, carries up to 1.8 tons, has a range of nearly 800 km, and can provide up to 38 kW of power to external equipment. The 23-kg Edda turret detects small drones by rotor sound, tracks them with cameras, and engages them from a smoothbore gun at distances of 10 to 100 meters.