Apple chief executive John Ternus has backed plans for an autonomous home robot that would cost more than $1,000, or about R16,619, MyBroadband reported.
The robot could be called the HomeView Ultra. According to Ars Technica, it could support FaceTime calls and control the lights in a home.
The news came as Apple shares fell in late US trading. The company gave a mixed outlook in its first quarterly report under Ternus. Narrower profit margins weighed more on investors than its upbeat sales forecast.
In a separate story, a group of anti-oligarchy activists called Capytistas plans to publish the home addresses of more than 150 properties linked to billionaires. Gizmodo reported that the group will start with Elon Musk and his associates.
The group claims it has collected thousands of records. It says these records expose the alleged activities and security lapses of wealthy people.
Musk’s rocket company SpaceX also held talks with EchoStar about buying Boost Mobile or using its mobile network, The Washington Post reported. SpaceX is preparing to launch Starlink Mobile.
Such a deal could help Starlink become a large mobile operator in the United States. It may need approval from carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile.
On global markets, Asian stocks fell as a selloff in US chipmakers grew worse. A gauge of US chip stocks extended a three-day slide, taking its losses to 12%.
The Nasdaq 100 has dropped 10% from its peak, which counts as a technical correction. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell almost 1%.
South Korea’s Kospi Index led the declines in Asia, sliding almost 4%. Shares of chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each dropped more than 4%.
“Korea’s semiconductor-heavy market is back on the front line of the global AI trade’s repricing,” said Hebe Chen, market analyst at Vantage Global Prime.
Chen said investors appeared to be moving away from crowded AI trades rather than leaving the stock market altogether.
In China, the CSI 300 Index slipped 0.1%. This was despite the central bank saying it would encourage banks to make more use of stock support tools.
The yuan weakened by as much as 0.4% to 6.6728 per dollar. This ended 13 straight days of gains, its longest winning run since 1996.
The People’s Bank of China had asked banks to hold more foreign currency in reserve to cool the yuan’s rally.
AI company Anthropic reported a twelve-fold rise in quarterly revenue. It also outlined plans to spend more than $895 billion in the coming years.
Bitcoin rose 0.1% to $76,816.42, or about R1,276,412. Ether was little changed at $2,253.30, about R37,442.
The global memory shortage is also pushing up the prices of hard drives and SSDs, Engadget reported. Industry experts expect some price relief in 2027, but large price drops may only come in 2029 or 2030.
Source: this article is based on reporting by MyBroadband. Image: MyBroadband. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.