TechCapsules

Apple omitted the iPhone Duo’s wallpapers from iOS 27, but included them in Xcode 27.1 beta’s iPhone simulator, enabling users to download the device’s official light and dark mode images. The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable phone, features dunes and mountain range artwork. Earlier this month, Apple released iOS 27.0 RC with wallpapers for the iPhone 18 Pro, but not for the Duo. The beta now supplies four Duo wallpapers—two for each mode—available for download and full‑resolution use. [...]

Researchers at Delft University of Technology have equipped a sub‑100‑gram drone with a pair of rodent‑inspired artificial whiskers that provide real‑time tactile feedback. Each whisker contains three miniature pressure sensors at its base, detecting minute deflections, vibrations, and pressure changes when the whisker contacts a surface. An onboard processing pipeline, using only 34 kilobytes of memory, filters out propeller turbulence to deliver millimeter‑precision depth data. Flight tests showed the drone navigating pitch‑black enclosures, mapping unknown rooms, and [...]

Honor announced a 25.3% year‑over‑year increase in Android tablet shipments in Q2 2026, according to an IDC report covering the EMEA market. The region’s overall tablet market fell 10.5% YoY to 5.9 million units, yet Honor’s MagicPad 4, featuring a new OLED display and 5,320 Hz PWM dimming, drove the brand’s growth. Samsung remains the market leader, while Xiaomi saw only 3.4% growth. Honor’s performance underscores its expanding presence beyond smartphones.

At the Xcelerated Compute event in London, industry leaders highlighted the AI networking bottleneck as a critical issue, attributing it to a mismatch between rapid AI demand and the slow pace of fiber and equipment deployment. Ciena’s Joe Marsella noted the industry’s unprecedented speed of decision‑making, creating scarcity and stressing the need for deliberate planning in fiber build and equipment manufacturing. Vodafone Business’s Andy Linham explained that the shift to software‑defined, modular networks offers flexibility, but also [...]

Dnotitia Inc. announced that the first ASIC samples of its Vector Data Processing Unit (VDPU) have returned from fabrication, and chip‑level characterization is underway. At the AI Infra Summit 2026, the company demonstrated a server‑scale VDPU architecture for retrieval‑augmented generation and agentic AI, following its Best of Show award at the Future of Memory and Storage event. On an FPGA platform, a four‑card VDPU configuration achieved 5.77× higher vector‑search throughput than a dual‑socket CPU server while matching [...]

Palantir CEO Alex Karp criticized Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s proposal to embed third‑party security evaluation agencies in AI firms, arguing that such oversight would merely shift liability to the U.S. government. Karp said companies should bear direct accountability for AI risks rather than rely on regulators. He warned that clients fear their proprietary data and competitive advantages could be absorbed by competitors through AI models, calling this “the real safety issue.” Karp also disputed claims that discounted token pricing [...]

Palantir CEO Alex Karp joined a growing chorus of AI leaders demanding enforceable guardrails. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Karp urged civil and criminal liability for AI companies and executives as the primary defense against harm, rather than new regulatory bodies or industry slow‑downs. He warned that the current practice of incorporating proprietary data into training models exposes firms to massive liability, potentially prompting them to seek government protection or nationalisation. Karp’s remarks echo Anthropic’s call [...]

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged a slowdown in the development of frontier AI models, citing safety gaps in his essay We Must Pace the Frontier. His call prompted responses from major tech firms—OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Huawei—and AI leaders, many of whom emphasized the need for stronger testing and independent evaluation. Governments worldwide reacted differently: U.S. officials called for coordinated oversight, while China, the EU, Germany, France, and the UK debated regulatory frameworks and international [...]