Tech news from around the world, rewritten in plain English.
Anker Innovations Korea announced a full rebrand that unifies its category-specific brands, including Soundcore and Eufy, under the single 'Anker' name, positioning the company as a premium lifestyle tech brand. At a press briefing in Seoul, it also unveiled new charging and audio products, including the Anker MagGo Power Bank 2 Pro and four new earbud models.
heise+ has published a review of the Honda CB 1000 F, a retro-styled naked bike whose design closely follows the 1978 CB 900 F "Bol d'Or." The article is a paywalled preview, so the full test results are not available in the excerpt.
EST, a company whose main business is display electrostatic chucks (ESC), is expanding into semiconductors and glass core substrates. It has tested with more than 20 semiconductor companies, secured nine customers, and received an order for a glass core substrate ESC, with the company's CEO Kim Young-gon presenting the growth strategy at an IPO press briefing.
Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province will launch an AI voice bot on the 22nd to take civil complaint calls to its City Hall duty room during nights and holidays. The bot converses with callers to identify their issues and either guides them or logs their complaints, while fires, flooding, and other urgent cases are transferred to on-duty staff.
The US Department of Homeland Security issued an order on Monday directing federal civilian agencies to stop using DeepSeek technology and remove existing implementations. The order's wording is broad and vague, covering DeepSeek-affiliated products and third-party products developed using DeepSeek, which leaves unclear how agencies should comply.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that AWS Transform now includes a new feature that converts .NET applications written with the Azure SDK into code using the AWS SDK. The update is intended to make it easier to migrate Microsoft Azure-native .NET applications to AWS. The tool supports conversions such as Azure Functions to AWS Lambda, Azure Blob Storage to Amazon S3, Azure Queue Storage to Amazon SQS, and Azure CosmosDB to Amazon DynamoDB.
ICANN has begun testing authentication schemes that would let law enforcement agencies make urgent requests for non-public WHOIS data when needed to address threats to life, critical infrastructure, or child exploitation. The preferred approach uses SAML so authenticated agency users can file requests through ICANN's Registration Data Request Service, and testing is already underway with the FBI and Interpol.
Nguyen Quang Khanh, director of Intel Products Vietnam (IPV), says Vietnamese engineers have a solid foundation and learn quickly but need persistence to build deep semiconductor expertise. He joined IPV in 2010 and in 2020-2021 became the first Vietnamese director of the Intel plant, in an interview with VnExpress.
Gint, an agricultural autonomous driving startup, has been selected for the second year running as a beneficiary of the TSE Asia Startup Hub, a Tokyo Stock Exchange program supporting Asian startups. The program is backed by 58 partner institutions and retained 16 companies from the previous round while adding 7 new ones. TSE praised Gint's advanced agricultural technology and its expansion into off-road industries.
Flipkart, the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce company, is testing its own food-delivery service internally, with the trial reportedly grown from a few hundred employees to more than 8,000. The company is preparing a public launch to challenge the duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy, a market where Amazon and Google have previously failed.
Bespin Global has published a 2026 collection of 34 AI transformation (AX) cases across finance, public sector, manufacturing, retail, and services, including 14 domestic projects. The company also disclosed performance results from its own internal AX rollout, including 511 AI agents now running company-wide.
Stylean will supply its mobile app security solution, AppSuit, to Indonesian state-owned bank BTN and North Sumatra regional bank Bank Sumut. BTN chose AppSuit after comparative testing against global security products, and Bank Sumut selected it to replace an existing solution with security and malfunction problems.
NC AI is offering a 50% first-month subscription discount and bonus points for its 3D generation service Varco 3D and sound generation service Varco Sound. The promotion runs until the 30th of next month and is open to new subscribers and existing free users who choose a paid plan.
Plitto provided its AI translation solution Vogl for KOOM Week 2026, a K-culture and startup event hosted by UKF, New York's largest nonprofit network of Korean founders and investors. Vogl offered real-time multilingual communication through two setups tailored to the venue. Plitto says the solution will support its expansion into domestic and overseas markets.
Japan Post says personal information for 249 'Yu-ID' accounts may have been exposed after attackers used ID and password lists leaked from other services to log in to the Yu-Yu Point website. The company suspended the site on October 16 and made two-factor authentication mandatory for Yu-ID logins starting October 20.
KG Mobility (KGM) signed an MOU with carbon management firm Husi Partners to build a carbon emissions management system across its supplier network in response to the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The company plans to extend emissions calculation methods it piloted with key suppliers since July across the entire supply chain.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the federal government has abdicated its role in regulating AI and urged residents to push back against the technology's rapid rollout. He spoke at a People's AI Assembly event in Manhattan alongside activist Ilana Glazer, citing the city's school AI ban and a disclosure policy for AI-generated listing photos.
Samsung is reportedly preparing its largest Galaxy Z lineup yet for 2027, with six models including a rollable device called the Galaxy Z Slide. The leaker TheGalox_ says the lineup will bring upgrades to battery capacity, thickness, and weight. PhoneArena notes that the expansion comes amid memory chip shortages and rising component costs.
Yumilink, a company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market, said on October 19 that unauthorized access to some servers of its Cuenote FC email delivery service led to personal data being taken outside. Five systems under a dedicated ASP plan were confirmed affected, and the company estimates that about 9 million records, including email addresses, were output.
Pennsylvania's health department issued a health alert as measles cases in pregnancy and congenital measles cases continue to rise during an ongoing statewide outbreak. As of October 19, the state had reported 1,286 cases across 42 counties, with 247 hospitalized and six deaths. Officials noted that congenital measles had not been seen in decades before this outbreak.
SoftBank has suspended the My SoftBank, My Y!mobile and My Menu websites since October 17 after detecting unauthorized third-party access attempts against some of its systems. As of October 20, the sites remained offline with no restart date given, though the apps for these services still work.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that next year he will give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in the United States, calling it "just the beginning." Based on about 72 million US children under 18 and the current share price, the total would be roughly $10.5 billion, and the gift may be distributed through the Trump Account program, though details are not yet public.
VGround says its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution, Infinitystack v2.0, has received Grade 1, the top rating under the GS certification program. The rating makes the software eligible for priority public-sector purchasing and direct contracts with the Public Procurement Service without competitive bidding.
Bloomberg reports that Anthropic and Nscale are on the verge of announcing another $45 billion compute deal, citing people familiar with the matter. The sources cautioned that talks are ongoing and terms could change. The deal would follow a similar $45 billion agreement the two announced a little over a month ago.