To stem the tide of Chinese tech influence, Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn announced last 8 October that it is building the world's largest production plant for US hardware leader Nvidia's GB200 "superchips" that power artificial intelligence servers.

Foxconn, also known by its official name Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world's biggest contract electronics manufacturer and assembles devices for major tech companies, including Apple.

The ambitious project seeks to expand beyond electronics assembly though as it has been pushing also into areas ranging from electric vehicles to semiconductors and servers.

"We're building the largest GB200 production facility on the planet," senior executive Benjamin Ting said at the company's annual "Hon Hai Tech Day".

"I don't think I can say where now, but it's the largest on the planet," said Ting, Foxconn's senior vice president for the cloud enterprise solutions business.

Chairman Young Liu said while opening the two-day event that Foxconn would be "the first to ship these superchips".

Liu later informed the media that the new plant was established in Mexico.

Unlike its rivals Intel, Micron and Texas Instruments, Nvidia does not manufacture its own chips but uses subcontractors.

Foxconn also unveiled new electric vehicle prototypes at the tech day - a seven-seater lifestyle multipurpose utility vehicle and a 21-seater bus.

It plans to do with electric vehicles what it did for gadgets - become a go-to contract builder.

Foxconn announced last year that it would team up with Nvidia to create "AI factories" - powerful data-processing centres that would drive the production of next-generation products.

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Another Apple announcement was released recently and this involves the all-new iPad mini. This seventh-generation model, which has long been expected to be upgraded, features an A17 Pro chip designed to support Apple Intelligence. Visually, it looks just like the last iPad mini, but there are some key upgrades under the hood.

The A17 Pro chip, also found on the iPhone 15 Pro series, features a 6-core CPU that delivers 30 percent better performance than the previous model. Its 5-core GPU also offers improved graphics performance. In addition to an A17 Pro chip, the 2024 iPad mini features an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, a 12MP primary camera, and support for the Apple Pencil Pro.

Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said: "There is no other device in the world like the iPad mini, beloved for its combination of powerful performance and versatility in our most ultraportable design. [The] iPad mini appeals to a wide range of users and has been built for Apple Intelligence, delivering intelligent new features that are powerful, personal, and private. With the powerful A17 Pro chip, faster connectivity, and support for Apple Pencil Pro, the new iPad mini delivers the full iPad experience in our most portable design at an incredible value."

The starting price is reportedly at US$ 499 and the new iPad mini will be made available for preorder in blue, Space Gray, purple, and Starlight. It comes with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of storage and is available in Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi + Cellular versions. The tablet officially launches in 29 countries and regions on 23 October. The starting storage is noteworthy, as it’s double the 64GB previously offered for the last iPad mini model.

The first Apple Intelligence components are expected to launch through a software update before the end of the month. The iPad mini 7 will join iPads with an M1 chip or later as supporting Apple’s AI features.

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Followers of Apple products have already seen a lot of leaks showing off what appeared to be the upcoming M4 MacBook Pro. From photos of retail boxes to full-blown unboxing videos, the online videos has been awash with the next MacBook Pro, despite the fact that Apple hasn’t even announced it yet.

With all of these hype and media attention, there have been consistent doubts about the leaks — for some, they just had a few too many question marks to be trusted. However, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has just dropped a bombshell by throwing his weight behind the leaks, writing in his latest Power On newsletter: "I can confirm that these are indeed Apple’s upcoming M4 MacBook Pros."

For those who are not familiar on who Gurman is, the reporter one of the most accurate and consistent Apple leakers in the business and claims to have sources deep inside the company. So, when he says something is genuine, there is a high pssibility that he’s right.

According to Gurman, there are a few reasons to vouch for the devices shown online. For one thing, "the specifications — as well as the internal model numbers for the device — all align with what I’ve been reporting for weeks," Gurman says. Presumably, Gurman has been able to confirm the leaks' veracity with his sources inside Apple, leading him to be confident in his conclusions.

If Gurman is right and these are the actual M4 MacBook Pro laptops that will be released to the market soon, then there are some major implications from this whole affair, for consumers and for Apple as a company.

If consumers interested in getting a new MacBook Pro, the confirmed leaks come with a healthy dose of good news. For instance, Gurman believes that the leaked photos and videos depicted the base configuration of the new MacBook Pro, rather than a higher-end option with upgraded parts.

If that’s so, then the entry-level MacBook Pro should be getting some tasty upgrades. The models shown in all the leaks bore the same internal configuration: M4 chip, 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. The difference here when compared to the M3 MacBook Pro is that Apple appears to be doubling the memory in the entry-level MacBook Pro, up from 8GB to 16GB. That should provide a welcome boost to multitasking and any memory-intensive workloads, while also fixing a problem that Apple has been denying for close to a year.

As well as that, the leaked MacBook Pro models are equipped with three Thunderbolt 4 ports. That's a serious upgrade on the two Thunderbolt 3 slots the current MacBook Pro gets, both in terms of quantity and capability. For those who are interested in Apple’s SpaceBlack colorway, it looks like that will no longer be restricted to high-end MacBook Pro models, with the base M4 version sporting this color as well.

However, while the implications of the leaked MacBooks are pretty encouraging for us consumers, they’re far less so for Apple. That’s because a breach of this scale and audacity has never happened to the company before. Sure, the iPhone 4 leaked in 2010, but that was just a single unit. This time we’ve got 200 units of the M4 MacBook Pro apparently up for sale, as well as multiple hands-on videos by Russian YouTubers and photos revealing all of the product’s internal specs. When it comes to the M4 MacBook Pro, it seems that nothing is secret or unknown anymore.

As for how the Russian YouTubers got the laptops despite Apple enforcing a trade embargo with Russia, Gurman says, "I believe these [laptops] were stolen elsewhere in Europe before being sent to the country." Without access to Gurman’s connections, none of us can confirm this for ourselves, but it certainly seems plausible.

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To stem the tide of its influence and save the local businesses, Indonesian authorities asked Alphabet's Google and Apple to block Chinese fast fashion e-commerce firm Temu in their application stores in the country.

The request was intended to pre-emptively protect the country's small and medium-sized businesses against cheap products being offered by PDD Holdings' Temu, Indonesia's communications minister Budi Arie Setiadi told Reuters, even though there were transactions yet by its residents on the platform.

Temu's rapid growth has triggered scrutiny over its low-cost business model of sending parcels to customers from China by several countries.

Temu's business model, which connects consumers directly with factories in China in order to significantly reduce prices, is "unhealthy competition," Budi said.

"We're not here to protect e-commerce, but we protect small and medium enterprises. There are millions we must protect," the minister said.

Jakarta will also block any investment by Temu in local e-commerce if it makes such a move, Budi said, adding he has not heard of any such plan.

Budi also said the government plans to request a similar block for Chinese shopping service Shein.

Indonesia forced China's ByteDance social media platform TikTok to close its e-commerce service in the country last year to protect local merchants and users' data.

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The autonomy event held reently by Tesla has put most attention around the two-seat Cybercab and art deco city bus Robovan. However, the public's interest was also focused on some updates to Optimus — the slow robot that Elon Musk hopes will be an infinite money glitch for the company.

The event’s afterparty heavily featured Optimus as a bartender and dancer, but it turns out the bot wasn’t doing anything itself. Tesla employees were remote controlling it the whole time.

Robert Scoble, an AI enthusiast in attendance at the event, posted a video to Twitter of Optimus pouring drinks and waving to attendees. A second video, in which Scoble has a conversation with the bot’s operator and directly addresses the question of whether Optimus did anything autonomously at the party. The answer appears to be a resounding no.

Some commented that the fact that Optimus could easily carry on a conversation, alone, is a sign that the bot was primarily being remote controlled. The voice responding to Scoble’s questions, appear to be coming from some onboard speaker, doesn’t sound AI-generated — it’s clearly a human operator somewhere behind the scenes.

The response itself, saying that there might be some AI involved, is not the kind of answer given by a company happily showing off its latest advancements in artificial intelligence.

This robot, which so far seems to primarily operate by human remote control, remains Elon Musk’s vision for the future of Tesla as a company. Since Musk’s investor call admission that he sees no limit to the amount of money people will spend on robots, Optimus has been his baby — far more so than any of the eugenicist’s actual human children. Maybe he thinks the robots will love him no matter how little care he gives them.

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The days of the blow-up dolls may be over after the arrival of sex robots

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into the global sex market, bringing with it a revolution in robotic "sextech" designed to offer sexual gratification with a near-human touch.

In a report on the growing market in sex robots, the Foundation for Responsible Robotics said rapidly advancing technologies have already led to the creation of "android love dolls" capable of performing 50 automated sexual positions.

They can be customized down to the nipple shape and pubic hair color, and can cost between US$ 5,000 and US$ 15,000 (£3,867 and £11,602).

The increasingly life-like robots raise complex issues that should be considered by policymakers and the public, the report said -- including whether use of such devices should be encouraged in sexual therapy clinics, for sex offenders, or for people with disabilities.

Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at Britain's University of Sheffield, said it was difficult to predict how far or fast the market would grow, or what its effect on societies might be in years ahead.

"Will these robotic dolls be niche? Or will they change societal norms and become widespread?," he asked at a news briefing. "How would (sex with a robot) equate to a truly human intimate relationship?"

The report looked at some of the most contentious issues, asking academics, members of the public and the sex industry for their views on whether, for example, sex robots might be helpful in reducing sexual crimes.

It found "major disagreement" on this question, with some arguing that having sex with a robot would reduce attackers' desires to harm fellow humans, and others arguing that allowing people to live out their darkest fantasies with robots would have a pernicious effect on societal norms.

On the issue of "meaningful" relationships, the report said that with current AI technology, and even in the foreseeable future, no human-to-robot feelings would ever be mutual.

"The best robots could do is 'fake it'," it said. "Robots cannot feel love."

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