Following the long-awaited overhaul, the company says the system will bring deeper intelligence across its devices, but it will not launch everywhere at the same time.

The update focuses on a more conversational assistant that can understand context across apps and screens. It also allows users to interact with Siri in a more continuous way, including through a dedicated interface that stores recent interactions privately.

Apple says Siri AI can now search across Messages, Mail, Photos and Calendar to surface personal information when needed. It also reads what is on a device screen and responds based on that content. The assistant is also designed to work across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro.

A camera-linked feature adds another layer, where users can point their device at objects and ask Siri to interpret them. Apple says this can include tasks such as analysing food items or helping split shared bills.

At the core of the system is what Apple calls “Apple Intelligence”, built on its own Foundation Models. The company says some tasks will run on-device, while more complex requests will use Private Cloud Compute.

Apple stated that “Privacy at Every Step,” is still very much central to the design, explaining that external support from Google’s Gemini model helps with some cloud-based functions. However, the company maintains that user data is not stored in a way that links back to individuals.

Despite the rollout, access will be restricted in key markets at launch. Users in the European Union will not receive Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when iOS 27 and related updates arrive later this year. China will also miss the initial rollout.

Apple links the European restriction to regulatory demands under the Digital Markets Act. The company argues that it cannot safely integrate the system under current conditions.

In its statement, it said regulators require “direct access to users’ private data – and the ability to directly control other installed applications – as soon as Siri AI is made available in the EU without the necessary safeguards to ensure user and data safety”.

The company also referenced its earlier proposal to regulators, describing a “Trusted System Agent” approach, which it says was not accepted. Apple maintains that the rejected model would have allowed safer integration with competing assistants.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said EU users will not get Siri AI on iPhone or iPad with the new operating system releases this year. He confirmed the restriction during the announcement window.

The company also stated that “extreme interpretation of the DMA” influenced its decision to hold back the feature. It added that it sees “clear dangers to EU users” under the current framework.

Even so, Apple confirmed that EU users will still access Siri AI on Mac computers and Vision Pro headsets. Those platforms will run macOS 27 and visionOS 27 with the feature included.

In China, Apple says approvals are still in progress, and no timeline has been confirmed for a full rollout. The company has not announced Siri AI availability for mainland China at launch.

It added that Hong Kong may receive earlier access, depending on language support and regulatory clearance. English-language beta testing is expected to begin in select regions later.

Apple’s strategy places Siri AI at the centre of its software ecosystem. The assistant will be integrated across iOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, visionOS 27 and tvOS 27. The company is positioning this as a shift towards a more AI-led operating system design.

Developer access is already open through beta releases, with public testing expected around July 2026. A full release is expected later in the year, likely alongside the next iPhone cycle.

The European Commission confirmed the penalty on Thursday, saying the Chinese e-commerce company did not properly identify and manage risks linked to products sold to EU consumers.

The case sits under the Digital Services Act, a law that governs large online platforms.

The Commission opened its investigation in 2024, shortly after Temu expanded further across Europe. It followed complaints from the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and 17 of its national members.

Regulators said those complaints pointed to unsafe goods circulating widely on the platform.

Officials also carried out mystery shopping tests. A high number of phone chargers failed basic safety checks, while several baby toys also contained chemicals above legal limits or created choking risks.

The EU said Temu did not go far enough in assessing how its systems might increase those risks. It pointed to product recommendation tools and influencer-linked promotions that could push more unsafe goods into view.

Henna Virkkunen, a European Commission official responsible for technology, criticised the company’s approach.

She said “the company’s assessment of its risks leaves regulators, users, and the public in the dark about the true scale of potential harm posed by illegal products sold on Temu,”

“Now it is time for Temu to comply with the law,” she added.

The Commission said the platform must now submit a compliance plan by August 28, 2026. Officials will review the plan two months after submission to decide if Temu has met its obligations.

Temu responded to the decision and rejected parts of the findings. A spokesperson said: “Temu respects the objectives of the Digital Services Act and the need for clear, consistent rules across the digital economy. However, we disagree with the European Commission’s decision and consider the fine to be disproportionate,”

The company added: “The decision relates to our first DSA assessment in 2024 and does not reflect the current state of our systems. Temu engaged constructively with the Commission throughout the process and has since taken further steps to strengthen risk assessment, platform governance, and user protection,”

Temu also said it would continue to work with regulators and consider its options.

The penalty is the second enforcement action under the Digital Services Act. It is also the largest fine issued so far under the law. The first was against X, which faced a penalty over transparency issues.

The law requires large platforms to identify and reduce systemic risks. It also demands stronger oversight of illegal or harmful products, along with clearer information on how recommendation systems operate.

Beyond Temu, the EU investigation also revealed issues about low-cost imports from China. Officials have been placing focus on large online marketplaces as part of trade and consumer protection efforts.

Other platforms are also under review. Shein and AliExpress are both facing separate investigations linked to unsafe or counterfeit goods.

Meanwhile, JD.com is under examination over its planned purchase of German retailer Ceconomy, with regulators questioning whether foreign subsidies may distort competition.

There is also a policy debate inside the EU, with officials discussing new trade and industrial measures aimed at balancing competition with Chinese e-commerce firms and protecting local businesses.

The issue has also reached the global level. In the United States, Temu stopped shipping directly from China after a policy change closed a duty exemption on low-value imports.

The world’s largest PC maker said fourth-quarter revenue rose 27% to $21.6 billion for the period ended March, beating analysts’ expectations of $18.7 billion. Profit attributable to shareholders climbed 479% to $521 million, above forecasts of $271 million.

Its shares jumped 15% on Friday, making it the biggest gainer on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index.

Lenovo’s biggest business unit, which covers PCs, tablets and smartphones, recorded a 24% increase in revenue. The company said it was the division’s strongest quarterly growth in five years.

The results came as PC makers are currently dealing with high memory prices and supply shortages. Lenovo had earlier warned that the shortage could affect shipments across the industry. The company has also raised prices on some PCs to manage higher component costs.

“Supply (of memory chips) is in heavy shortage, and the cost is growing faster,” Lenovo Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing told Reuters on Friday.

He added that Lenovo’s wider supplier network, including Chinese memory chip producers, helped reduce pressure on the business.

Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies recently identified Lenovo as one of its major customers in a prospectus filing. The chipmaker also reported more than 700% growth in first-quarter revenue as memory prices surged.

According to forecasts, memory chip prices doubled in the first quarter and could rise by as much as 63% this quarter. Demand from data centres has tightened supply for laptops, smartphones and cars.

Lenovo said its PC shipment growth outpaced the market by nearly six percentage points during the quarter. Research firm Counterpoint Research said global PC shipments rose 3.2% in the first quarter to 63.3 million units, while Lenovo’s shipments increased 9% to 16.5 million units. That gave the company a 26% share of the global market.

The company is also expanding its server business. Lenovo said its infrastructure solutions group, which includes its server operations, posted 37% revenue growth in the quarter, the fastest among all its business units.

It added that its server order pipeline had reached $21 billion as demand for data centre equipment continued to grow.

Shein accused Temu of using thousands of its product photographs to sell copied versions of Shein-branded clothing on Temu’s platform. 

The company told the court that Temu tried to benefit from Shein’s market position by reproducing images created by Shein employees.

“This was an attempt to steal a march on an existing participant in the market, and Temu has sought to obtain, we say, an unfair advantage,” Shein’s lawyer Benet Brandreth said in court.

The trial is expected to run for two weeks and is part of a case between both companies across several countries, including the United States.

During proceedings, Shein’s legal team said Temu had withdrawn part of its defence covering almost 2,300 disputed photographs. Brandreth compared the decision to “the defendant waiting to see if the witnesses will turn up, only to plead guilty”.

Temu denied the allegations and argued that Shein’s lawsuit was not simply about protecting copyright. Its lawyers said the case was aimed at slowing down a rival that has grown rapidly in global online retail.

Temu, owned by PDD Holdings, has also filed a counterclaim against Shein. The company is seeking damages after Shein secured a court injunction that forced thousands of Temu product listings offline.

At the centre of the counter-claim is Temu’s accusation that Shein tied suppliers into exclusive agreements, making it harder for competitors to access manufacturers. That competition law dispute is expected to go to trial next year.

The court case is happening at the same time that both companies are facing pressure from regulators in Europe and the United States. Authorities have increased investigation over supplier treatment, product safety, labour standards and the flood of low-cost parcels entering Western markets.

Temu is currently under investigation in the European Union over possible breaches of product safety regulations. Shein, meanwhile, is still being questioned about labour practices within its supply chain as it works towards a possible London stock market listing.

The companies have built huge international businesses by selling ultra-cheap fashion, accessories and household goods directly to shoppers online. Their rapid growth relied heavily on customs exemptions for low-value imports, which helped keep prices low.

That advantage has started to get weaker. The United States removed its de minimis customs exemption for low-value e-commerce parcels in 2025, increasing costs for retailers shipping directly from China. 

The European Union is also preparing to end similar exemptions in July 2026, a move that could affect the expansion plans of both companies.

The issue has already spread beyond Britain. Shein sued Temu in the United States last year over alleged copyright infringement, while Temu later filed its own case accusing Shein of disrupting its marketplace through what it described as “unwarranted notices”.

Although the London case focuses on copyrighted photographs and copied designs, the result could stretch further. 

The ruling, delivered by the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea, adds to a series of cases involving the transfer of advanced chip know-how abroad.

The court found the 56-year-old man, identified by his surname Jeon, guilty of violating the Industrial Technology Protection Act.

Judges said he unlawfully obtained and used Samsung’s DRAM process technology after leaving the company and joining China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT).

Jeon’s case centres on what authorities describe as national core technology. This includes Samsung’s DRAM production process and detailed manufacturing methods known in the industry as process recipes.

The development of the technology reportedly cost around 1.6 trillion won, or about $1.2 billion.

Prosecutors said the former Samsung Researcher worked with others after moving to CXMT and helped draw up a DRAM development plan for the Chinese firm. They also said he was involved in recruiting key personnel during the transition.

Over a period of about six years, he received around 2.9 billion won, or roughly $2.1 million, from CXMT. This included a sign-on payment and stock options.

CXMT is China’s first DRAM-focused semiconductor company. It was set up with large-scale support from local government funding, estimated at about 2.6 trillion won.

The firm has been expanding quickly as China pushes to reduce reliance on foreign chip suppliers.

Authorities in South Korea argued that the leaked information could have helped CXMT speed up development in high-bandwidth memory technology.

That type of memory is now widely used in artificial intelligence systems and high-performance computing.

Samsung Electronics did not comment on the ruling. CXMT also did not respond to requests for comment.

In its judgment, the court stressed the scale of the breach and its wider impact. The judges said, “He acquired core information developed by a major Korean company at enormous cost and had it used by a foreign entity. Because this inflicted losses not only on the company but also on the Republic of Korea, severe punishment is unavoidable.”

This case is not isolated as South Korea has dealt with several similar incidents in recent years involving advanced display and semiconductor technologies. In earlier cases, employees were found guilty of leaking OLED and chip-related data to overseas firms.

Another related case involving a former Samsung employee surnamed Kim is still under review after reaching South Korea’s Supreme Court. He was previously sentenced to six years in prison and fined for similar offences linked to CXMT.

Court records show that Kim’s case was sent back for retrial after the Supreme Court ruled that earlier proceedings did not properly separate key legal elements, including acquisition and disclosure of trade secrets.

South Korean authorities treat semiconductor process technology as national core technology. Officials say this reveals its importance to both industry and national security.

CXMT has expanded despite the legal challenge surrounding its early development. In 2025, the company announced plans to raise about 29.5 billion yuan through an initial public offering in Shanghai.

The funds are expected to support upgrades to production lines and technology development.

This case also adds to a pattern of industrial espionage disputes involving South Korea’s chip sector. In 2012, several individuals were arrested over alleged leaks of display technology. More cases followed in 2020 and 2023, involving both semiconductor and OLED information.

This results from a restructuring inside BBK Electronics as competition increases and growth slows across the global smartphone market.

Under the new structure, OPPO will operate as the lead brand, while Realme and OnePlus function as its official sub-brands. OPPO will be in charge of product direction and shared operations, while allowing Realme to continue targeting price-sensitive buyers and OnePlus to focus on premium smartphones.

The decision follows an internal reshuffle announced by OPPO in January 2026, aimed at cutting overlapping costs across engineering, marketing and customer support. Rather than running multiple teams in parallel, BBK is now concentrating its resources under fewer command lines as smartphone demand softens worldwide.

BBK Electronics already holds a solid position, particularly in India. Its combined brands, OPPO, Vivo, Realme, OnePlus and iQOO, controlled close to 48% of the Indian smartphone market by the second quarter of 2025, up from 46.5% in 2022. 

Globally, BBK’s portfolio ranks among the top five vendors, placing it in direct competition with Samsung and Apple.

Realme’s inclusion under OPPO is as much about margin pressure as scale. The brand has built a strong following in India and Southeast Asia and has always ranked among the top five by shipments.

In Europe, however, its low-price strategy brought volume but struggled to produce sustainable profits. Folding into OPPO allows Realme to lean on a larger supply chain and a shared research base.

Development expenses are increasing, consumers are holding on to phones longer, and manufacturers are betting heavily on foldable designs and software-led features to stand out.

The structure also reveals a playbook used before in China’s smartphone industry, where multiple brands target different income groups while sharing back-end systems. The difference now is the level of central management.

OPPO’s restructuring is a move from expansion to efficiency and this could enhance competition, further crowding out smaller operators.

The deal values Manus at between $2 billion and $3 billion, although Meta has chosen not to disclose financial terms. Manus, now based in Singapore, did not respond to requests for comment at the time of writing.

The acquisition gives Meta full control of Manus’s technology, which it plans to operate, sell and embed across its consumer and business products, including Meta AI. 

This will help to secure what many in the industry now see as the most valuable layer in AI development, the execution layer, where software agents go beyond conversation to carry out complex tasks on their own.

Manus rose quickly into the global spotlight earlier this year after releasing what it described as a general AI agent. Unlike standard chatbots, the system was designed to make decisions and complete tasks with minimal prompting. 

The product went viral on X and was soon compared to DeepResearch, a benchmark tool in the sector. The company has claimed its agent outperforms that system, helping to drive both attention and controversy.

Behind the attention was rapid commercial growth. Manus became the fastest startup to cross $100 million in annual recurring revenue, reaching a $125 million run rate in under eight months. 

In 2025 alone, its systems processed 147 trillion tokens and powered around 80 million virtual computers, figures that point to unusual scale for a company so young. That pace made Manus one of the most talked-about AI agent startups globally.

Meta’s interest shows a change in strategy. While the company has spent years building open-source foundation models such as Llama, this deal reveals a goal to own proprietary systems that sit on top of those models and actually do the work. 

Autonomous agents that can research, write code and analyse data are now the next battleground, and competition is increasing fast.

The acquisition comes after a year of heavy spending by Meta, including its investment in Scale AI, a deal that valued the data-labelling firm at $29 billion. 

Competitors are not standing still. Microsoft is expanding Copilot, Google is pushing Gemini, and OpenAI is developing DeepResearch.

Manus’s background also adds a geopolitical edge to the deal. Founded in China and backed by its parent company, Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, the startup was once described as China’s next DeepSeek. 

It later relocated to Singapore, joining a growing number of Chinese tech firms seeking to reduce exposure to Sino-US tensions. Singapore’s neutral stance and trade-friendly policies have made it a preferred base for global expansion.

Beijing had shown interest in supporting Manus, and the company maintains a strategic partnership with Alibaba to collaborate on AI models. 

Meta’s acquisition changes ownership firmly to a U.S. technology giant, a development that is likely to be closely watched in both Washington and Beijing.

This follows several years of restrictions imposed by the United States.

The launch of the Pura 80 series stresses Huawei’s endless drive to regain its top position in its home market. 

Each new phone model from the firm is closely observed, serving as a measure of its technological strength and resilience against sanctions that severely disrupted its smartphone business. 

This vigour from Huawei has also awoken pressure on competitors, such as Apple, which has recently experienced a consistent decline in its Chinese market share, increasingly relying on price reductions to boost sales.

The new line-up, unveiled during a livestream event, places considerable emphasis on advanced camera capabilities and integrated intelligence features. 

Huawei’s consumer business unit head, Yu Chengdong, noted these innovations without detailing the internal processing chips.

The Pura 80 series comprises four distinct models: the Pura 80, Pura 80 Pro, Pura 80 Pro+, and Pura 80 Ultra. Pricing for the Pro series begins at 6,499 yuan (approximately £710), with its release scheduled for 14th June. 

The Pro+ model, also arriving on 14th June, starts at 7,999 yuan (around £875), while the Ultra variant, priced at 9,999 yuan (about £1,095), will follow on 26th June. The standard Pura 80 is expected in July.

A unique feature across the new phones is the XMAGE camera technology, which includes ultra-wide-angle and macro telephoto lenses. 

These cameras incorporate artificial intelligence to identify objects and offer relevant information, such as tourist guidance. Again, the Ultra model comes with enhanced camera capabilities with TCG triple-real-time fusion technology, expanding the dynamic range significantly. 

It is also the first phone in the industry to feature a dual-lens switchable telephoto system, increasing its optical range compared to earlier Pura models.

Beyond hardware, the Pura 80 phones run on HarmonyOS NEXT, Huawei’s proprietary operating system. This software promises an improved overall performance. The higher-end models come with large batteries, supporting both rapid wired and wireless charging.

Huawei’s aggressive research and development strategy underpins this launch. The company has invested 1.249 trillion yuan (around £136 billion) in R&D over the past decade, with 179.7 billion yuan (approximately £19.6 billion) allocated in 2024 alone. 

This financial commitment has been indispensable in overcoming challenges like securing advanced chipsets for its newer devices.

The release has generated public interest within China, with many viewing it as a demonstration of the company’s defiance against international sanctions. 

Discussions surrounding the Huawei Pura 80 dominated Chinese social media platforms on Wednesday. Public reaction, while varied, generally commended the sophisticated camera systems and sleek design, though some were unsatisfied with the pricing.