Alogic is bringing more touch and stylus input options to Mac with a new desktop monitor and portable displays, expanding a lineup that adds a feature Apple doesn’t offer on its own hardware yet.

The company unveiled the Aspekt Touch 27 and Folio portable displays at InfoComm 2026, expanding its lineup of touch-enabled hardware for Mac users. Both products let users interact directly with apps, documents, presentations, and creative projects through touch and stylus input.

Alogic is one of the few monitor makers offering touchscreen hardware for Macs. The company uses its own software to enable touch gestures, navigation, annotation, and drawing on macOS.

The Aspekt Touch 27 adds touchscreen input to a desktop monitor

The Aspekt Touch 27 is a smaller version of Alogic’s existing 32-inch model. The new display combines a 27-inch 4K IPS touchscreen with a 60Hz refresh rate, 600 nits of brightness, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, and support for 97% of the DCI-P3 color space, 93% Adobe RGB, and 100% sRGB.

Alogic pairs the display with its Active Stylus, which offers 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. The monitor supports 10-point multitouch input and MPP 2.0 styluses, while a magnetic holder wirelessly charges the stylus between uses.

The monitor also functions as a docking station with HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, USB-C, Gigabit Ethernet, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Three USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, dual 5W speakers, and up to 150W of total charging output are built into the display, including up to 90W of USB-C power delivery for a connected laptop.

The Aspekt Touch 27 is available in Silver and Space Black, and buyers can choose from a Raise Stand, a Fold Stand, or an Omni Fold Stand. The Fold Stand lowers the display into a drafting position for stylus use, while the Omni Fold Stand includes an integrated mount for an M4 Mac mini.

Folio targets portable Mac and iPad workflows

Alogic also introduced the Folio and Folio Duo portable touchscreen displays for users who need a secondary screen away from a desk. The standard Folio features a 16-inch QHD IPS touchscreen, while the Folio Duo combines two 16-inch panels into a folding design that can be used side by side or stacked vertically.

A fabric cover doubles as a stand and allows the displays to fold flat for travel.

The Folio Duo

Both models deliver 400 nits of brightness, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 100% sRGB color coverage. The displays support 10-point multitouch interaction, stylus input, and full gesture controls on both Mac and Windows.

The portable displays operate over a single USB-C connection and support up to 45W of passthrough charging. A magnetic attachment point wirelessly charges the Active Stylus. The Folio weighs about 1 kilogram, while the dual-screen Folio Duo weighs about 1.2 kilograms.

Alogic says the Folio lineup is the first portable display series to bring full gesture controls and 10-point multitouch support to both Mac and Windows. The company says users can draw, annotate, and edit content directly on screen without moving projects between a computer and tablet.

Alogic has spent years targeting users who want touch and stylus input on macOS. The Aspekt Touch 27 and Folio lineup expand those options with both desktop and portable designs.

The Aspekt Touch 27 starts at $1,799 and will be available beginning in July. The Folio is priced at $899, while the Folio Duo costs $1,299. Both portable displays are expected to launch around September.

The neighbourhood’s heritage charm hasn’t saved it from a growing vacancy problem

Walk down East Coast Road on a weekday afternoon, and you might notice something that doesn’t quite fit the postcard image of Katong: shuttered shopfronts, darkened interiors, and “For Rent” signs that have clearly been hanging there a while.

Katong is the area where Joo Chiat Road meets East Coast Road, and it’s known for its hipster vibes—heritage shophouses, popular cafés, and a neighbourhood energy that earned it a spot on Time Out‘s list of the world’s coolest streets in 2025.

But that reputation is increasingly at odds with what people are actually seeing on the ground.

The unexpected side of Katong finally spilt into public view when a Reddit post on r/singapore gained traction. User u/HB_SG asked a simple question: has anyone else noticed the growing number of vacant shop units around Katong?

“An endless parade of opening and closing”

What the discussion made clear is that the vacancies aren’t new.

Residents and visitors pointed to a growing number of units that have sat empty for extended periods, including several within i12 Katong.

The mall, located at the junction of East Coast Road and Joo Chiat Road, closed for renovations in 2020 and only reopened in 2022. Yet years later, some retail spaces remain unoccupied, while others have seen a steady churn of tenants come and go with little fanfare.

One commenter described it as an “endless parade of opening and closing.” Among the apparent casualties are Zero Healthcare, which relocated its East Coast Road showroom to Parkway Parade, and fried chicken brand Frosti Fck, whose last social media activity was a Nov 2025 post and whose Google listing now shows as closed.

Vulcan Post has reached out to both businesses for further comment, but has not received a response at the time of publication.

The Reddit thread kept circling back to one word: rent. One Redditor summed up the prevailing sentiment bluntly: “Rents, rents, rents, rents—no vacancy tax. If rents were halved, everything will be occupied.”

Others pointed to specific examples. One commenter claimed that several shophouses along Koon Seng Road have remained vacant for years despite strong demand in the area, arguing that landlords are holding out for rents that many businesses simply cannot afford.

The issue also appears to extend beyond Katong. In other parts of the East Coast region, including Siglap, rising rents have become a growing concern for business owners. In 2025, it even pushed out several long-running businesses, including Flor Patisserie.

The frustration about retail rents has even reached Parliament. In Apr 2026, Member of Parliament Elysa Chen raised the issue in the House, asking how the government reconciles official data which suggests rent has actually fallen as a share of business costs, with what retailers on the ground are experiencing.

DPM and MTI Minister Gan Kim Yong acknowledged the gap in his written reply: while aggregate rental costs for F&B dropped from 26% to 17% of total business costs between 2019 and 2024, he noted that “at the local level, rental costs can vary for retailers due to attributes such as proximity to key transport nodes or estates with high population density.”

In other words, national averages may look fine, but they reveal little about what an individual business owner is paying for a shophouse in a highly sought-after neighbourhood.

ERA’s 1H 2025 shophouse market report also noted that more F&B operators were shutting down, and that a weaker rental outlook might push some landlords, particularly those with less holding power, or private equity investors looking to exit, to start accepting lower rents.

But for many, that moment hasn’t come yet.

Beyond just rent

The vacant units around Katong are not the result of a single problem. Beyond rental costs, Redditors highlighted a range of factors that may be contributing to the area’s retail struggles.

Firstly, parking is a nightmare on Katong’s roads. The streets around the area are notoriously narrow—barely two car-widths in places—and roadside parking creates its own bottleneck. On weekends, cars are often caught waiting for a spot to free up, which puts people off before they’ve even stepped out of the vehicle.

Then there’s the heat. Katong’s charm is mostly outdoors, but the dense rows of shophouses create a concrete warming effect that traps heat and humidity. Browsing around on foot in the middle of the day is genuinely unpleasant for most of the year.

The layout of buildings themselves doesn’t help either. Narrow footprints, tight staircases, and without the climate-controlled comfort of a mall, browsing on foot in Singapore’s heat is already a hard sell. Moreover, bus services through the smaller back streets are also sparse, limiting how easily people can get there without a personal vehicle.

Lastly, the gradual gentrification has narrowed the appeal of Katong. Several commenters pointed out that the shop mix has drifted toward expensive, Instagram-friendly concepts—the kind of places influencers visit once for the photo, not twice for the overpriced food. When the locals themselves don’t want to patronise the local shops, the foot traffic problem starts to make a lot more sense.

On top of all that, these aren’t units you can just slap a fresh coat of paint on and hand to a tenant. Shophouses fall under conservation rules, meaning any renovation requires engaging a qualified person, submitting drawings to URA, getting conservation approval, and then separate BCA permits for structural work.

Restoring a “shell” unit can run between S$700 and S$1,000 psf before a single tenant moves in. With shophouses in Katong and Joo Chiat now trading at S$3,000 to S$5,000 psf and heritage-restored stock commanding roughly a 10% premium on top of that, many landlords simply cannot afford to drop rents without the entire investment falling apart.

Why landlords won’t budge

This is where the broader market context matters.

ERA’s data shows that landed shophouse transactions fell to just 34 in H1 2025, totalling S$234.7 million—the lowest half-year figure since 1998, and a steep fall from the peak of 245 transactions worth S$1.8 billion in 2021. District 15, which covers Katong and Joo Chiat, saw only four transactions in that period.

Many of the landlords sitting on empty units aren’t being stubborn for no reason—they’re caught in a bind.

For owners who bought at high prices, the rent they collect helps determine the property’s investment returns. Accepting a significantly lower rent may reduce their yield and potentially affect how the property is valued when they refinance or sell.

That creates a difficult trade-off: some landlords may prefer to wait for a tenant willing to pay closer to their asking price rather than lock in a lower rent that changes the financial assumptions behind the investment.

The problem is that prolonged vacancies carry their own costs. Empty storefronts can weaken a street’s vibrancy, reduce foot traffic, and eventually make it harder for landlords to attract the quality tenants needed to revive the area.

The empty units are hard to ignore

What the Reddit thread captured, more than any single data point, is a lived sense of mismatch: a neighbourhood with genuine heritage value and cultural cachet that isn’t consistently translating into a viable environment for the businesses trying to operate there.

Whether the fix requires lower rents, a vacancy tax to nudge landlords off the sideline, better infrastructure, or pedestrianising the area altogether, locals are clearly paying attention, and the patience for empty units is wearing thin.

For now, the “For Rent” signs stay up.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

The UK’s top data and AI regulator has resigned. It is the first time it has ever happened.

John Edwards stepped down as information commissioner on Friday, with immediate effect. His exit followed a months-long workplace investigation. He said his position had become “untenable”.

What he admitted

Edwards was careful in his statement, posted on LinkedIn. He said there had been “occasions where I exercised poor judgement and made attempts at humour that were inappropriate and caused offence”. He also said he disagreed with how the investigation had been run.

Crucially, the details remain hidden. Neither the regulator nor the government has said what the conduct actually was. The probe began in February over unspecified “HR matters”, and concluded this month with a finding that there was “a case to answer”.

Why it is a big deal

The job matters more than the man. The Information Commissioner’s Office oversees data protection, freedom of information and AI in Britain. It can fine companies up to £17.5mn, or 4 per cent of global turnover. It also sets the rules on how companies handle Britons’ personal data, and recently hit Reddit with a £14mn penalty over children’s data.

His departure is also a historic first. The office has existed since 1984, and no commissioner had ever resigned before, one data-protection lawyer noted. So Britain’s data and AI watchdog is now without a permanent chief, while a deputy keeps things running.

A regulator already under fire

The timing is awkward. Campaigners have been attacking the ICO as toothless, accusing it of brushing aside thousands of public complaints. One group called Edwards’s exit a chance to appoint “a regulator with teeth”.

The post is also about to change shape. Under new UK law, the role is being folded into a wider Information Commission, and Edwards was expected to leave later this year anyway. His abrupt resignation simply brings that reset forward, in far less flattering circumstances.

Why it matters

Edwards used his farewell to look ahead, not back. “As the AI tsunami breaks over us, we must redouble … our collective efforts to ensure safety, accountability, and trust online,” he wrote. He added that “no single organisation or country can address these challenges alone”.

For the tech industry, the real question is who governs AI and data in Britain next. The answer is suddenly unclear, just as governments everywhere fight over how to rule AI, and even as the EU’s own AI rulebook keeps slipping. A strong successor could sharpen enforcement. A weak one could prove the critics right. Either way, Britain has lost its data chief at an inconvenient moment.

Once the purview of crime labs and TV shows, DNA tests have instead become common gifts for birthdays, holidays and special occasions like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Quick tests like 23andMe and AncestryDNA have made the process of learning more about your family history easier, cheaper and faster than ever. 

But in her new book, The Psychology of Genealogy, psychologist Susan Moore warns that you should consider all the risks before undergoing a test. 

“Should you give DNA kits as gifts? It can be fun; it can be risky,” Moore said. 

Why you should exercise caution 

Beyond the safety concerns of a company having your DNA on file with the potential of data breaches and privacy concerns, emotional fallout can be an unexpected — yet not uncommon — result of these DNA tests. While genetic testing promises answers and connection, those findings can upend long-held beliefs about your identity and family. 

Read more: Tired of Booze and Beard Oil for Father’s Day Gifts? We’ve Got Over 30 Different Options to Try Instead

With over 30 million users and a multibillion-dollar industry, surprising matches and results are common. Misattributed paternity, donor-conception discoveries, late-found adoptions and unknown family members have all emerged from growing databases. For people unprepared for these outcomes, the psychological effects can be severe, according to Moore. 

Moore calls it “identity disruption” when new genetic information can undermine a person’s sense of self and belonging. She says some integrate the news and move on, while others face betrayal, mistrust and grief. 

Why do people test anyway? 

There are many practical, real risks when it comes to DNA testing. So why do millions of people still purchase them and send in their swabs?

Moore points to a few basic drives, such as curiosity, a need for rootedness and the intellectual thrill of uncovering family lore as to why people still undergo genetic tests. Genealogy can bring joy when people find long-lost relatives or overcome research barriers. Yet, curiosity often meets hard, unexpected truths.

“DNA gives you some new and interesting clues to your family tree structure, but the hard work of making sense of those clues must still be done,” Moore said. 

If you’re still interested in pursuing genetic testing anyway, Moore offers some simple advice: Test only if you want to explore ancestry and are ready to learn how to interpret results and contact matches ethically. Do not gift a kit without asking first, and make sure recipients are emotionally prepared and aware of privacy risks.

TL;DR: ASML’s most advanced chipmaking tools have become the focus of a renewed dispute in Washington over how far the US should go to keep cutting-edge semiconductor technology out of China. In recent months, the Trump administration has pressed ASML over whether one of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines may have slipped past export controls and ended up in China. According to people familiar with the talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised the issue directly with ASML’s senior leadership, asking whether a machine that has never been approved for export to China could have nonetheless reached the country.

EUV is the technology that underpins today’s most advanced processors. The machines are used by companies such as TSMC to manufacture high-performance chips for Nvidia and Apple. They are roughly the size of a school bus, are produced in limited quantities, and require constant maintenance from ASML engineers.

US export rules have long barred ASML from selling EUV tools to China, and the company says it complies with those restrictions. In its discussions with Lutnick, ASML pushed back on the suggestion that an EUV system could be operating in China, according to people familiar with the talks.

A company spokesperson, responding to questions about those meetings, said ASML has never shipped an EUV machine to China and stressed that it regularly engages with governments worldwide while adhering to export regulations.

The conversation has taken on a sharper edge in Washington. Multiple senior Trump administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believe ASML is not acting in good faith, citing exports to China of equipment they say is specifically related to EUV tools.

They declined to provide documentation, citing the sensitivity of the information, and did not say they had proof of an actual EUV machine operating in China. ASML, for its part, denied to Bloomberg that it has shipped any EUV-specific equipment to China.

Credit: Bloomberg

Behind the scenes, the pressure has triggered an internal scramble at ASML. After Lutnick’s April meeting, the company prepared a document titled “No Indication of Any ASML EUV System in China” and circulated it among officials in Washington, according to people familiar with the situation.

The document, reviewed by Bloomberg, says there are 314 EUV machines in use worldwide and 26 that have been decommissioned, with none located in China. It also states that ASML can automatically detect “any interruption, abnormal behavior, or loss of connectivity” across its EUV fleet, and that customers “cannot remove, transport, or relocate EUV systems without ASML involvement due to specialized handling procedures.”

Those technical constraints are central to ASML’s argument. EUV tools are so complex that they effectively remain under the company’s oversight throughout their operational life. ASML says customers cannot remove, transport, or relocate EUV systems without its involvement because of specialized handling requirements.

Yet skepticism within the Trump administration persists. Senior officials say they have evidence that ASML shipped specialized transport equipment and other components for use with EUV systems to Chinese customers, though they have declined to provide supporting records.

The technology at the heart of the dispute is critical to China’s AI ambitions. Huawei Technologies, which has been cut off from EUV tools, has made progress in producing advanced chips without ASML’s most sophisticated equipment, narrowing the gap with TSMC. That absence of EUV capability is widely seen as one of the most significant constraints on Huawei’s ability to mass-produce cutting-edge AI chips.

If investigators were ever to confirm that a full EUV system had reached China, it would amount to one of the most serious known breaches of the US-led export control regime designed to limit Beijing’s access to high-end AI hardware. For now, officials have declined to explain why, if they suspect such a violation, they have not brought public enforcement actions or further tightened restrictions.

ASML’s broader China business is already constrained. The Netherlands has blocked EUV sales to Chinese chipmakers and, under US pressure, has also restricted certain types of immersion deep ultraviolet tools. Washington has been frustrated that ASML accelerated shipments of some DUV systems before the newer rules took effect.

Senior Trump administration officials say those episodes, along with alleged EUV-related exports, point to a company that is too willing to prioritize short-term revenue over national security.

The dispute over EUV is unfolding as Washington debates how far to extend its export control regime. The US has effectively severed Huawei from most foreign technology and has used extraterritorial measures to draw companies such as ASML into that effort.

At the same time, gaps remain in how allied controls are applied and how far they extend to maintenance, servicing, and support for restricted Chinese firms such as SwaySure Technology, which US officials say has received technological support from ASML. The administration has tools to halt those relationships outright but has not done so, and negotiations with the Netherlands and Japan over tighter rules have yet to produce a decisive outcome.

In Congress, lawmakers are pushing a bill that would bring foreign suppliers, including ASML and Tokyo Electron, under restrictions more closely aligned with those on US firms, and would effectively ban ASML’s shipments of immersion DUV tools to China.

That shift would hit a business ASML expects to generate about one-fifth of its 2026 revenue. The Trump administration has not taken a formal position on the legislation, and US diplomats have suggested that a broader US-EU trade deal could reduce momentum behind the bill, which several European governments oppose.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) disclosed a data breach at its license system vendor that exposed personal information for more than three million individuals.

The Texas Cyber Command discovered the intrusion and launched an investigation to determine the extent and impact of the unauthorized access. The state authority found that Social Security Numbers (SSNs), dates of birth, or any financial information, such as credit cards, have not been impacted.

However, the threat actor may have obtained personally identifiable information that includes the following data types associated with 3,087,721 Texas hunting and fishing license customers:

• Driver’s license information
• Passport numbers
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Residential addresses

The exposed data set is sufficient for hackers to target impacted individuals in phishing and social engineering attacks that lead to web pages distributing malware or seeking more sensitive information.

“There is no evidence that customers under the age of 18 were involved or that any specific group was targeted,” TPWD says in the data breach notification.

TPWD is the Texas state agency responsible for managing wildlife and fisheries, state parks, conservation programs, hunting and fishing regulations, boating registration, and enforcement by Texas Game Wardens.

The Texas state agency also issues hunting and fishing licenses and permits, which are sold through an external vendor.

BleepingComputer contacted TPWD for more information about the incident and the name of the third-party service provider, but we have not yet received a statement.

The agency  says that it is “working closely with the license system vendor to implement new safeguards and enhanced monitoring services.”

TPWD advises customers to monitor their credit reports and financial statements. Impacted individuals are eligible for one year of free credit monitoring and should consider placing a credit freeze or fraud alert with major credit bureaus as an added protection against identity thieves.

It is also strongly recommended to remain vigilant for phishing and impersonation scams, as threat actors may try to send communication posing as a company or an official.

Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.

The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection.

Get the whitepaper

Jon Prosser, the leaker Apple is currently suing for allegedly leaking iOS 26 trade secrets, has published yet another video on his YouTube channel called Front Page Tech, showing what he says could be the final design of the purported iPhone Ultra.

Along with slightly different renders from last time, Prosser also points to iOS 27 developer code to back up his claims, particularly regarding the existence of the iPhone Ultra and a new feature that iOS users have been requesting for years.

So what does the latest iPhone Ultra leak actually show?

The renders show a book-style foldable that Prosser describes as a “chunky iPhone” when closed and an “iPad” when opened, something we’ve already known for a while. When unfolded, the phone could measure just 4.5 mm, making it slimmer than the iPhone Air at 5.6 mm.

The titanium body pairs with what the host calls an “over-engineered hinge” designed to produce a near-creaseless display. Apple has reportedly been developing the technology for quite some time and has also faced a couple of setbacks.

As seen in the video, the purported iPhone Ultra could come in two colors: white and black (or a dark gray finish). Most of these details aren’t entirely new and have been echoed by several different sources.

What stood out to me, however, were a few smaller details that didn’t get much attention in the video.

What’s changed since the December leak?

Front Page Tech also uploaded a similar video in December 2025, calling the foldable the “iPhone Fold” instead of iPhone Ultra. After watching both videos side by side, here are some changes that I’ve noticed.

While the previous video had the power button (with integrated Touch ID) at the top of the smartphone, right above the camera bar (with the display facing you), the new renders show volume buttons in that position instead. There’s also a speaker grille on the top frame.

The power button is now located on the right frame, where it normally sits on an iPhone, but on the bottom half of the foldable. This isn’t the typical iPad button layout everyone is used to, and it may take some adjustment.

The elephant in the room is the new, more compact camera visor. Instead of covering the entire width of the rear panel, it extends only around the dual rear-facing camera module, elevating the sensors above an otherwise flat panel and creating a more seamless look.

What about the new iOS feature?

Prosser claims the iPhone Ultra will bring split-screen multitasking to iOS, though it would reportedly be exclusive to the foldable. That means your current iPhone likely won’t get it, even though it supports iOS 27.

Apple appears to be laying the groundwork in iOS 27 code, with strings like “fold state” and “angle degrees” surfacing in the developer beta. 

Following WWDC 2026, Apple also instructed developers to prepare for a dynamic range of screen sizes and aspect ratios. If Prosser is right, the iPhone Ultra would be the first iPhone to properly run two apps side by side.

Other claims about the phone, such as the A20 chip, the C2 modem with satellite-based 5G connectivity, and a price tag north of $2,000, remain similar. Whether the iPhone Ultra will ship with Touch ID and a Camera Control button remains unclear, but a September 2026 launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max seems likely.

Demand for artificial intelligence compute continues to rise, necessitating the search for new sources of reliable power and effective cooling. Facilities built on land frequently face opposition from communities concerned about electricity bills, noise, and water consumption. Panthalassa, a Pacific Northwest-based company, has spent the last decade developing floating platforms that generate power straight from ocean waves while staying cool in the surrounding waters. Data is transmitted to and from the platforms via satellite links rather than undersea cables. The strategy isolates operations far from shore and takes advantage of wave energy that is available around the clock in strategically chosen places.

Current prototypes for continuous wave power resemble large steel barges that sit primarily at the ocean’s bottom, with only a small portion visible above the water. Since 2025, the Ocean-2 test unit has been located off the coast of Washington state. It is around 70 metres long and produces a full megawatt of power when the waves are perfect. Waves shaking the floating part of the item push all of the water down a conduit into a reservoir underwater, where gravity simply allows it to drop into a unique water-tight turbine that generates energy. They’ve engineered it such that strong ocean conditions can’t get in and cause damage, and there are no exposed bits to break.

Sale

ACEMAGIC Mini PC Windows 11 Pro, AMD Ryzen 4300U(Beat 3500U/N150/N95, up to 3.7GHz), 16GB DDR4 RAM…

• ▪ [AMD Ryzen 4300U, which is more powerful than the N150/3500U] – ACEMAGIC Mini PC is powered by Latest Processor AMD Ryzen 4300U(4Cores/4 Threads…
• ▪ [K1 Mini Computer – Meet Your Second PC] – Next-Gen Light Office Mini PC comes pre-installed with the Win11 Pro system, which is intelligent…
• ▪ [Large Storage Capacity, Easy Expansion] – Mini Computer K1 is equipped with a 16GB LPDDR4 and a 512GB M.2 2280 SSD, which allows the small PC to…

Photos of the Ocean-2 in the ocean reveal a plain steel construction with scale markings, antennae protruding out, and a few other components visible above the waves. Engineers made the prototypes out of thick steel coated with zinc or aluminum to prevent rusting, and they expect them to last at least 15 years. The compute bits that will be added when they go commercial will be in sealed containers with cold saltwater circulating inside, as they picked this design because the seawater will absorb the heat for them without the need for mechanical cooling or large fans to blast the moisture away.

The larger commercial ones they’re planning on are about 85 meters long and will have some AI components in those seawater-cooled containers, allowing numerous ones to work together as a larger data center. The results will be sent back to the control center via SpaceX Starlink satellites, eliminating the need to connect to the grid or run cables all the way back to the shore. They believe this technology is best suited for large, time-consuming operations that do not require immediate results.

Setting it all up begins on the beach or in a secluded body of water. Then they pull the object out to deeper water and let it sit up, as it will go from there on its own or with a little aid from a crew to its eventual destination. Targets are stretches of the Southern Ocean away from all maritime lines. The first commercial one with all of the AI gear is scheduled for 2027 and will be constructed at a new plant in the United States.
[Source]

security

Owners of affected iPhones can stop checking for patches now: the fix for this SecureROM bug comes in a new handset

A newly disclosed BootROM exploit affecting Apple’s A12 and A13 chips gives researchers a way to break the secure boot chain on millions of iPhones and other Apple devices.

The exploit, dubbed “usbliter8” by security researchers at Paradigm Shift, targets a flaw in the SecureROM code found on the iPhone XS, XR, 11, and 11 Pro models, plus other devices powered by Apple’s A12 and A13 processors. Because the vulnerability resides in immutable BootROM code burned into silicon during manufacturing, it cannot be patched. 

The researchers traced the issue to the Synopsys DesignWare USB controller used by Apple. A flaw in how the hardware handles certain USB setup packets allows attackers to corrupt memory during Device Firmware Update (DFU) mode, and ultimately gain control of SecureROM itself.

That might sound like an unremarkable minor moment in boot process, but SecureROM sits at the very bottom of Apple’s chain of trust. If an attacker can compromise it, they can interfere with everything that comes afterward.

For ordinary iPhone owners, there is little reason to panic. Exploitation requires physical access to a device and the ability to place it into DFU mode, which means this isn’t the sort of bug criminals are likely to weaponize in phishing campaigns or drive-by attacks.

For security researchers, however, BootROM vulnerabilities are the gift that keeps on giving. Unlike software flaws that disappear after the next patch Tuesday, these bugs remain exploitable for the lifetime of the hardware.

Paradigm’s proof-of-concept demonstrates the ability to run unsigned code during the boot process, load custom iBoot images without signature checks, and modify DFU behavior. The exploit also marks compromised devices with the traditional “PWND” – a string familiar to anyone who spent time around the jailbreaking community over the last decade.

Not every generation of iPhone has the flaw. According to the researchers, Apple’s A11 chips dodge the issue thanks to a different USB implementation, while A14 and later hardware appears to have fixed the conditions that make the exploit possible in the first place.

“While newer generations have addressed the underlying issue, affected A12 and A13 devices will carry it for the remainder of their lifetime,” said Paradigm researchers. “For those who have followed the history of iPhone exploitation and jailbreaking, this research is a reminder that the BootROM still occasionally has a surprise left to give.

The team said it disclosed the findings to Apple before publication and coordinated the release of the research with the company. Apple did not respond to The Register’s request for comment. 

The exploit doesn’t directly compromise Apple’s Secure Enclave Processor, which remains responsible for protecting passcodes, encryption keys, and other sensitive data. Still, gaining control of SecureROM is about as close as researchers can get to the keys to the kingdom without crossing that final boundary.

There’s no fix, but a remedy is simple, if somewhat expensive: buy a new iPhone.  ®