Samsung has significantly expanded access to its One UI 9 software update, adding beta programs for several older Galaxy devices while pushing toward a stable release for the Galaxy S26 series, bringing millions more phones closer to receiving the software’s newest features.

The rollout builds on One UI 9’s official launch alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 8 series on July 22, with Samsung now moving to extend both beta and stable versions of the software across a broader range of devices in the weeks since.

For current Galaxy S26 owners, Samsung has confirmed that One UI 9 Beta 7 is now rolling out globally, available for download through the Samsung Members app for users enrolled in the One UI Beta Program. The update brings several features that debuted exclusively on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 to the S26 lineup, including a redesigned Finder tool with Google Search integration, a feature called My FanCam that lets users film a wide crowd shot and later spotlight a specific person within the Gallery app, and custom cards within Now Nudge, a proactive suggestion feature that anticipates a user’s next likely action, such as offering to open a calendar app when a user is texting about scheduling a meetup.

Both My FanCam and Now Nudge, which originally launched exclusively alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 8 in July, are now also available on Samsung’s new midrange Galaxy S26 FE, extending features once reserved for the company’s premium foldable lineup down to a more budget-friendly device.

Beyond the Galaxy S26 series, Samsung has significantly widened its beta testing program to include several older Galaxy devices. The company officially confirmed an expanded One UI 9 beta rollout covering the Galaxy S25, S25+, S25 Ultra and S25 FE, along with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, with availability confirmed in India, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Galaxy S25 beta program launched earlier, with Samsung officially rolling out the first beta build, sized just under 4 gigabytes, to users in the U.S., U.K., South Korea and India. Notably, Samsung included the Galaxy S25 FE in the South Korean rollout for that beta, marking the first time a midrange Galaxy device had been included in the One UI 9 beta program at that stage of the rollout.

Samsung update tracker Tarun Vats, who closely monitors the company’s software rollout schedule, has separately identified additional beta builds in development for the Galaxy S24, S23 and Z Fold 7 device families, suggesting those devices are moving closer to receiving their own formal beta programs even though some, like the Galaxy S24, were not included in Samsung’s initial official device list for the expanded beta. According to Vats, the Galaxy S24 series beta could go live soon in the U.S. and India specifically, despite not appearing on Samsung’s confirmed rollout list, reflecting the rapid pace at which the update appears to be expanding to additional devices beyond the company’s initially announced schedule.

For the Galaxy Z Fold 7 specifically, Samsung has now released both a stable build, internally labeled CZHI, and a newer beta build, labeled ZZHL, a combination that suggests a full stable release of One UI 9 for last year’s flagship foldable device could be approaching relatively soon.

Signs also point toward an imminent stable release for the current Galaxy S26 series. Samsung has now released two separate stable builds for the S26 in quick succession, with a build carrying a September date, internally labeled BZI2, spotted following an earlier stable build labeled BZHK that appeared the previous week. Industry trackers have interpreted the pattern of multiple stable builds appearing close together as a strong signal that Samsung is in the final stages of preparing the software for full public release, rather than continuing to test additional beta iterations.

The Galaxy S24 has similarly received a new stable build, labeled EZHO, though industry trackers following the rollout do not currently expect Samsung to offer a public beta program for that device, suggesting Samsung may skip directly to a stable release for the S24 family without an intermediate beta testing phase.

For users interested in joining any of the currently available beta programs, Samsung has outlined a straightforward process: open the Samsung Members app, locate the One UI 9 Beta Programme banner, register for the program, and then navigate to Settings, followed by Software Update, and select Download and Install to receive the update.

Separately, Samsung’s rollout of One UI 9 has drawn attention to a notable feature limitation on its newest midrange device, the Galaxy S26 FE. While the phone launches with One UI 9 and Android 17 preinstalled, along with features including My FanCam, a Horizontal Lock function for stabilized video recording, and Document Scan, Samsung has confirmed the device will not support the full agentic capabilities of Google’s Gemini Intelligence, the AI assistant feature capable of autonomously completing tasks such as booking restaurant reservations or locating documents across different apps on a user’s behalf.

The limitation appears tied to hardware constraints rather than a deliberate software restriction. Google’s official requirements for Gemini Intelligence specify a minimum of 12 gigabytes of RAM, while the Galaxy S26 FE launches with only 8 gigabytes, a 4-gigabyte gap that appears to represent the dividing line between Samsung’s full AI flagship experience and the more limited feature set available on its lower-tier devices.

It remains unclear whether Samsung’s full agentic Gemini Intelligence experience will eventually be made available on older Galaxy flagship devices that do meet the 12-gigabyte RAM requirement, or whether the feature will remain exclusive to newer hardware going forward. Samsung and Google have not provided a definitive answer to that question, though the continued rollout of One UI 9 to older Galaxy devices in the coming months is expected to offer clearer insight into how broadly the company plans to extend its full AI feature set across its existing device lineup before the end of the year.

The 115m blades – the largest ever made in the UK – are being built by Siemens Gamesa at Hull’s Alexandra Dock plant for Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm

Massive blades destined to power wind turbines in the North Sea are now being manufactured by workers in Hull at Siemens Gamesa. Production for Ørsted’s Hornsea 3, the world’s largest single offshore wind farm, has commenced at the Alexandra Dock facility, which employs 1,400 people.

Each blade stretches 115m in length – marginally longer than a Premier League football pitch. Every 15MW turbine requires three blades and, once fully operational, Hornsea 3 will be capable of generating 2.9GW of clean energy – sufficient to power more than 3.3m UK homes.

It is the third instalment in Ørsted’s Hornsea Zone, following Hornsea 1 and 2, which together are capable of generating enough electricity for 2.5 million UK homes. Blades for those earlier farms were also produced in Hull.

The Hornsea region is overseen from Ørsted’s Royal Dock hub in Grimsby. The first of nearly 200 enormous foundations for the turbines comprising Hornsea 3 was positioned off the East Yorkshire coastline earlier this year.

Energy Minister Michael Shanks said: “This is what good growth in every postcode looks like – world-leading offshore wind blades built in Hull, powering clean homegrown electricity for millions of homes from off the coast of Yorkshire. As we tackle the root cause of high energy bills, our exposure to volatile international fossil fuel markets, we are determined that the homegrown power we build must deliver for Britain too: creating British jobs and backing British innovation in our communities.”, reports Hull Live.

Luke Bridgman, managing director, Hornsea 3 at Ørsted, said: “This is a proud milestone for the Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm and these massive blades reflect how offshore wind energy continues to develop. This impressive feat of engineering is another part of the jigsaw that will help to power the UK.”

Darren Davidson, UK vice president for Siemens Energy and Siemens Gamesa, said: “Projects like Hornsea 3 demonstrate the scale of industrial capability required to deliver the energy transition. At 115 metres, these are the largest blades ever manufactured in the UK, reflecting how far offshore wind technology has advanced in recent years.

“Producing them in Hull is the result of over 10 years of investment in facilities, people, and expertise, and shows how offshore wind can support skilled manufacturing jobs while strengthening the UK’s domestic supply chain.”

GRAPEVINE, Texas — Shares of GameStop Corp. climbed Thursday morning, trading at $19.15, up 17 cents, or 0.90%, as of 10:02 a.m. ET, as investors continued positioning ahead of the video game retailer’s full second-quarter earnings report, scheduled for after market close on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

The stock’s modest gain comes as GameStop’s business increasingly reflects the impact of its sizable investment portfolio, particularly a large stake in eBay, rather than the performance of its traditional video game and collectibles retail operations, which have continued to shrink.

GameStop released preliminary second-quarter results on Aug. 31, disclosing that it expects quarterly net income of between $290 million and $310 million, nearly double the $168.6 million the company reported during the same period a year earlier. The stronger bottom line, however, is not being driven by a rebound in core sales. Instead, GameStop said quarterly revenue is expected to fall to between $780 million and $800 million, down from $972.2 million a year earlier, with the sales decline attributed to the prior year’s launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, planned store closures, and the divestiture of the company’s operations in France.

The gap between GameStop’s shrinking sales and its rising net income has been driven largely by investment gains tied to the company’s eBay position. GameStop said its quarterly net income figure includes approximately $238 million in net gains related to its eBay derivative asset and equity investment. As of Aug. 1, GameStop held roughly 43.4 million shares of eBay common stock, with a fair value of approximately $4.947 billion.

During the quarter, GameStop converted a previously disclosed derivative position related to eBay into a direct equity investment, a move that also affected the company’s overall liquidity profile. GameStop said its cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities are expected to range between $5.05 billion and $5.07 billion, down from $8.69 billion at the close of the prior year’s second quarter, reflecting the conversion of that derivative position into direct eBay shares.

GameStop’s broader strategy toward eBay has continued to take shape throughout the year. On May 3, the company made a non-binding proposal to acquire the remaining shares of eBay for $125 per share in a combination of cash and GameStop stock. That proposed transaction cleared a key regulatory hurdle when the required Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period was satisfied on June 3, allowing for potential optional physical settlement of GameStop’s existing options positions tied to eBay shares. GameStop directly owns 4,343,725 eBay shares outright, and separately holds put and call option pairs providing economic exposure to an additional 39,046,658 shares.

Shareholders have already taken formal steps to support GameStop’s broader strategic ambitions involving eBay. At the company’s 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, shareholders approved an amendment to GameStop’s certificate of incorporation increasing the number of authorized shares of Class A common stock, a change supported by 68.7% of votes cast. The amendment gives GameStop additional capacity to issue common stock in connection with strategic transactions, including its proposed eBay acquisition, should that deal ultimately move forward.

Alongside its preliminary earnings release, GameStop also announced an amendment to a previously disclosed plan to exchange approximately $1.4 billion in convertible notes for shares of Class A common stock. Under the revised terms, noteholders will receive roughly 55.5 million shares of common stock, representing about 73% of the total consideration, along with approximately $358.4 million in cash, representing the remaining 27%, which GameStop said it expects to fund from cash on hand. The amended exchange is expected to close on or about Sept. 3. The original agreement, announced earlier in the same month, had been structured to be settled entirely in stock, with the total share count determined by GameStop’s average volume-weighted stock price over a 35-day reference period; the amendment terminates that reference period early, fixing the total number of shares to be issued rather than leaving it subject to further market fluctuation.

GameStop shares rose 5% in premarket trading following the announcement of the amended note exchange terms, as investors welcomed the reduced dilution shareholders would face compared with the original all-stock structure. Once completed, the exchange will reduce GameStop’s outstanding long-term debt by roughly $1.4 billion, leaving $1.1 billion of 2030 Notes and $1.7 billion of 2032 Notes outstanding.

GameStop had earlier issued formal fiscal year 2026 guidance projecting adjusted EBITDA above $600 million for the fiscal year ending Jan. 30, 2027, a significant increase from the $345.4 million reported in fiscal 2025. The company’s board also separately approved a request from Chief Executive Ryan Cohen to withdraw a proposed CEO Performance Award from this year’s proxy statement, with Cohen stating he wanted company leadership focused on operating performance and the proposed eBay acquisition rather than on compensation matters.

GameStop’s first-quarter 2026 results, covering the period ended May 2, showed net sales rising 14% year-over-year to $835.3 million, driven by strength in the company’s collectibles business, with net income reaching a record $389.6 million for the quarter.

The stock’s trajectory this year has remained well below its meme-stock-era highs. Shares of the Texas-based retailer, founded in 1984 and known for video games, gaming consoles, accessories and collectibles, famously surged more than 1,600% in January 2021, fueled by a coordinated retail investor push originating on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum. GameStop shares reached a record $120.75 during that period before giving back roughly 85% of those gains in the years since. Despite Thursday’s modest gain and the earlier 2.9% jump following the preliminary earnings release, GameStop stock remains down roughly 8% for 2026 overall.

With GameStop’s full second-quarter results due after market close on Sept. 8, investors and analysts will be watching closely to see whether the company’s expanding investment portfolio, anchored by its eBay position, can continue offsetting the ongoing decline in its core retail business, or whether Wall Street will ultimately demand clearer signs of stabilization in GameStop’s traditional operations regardless of gains generated through its broader investment strategy.

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Nvidia announced Thursday that it will buy AI developer platform Hugging Face in a deal valued at approximately $12.9 billion.

The chipmaker is betting that growing demand for the open-source AI models hosted on Hugging Face will fuel future growth, even as some of Nvidia’s largest customers develop their own chips to reduce their dependence on the company.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Hugging Face will remain an open-source platform. He estimated that it hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 datasets and 1 million applications.

“Open models let startups, businesses, universities and public institutions build on advanced capabilities without training every model from scratch. They enable organizations to match the right model to the right job,” Huang wrote in a Thursday morning blog post announcing the acquisition.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Hugging Face will remain an open-source platform. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

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“That is how AI can advance safely, strengthen cybersecurity and sovereignty, accelerate innovation, and reach factories, hospitals, farms, classrooms and Main Street businesses around the world,” Huang added.

Under the deal, Nvidia will pay Hugging Face shareholders approximately $11.9 billion, while setting aside up to $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for Hugging Face employees who join the company, according to Nvidia’s latest Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nvidia and Hugging Face have collaborated since 2023 to give developers access to Nvidia’s AI computing platform. 

Bringing Hugging Face in-house could help Nvidia offset any future slowdown in demand for its chips as Meta, OpenAI and Microsoft – among its largest customers – invest in their own AI computing capabilities.

Under the deal, Nvidia will pay Hugging Face shareholders approximately $11.9 billion. (Photographer: Loren Elliott/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, according to the filing.

Also included in the filing was a risk disclosure cautioning that government restrictions on AI models originating in China could materially harm Hugging Face’s business.

Hugging Face hosts numerous AI models developed by Chinese companies, including DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, alongside models from developers around the world.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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Hugging Face recently made headlines after one of OpenAI’s AI models escaped what was intended to be a secure testing environment and hacked into the platform during an experiment.

The New York-based startup, backed by investors including Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Amazon, was founded in 2016 by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnz) said gas prices are determined on international markets, dismissing criticism of the UK’s own low levels of storage.

The boss of British Gas owner Centrica, Chris O’Shea, has repeatedly called for support from the government to expand its Rough storage facility in the North Sea, warning it has been unviable to fill it up and that it will close next year without a deal.

“We have almost no gas in storage in the UK for the coming winter and this is a huge concern as energy security is national security,” he said on LinkedIn, external last week.

A Desnz spokesman said: “We remain open to discussing proposals on all gas storage sites, as long as it provides value for money for taxpayers.”

The department also pointed to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s pledge to cut VAT from energy bills from October, as well as government action to reduce Britain’s reliance on natural gas altogether.

Ángel Talavera, chief European economist at Oxford Economics, said there is a “glass half full, and a glass half empty” picture unfolding.

On one hand, wholesale gas prices are significantly lower than during the crisis which followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On the other, households and businesses will still face significantly higher energy bills than usual over the coming months.

“It’s serious, but not catastrophic,” he told the BBC, adding “something would have to dramatically change to lower prices”.

He pointed to a reduction in demand for natural gas in general as a result of the shift towards renewables, but said the overall picture depends hugely on the winter weather.

“If you have a warmer winter than average, that will be great for demand,” he said. But he warned a colder than average winter would have the opposite effect, driving up demand for energy and pushing up prices.

It is not known how the developing El Niño over the Pacific Ocean will impact Britain’s winter. The so-called Big Freeze of winter 2009-10 was, at the time, the coldest in three decades – and this coincided with an El Niño.

However, 2006-07 was also an El Niño winter and that was unseasonably warm.

Talavera said gas prices could come down if the weather helps reduce demand and the Strait of Hormuz reopens sooner than expected.

But, at the moment, “the weather machine remains our main hope”.

It comes as a recent spike in the UK government’s borrowing costs eased. After a sharp uptick on Tuesday, which took the yield on a 10-year bond – or gilt – to the highest level since 2008, it fell back slightly on Thursday.

Yields are hovering around 5.15%, however, which would still represent a post-2008 peak were it not for Tuesday’s jump.