Spiders? Skeletons? Bad omens? My kind of party.

Science

Not all bad news: Crypto billionaire signs up for a mission to Mars

SpaceX called off the launch of its huge Starship rocket seconds before liftoff due to a ground equipment problem.

The countdown clock reached a planned hold at T-40 seconds after a relatively trouble-free process. Some iffy weather had cleared, and everything looked good for the twelfth Starship test flight – the first try-out for the latest generation of the vehicle and launchpad.

Alas, it was not to be. After repeatedly resetting the countdown clock to the T-40 second mark due to problems, which included warnings from sensors on the quick-disconnect arm on the launch pad and issues with the pad’s water diverter, SpaceX eventually threw in the towel and scrubbed the launch.

Boss man Elon Musk blamed the scrub on the ground equipment, and posted on X: “The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.” Musk wrote that if the issue could be fixed, SpaceX will try again later today. The next window opens at 5:30 pm CT, according to the billionaire.

Considering that this was the first launch attempt from a new pad and the first of this vehicle’s iteration, the countdown problems are unsurprising. As such, getting to the T-40 second mark was an achievement in its own right. Sadly, the team had only a few minutes to deal with the problems, since the propellant loading was complete and the fuel temperature could not be maintained for long.

Expectations are high for this mission. Despite years of development and Musk’s promises, Starship is still non-operational, and its launches remain on suborbital trajectories during its test phase. The vehicle has quite a way to go before it can play a part in NASA’s goal of landing a crew on the Moon.

According to the company’s recent IPO filing, “We expect Starship to commence payload delivery to orbit in the second half of 2026.”

The second half of 2026 is only weeks away, so it’ll be an interesting few months.

The IPO filing also states that Musk’s performance-based restricted shares in SpaceX vest upon the establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars “with at least one million inhabitants.”

First, however, the SpaceX needs to get to Mars. During the scrubbed launch attempt, it announced that crypto billionaire Chun Wang, who commanded the Fram2 private human spaceflight mission in 2025, would be on the crew for a future flyby of the red planet.

Hopefully, Wang’s jaunt to Mars won’t end up canceled like the dearMoon project, a mission to the Moon financed by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The project was unveiled in 2018, but was eventually canceled in 2024. Starship has yet to hit Earth orbit, let alone head to the Moon. ®

The annual tech showcase highlights next-gen AI, cloud, and future-ready ICT solutions while uniting ecosystem partners to build the foundation for the nation’s AI era

Partner Content ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading provider of integrated information and communication technology solutions, held ZTE Day Indonesia 2026 in Jakarta, as its annual technology showcase event, bringing together industry leaders, technology partners, and digital ecosystem players to discuss the future of AI, intelligent infrastructure, and digital transformation in Indonesia.

As industries increasingly adopt AI, cloud technologies, and data-driven operations, the demand for smarter, adaptive, and future-ready digital infrastructure continues to accelerate. Responding to this momentum, ZTE Day Indonesia 2026 highlighted how AI, intelligent networks, cloud infrastructure, and next-generation connectivity are becoming key foundations for national digital competitiveness and future economic growth.

The event showcased a broad range of integrated ICT innovations spanning artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent computing, cloud infrastructure, optical transport, enterprise networking, Wi-Fi 7, and next-generation connectivity technologies designed to support enterprises, operators, and industries navigating the AI era.

Liu Sen, President Director of ZTE Indonesia, stated that Indonesia is currently entering an important phase of digital transformation, where progress will increasingly depend on strong collaboration between technology providers, infrastructure players, and partners across the digital ecosystem.

“Indonesia is currently entering an important phase of digital transformation, where AI, cloud technologies, and intelligent connectivity will become the key foundations of future digital economic growth. Through ZTE Day Indonesia 2026, we aim to demonstrate how technology innovation can be implemented to support the development of smarter, more efficient, and sustainable digital infrastructure. We believe that cross-industry collaboration will play a crucial role in building a strong digital foundation to support Indonesia’s vision of becoming a leading digital economy,” said Liu Sen.

Beyond showcasing technology innovations, ZTE Day Indonesia 2026 also emphasized the growing importance of ecosystem collaboration in supporting Indonesia’s AI-ready digital landscape.

During the exhibition showcase, ZTE presented a series of its latest innovations, including nubia’s latest AI smartphone, high-performance AI server solutions, optical transport technologies, AI-powered network management systems, and Wi-Fi 7 enterprise connectivity solutions.

ZTE also demonstrated its comprehensive end-to-end digital ecosystem capabilities through solutions covering RAN, microwave, transport network, core network, fixed network, and big video solutions. These innovations reflected the company’s commitment to supporting operators, enterprises, and industries in addressing the evolving demands of the digital era.

As part of ZTE Day Indonesia 2026, the ZTE Open Day Afternoon Session featured keynote presentations from Prof. Viciano Lee of Sertis Indonesia, Sami Muhammad Salman from Whale Cloud Technology Indonesia, Mohan Albert, Director of CTO Group at ZTE, and Chok Shin Lip, Partner Solution Architect Director at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

The keynote sessions explored the growing role of AI, cloud technologies, intelligent infrastructure, and ecosystem collaboration in supporting enterprise transformation and accelerating Indonesia’s digital economy development.

The event also hosted a panel discussion titled “Connecting the Ecosystem: Intelligent Connectivity for Enterprise Integration & Value Innovation”, featuring industry leaders including Eric Arianto, Chief Technology & Network Officer of Linknet, Irawan Delfi, Network Development Division Head of Fiberstar, and Sigit Dwi Cahyo, Head of Technology Planning and Product of Tower Bersama Group. The panel explored the importance of intelligent connectivity, fiber infrastructure readiness, and ecosystem integration in supporting enterprise digitalization, service innovation, and the growing demand for seamless digital experiences across industries.

Another panel discussion titled “Building the Foundation: Digital Infrastructure for Indonesia’s AI Era”, moderated by Vincent Han, featured industry leaders including Abieta Billy from DCI Indonesia, Muljadi Muhali from Fortress Digital Services, and Marlo Budiman from DSST Mas Gemilang. The second panel emphasized the importance of strengthening digital infrastructure readiness, enhancing data center capabilities, and fostering industry collaboration to support the growing adoption of AI technologies and Indonesia’s broader digital transformation agenda.

Through keynote sessions, panel discussions, interactive product demonstrations, and networking activities, ZTE Day Indonesia 2026 provided customers, partners, and industry stakeholders with deeper insights into AI implementation, intelligent digital infrastructure, and real-world applications of next-generation technologies across industries.

Contributed by ZTE.

Generative AI is not Apple’s strong suit, but Image Playground, the tool responsible for horrific AI avatar generation and Genmoji, should see significant improvements with the OS 27 cycle.

Apple announced Apple Intelligence features that had to be delayed in 2024, and one of them should have been Image Playground. While the other AI tools were of passable usefulness and quality, the image generation tool still leaves a lot to be desired.

According to the “Power On” newsletter from Bloomberg, the Image Playground app should see a “big boost” from Apple’s upgraded Apple Foundation Models. It’s an obvious statement given that Gemini is being distilled into Apple’s models, and one of Gemini’s specialties is image generation.

However, even as Apple’s image generation feature improves, its models will still likely lag behind competing options by some margin. Users that want more oomph behind their image generation in Image Playground will be able to use third-party models of their choosing.

Image generation is bad AI

While the results are often unfortunate, Image Playground is more of a proof-of-concept than a useful tool in its current form. Apple presented it as a way to turn your mom into an AI-slop superhero for what would be a simply terrible birthday message.

While no one on Earth should use Image Playground for that function, it can be somewhat entertaining the same way other gen AI models have been. Using it to see how it might interpret a specific person or prompt can be amusing, but the output isn’t something anyone could or should rely on for anything beyond a giggle in an iMessage group chat.

The only good thing about Image Playground output (when using Apple’s models) is that it’s either on device or in Private Cloud Compute servers that run on renewable energy. While generative slop is loaded with moral quandaries, that’s one area Image Playground doesn’t suffer from.

Genmoji is the true winner in Image Playground. While it isn’t a function I’ve used much, it has enough guardrails that it can make some decent results.

Even if Image Playground is able to one day achieve Pixar or Ghibli-level results with on-device AI, there’s the argument that all gen AI is bad for humanity. One area of image generation Apple will no doubt stay away from is the ability to produce photorealistic output, which can lead to problems like deepfakes.

OS 27 getting new Apple Foundation Models

iOS 27 is expected to make Genmoji more proactive in the system by suggesting premade options in the text suggestion box. Shared Genmoji become available to the people you send them to, so everyone can get some use out of that weed emoji.

Writing Tools are one of Apple’s better AI features

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Apple’s weakest offerings in AI are its generative functions, however, they’re fully optional and easily ignored. There is no doubt Apple will continue to pursue better image generation, but if that’s something you want to do, you might want to stick to other apps.

That said, Image Playground could prove much better in OS 27 and earn its place as a useful toolset. The app itself is fine, but Image Playground also exists outside of the app as an extension interface in places like Notes and Freeform.

If Apple can make Image Playground a useful tool that can run on devices with Apple’s arguably somewhat ethical AI models, then I welcome it. Though improvements could mean turning the tool into a plagiarism machine, which will create a whole different set of issues.

People that want to perform these functions are going to seek out tools that offer them. If gen AI must exist to meet consumer expectations, then Apple should have a good offering.

These fake images that lack artistic ingenuity or integrity are getting created no matter what. So, if some of them can be made with ethically sourced AI, local models running on a device’s battery, or on private servers powered by renewable energy, I’d say it is a net positive.

The ability to choose third-party models for Image Playground through a system API will prove interesting. However, once you’ve sent your data to that third-party, all bets are off from an ethical and privacy-oriented standpoint.

At least you can make a plagiarized Ghibli avatar for social media instead of paying a human to make one for you, I guess.