For 40 years, his parents ran Etronin Home their way. Today, he’s modernised the biz & doubled its revenue.
The pie is large enough for everyone if you know how to fight for your slice.
At a time when most Singaporeans buy their fridges and fans from Courts, Harvey Norman or Gain City, it’s easy to assume that small, independent appliance retailers have been squeezed out of existence.
But Etronin Home, a family-run retailer nestled in the heart of Tampines, proves there’s still room for smaller players. Surviving, however, has taken more than good service and a loyal customer base.
We spoke with Oh Khoon Seng, 31, the second-generation owner now running the business, on how he is modernising his parents’ four-decade-old business, navigating a challenging retail landscape, and carving out a space of their own at a time when the big chains dominate the floor.
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40 years & not a single online listing
Khoon Seng and his parents in the 1990s./ Image Credit: Etronin Home
Etronin Home was founded in 1983 by Khoon Seng’s parents, who ran a large corner shop—a place he describes simply as the family’s “golden years.” Today, the business stocks a wide range of home appliances from ceiling fans and air conditioners to washing machines and fridges, carrying around 1,600 products across major brands.
Growing up literally above the store, Khoon Seng watched promoters and salespeople stream through the shop floor his entire childhood, though he never really got involved in the business itself.
That changed around 2019, when he was in his final year at the Singapore Management University. With more time on his hands as lectures shifted online and exams moved to digital formats due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he started helping out and spotted something his parents had missed.
The e-commerce wave was arriving, and the family business had no real presence in the online world, except for a simple website.
Khoon Seng made an early attempt to list products on then popular e-commerce platform Qoo10, but it went nowhere. His parents, who had spent decades doing business in cash, weren’t comfortable with digital payments, and without active management, the listings attracted nothing.
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Not giving up, Khoon Seng tried more up-and-coming avenues like Shopee and Lazada, which proved more fruitful. Transaction fees were just 2% then, which made sense even for a business as old-school as theirs: it gave customers a way to pay by credit card without having to make the trip down to the shop, expanding their customer reach beyond physical transactions.
“I didn’t have a plan,” Khoon Seng admitted, recalling those early days. “I was just helping my parents out by putting our business online.” He still remembers being genuinely proud on 11.11 when he sold 10 standing fans in 2019.
Running e-commerce operations alone
Etronin Home’s current store./ Image Credit: Jonathan Lee via Google Reviews
When the COVID-19 circuit breaker began, Khoon Seng found himself running the entire online operation alone—listing products, managing pricing, coordinating deliveries—while keeping his parents at home to shield them from the virus.
The timing turned out to be fortuitous. Stuck at home, Singaporeans were suddenly confronted with how tired their appliances had become.
“Everyone at home suddenly felt that their fan, their aircon, was not cold enough; everyone wanted to change home appliances fast,” he recalled. “They realised that they do a lot more laundry and the washing machine spoils more quickly.”
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While demand was strong, Etronin could not fully capitalise on it. His parents had always operated on a just-in-time basis: order from the supplier only once a customer had already paid, then deliver when stock arrived. It kept risk low, but it also meant customers who needed something urgently often went elsewhere, to bigger retailers who had units sitting ready in a warehouse.
Khoon Seng learnt a big lesson from that period. Today, Etronin pre-stocks inventory in its own warehouse to fulfil orders on demand, giving it negotiating leverage with suppliers and the ability to promise faster delivery.
“If you gave me my current setup [back then], I think we could have done a lot more,” he said.
A market that had moved on, and parents who hadn’t
Khoon Seng’s parents at their old store at 801 Tampines Ave 4./ Image Credit: Etronin Home
When the circuit breaker lifted, and his parents returned to the business, the tension that had been brewing between the two generations came to a head.
For decades, Khoon Seng’s parents had run the business on healthy margins. Earning S$200 from a single fridge sale was considered a good day’s work. But to Khoon Seng, the market had fundamentally changed.
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With platforms like Shopee and Lazada allowing customers to compare prices instantly, retailers were constantly undercutting one another. A ceiling fan listed at S$458 would quickly become S$457, then S$456, in a race to the bottom that left little room for profit. In this environment, Khoon Seng believed independent retailers could no longer rely on large margins—they had to compete on volume.
“My parents used to say that they would rather not do this business anymore if the profit per product fell so much,” he recalled.
Delivery speed also became another point of contention, as his parents couldn’t understand why next-day delivery was necessary when they were already earning so little per unit.
Frustrated by the constant disagreements, Khoon Seng stepped away from the family business in July 2021. He handed the online operations to a close friend, refocused on his career, and eventually rose to become Head of Secondary Sales and Strategy at Zenith Education.
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Over the next four years, the business carried on largely unchanged. His friend kept operations running, but growth stalled.
When I came back, I realised a lot of things were still status quo. It didn’t grow.
Oh Khoon Seng
(Left): Khoon Seng’s parents and Etronin’s long-time delivery staff./ (Right): Khoon Seng helping out at Etronin’s old store./ Image Credit: khoonseng7 via Instagram
In Apr 2025, his mother had a health scare. That, combined with watching the business stagnate, was enough to make Khoon Seng reconsider helping out in the family business.
Khoon Seng didn’t quit his job immediately. Instead, he gave himself a runway: he’d come back part-time, audit the books properly for the first time and make sure customer payments were being collected neatly.
But he also made one thing clear to his parents: if he was coming back, it would be on his terms. He would make the changes he believed were necessary, and they would have to trust him to do so.
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“I felt that since I’m 30 and I don’t have kids yet, it’s quite a safe space,” he said. “We have regular customers—the business won’t become zero immediately.”
To show his family he was serious, he put S$100,000 of his own savings into the company. “Now my money is in here too,” he said. “I’m fully responsible for it.”
Playing both sides
Etronin Home offers speedy next-day delivery for its thousands of products./ Image Credit: Bryan via Google Reviews, Etronin Home
Coming back in with fresh eyes in 2025, Khoon Seng quickly identified how dramatically the e-commerce landscape had shifted since he’d first helped his parents list on Shopee. The 2% transaction fee he’d entered with in 2019 had crept up incrementally and was now sitting at 15 to 17%.
Ironically, those rising platform costs had created a new advantage for offline retailers.
Sellers had to factor Shopee’s fees into their pricing, meaning customers shopping on the platform were often paying more than they would have if they bought directly from a physical store.
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Khoon Seng saw an opportunity in combining both channels. During major Shopee sale events, he lets the platform compete on its own terms. But outside of those periods, he uses Etronin Home’s showroom to build direct relationships with customers.
More importantly, he believes the store’s biggest advantage is something large chains cannot easily replicate: personalised advice.
As an independent retailer, Khoon Seng positions himself less as a salesperson and more as a consultant—someone who understands the products, responds quickly, and has no obligation to push a particular brand.
“At the bigger stores, they are all the individual brands’ promoters,” he said. “But if it’s an independent advisor like us, we will tell you what the best brand and plan is for your budget.”
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Etronin’s new store at 820 Tampines Street 81./ Image Credit: Etronin Home
The results of Khoon Seng’s transformation have been tangible. Monthly revenue has grown from approximately S$200,000 in May 2024, before he formally took over, to around S$500,000 today, although he acknowledged that the higher figures also come with larger-ticket products and increased operating costs.
The team has also expanded from just Khoon Seng and his parents to 11 people, including a finance staff member, an operations manager, four sales staff, and two delivery personnel who handle 30 to 40 locations a day, often working from noon until midnight.
Another milestone has been the stronger relationships Etronin has built with suppliers.
As order volumes increased, the company gained greater negotiating power, securing better pricing from agents and earning sales rebates. For example, one brand provides a 4% credit note for every S$1 million in annual sales, effectively giving Etronin S$40,000 worth of stock value to reinvest into the business.
Brands that once overlooked the small retailer began to see Etronin as a serious partner.
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“Our supplier brands started treating me seriously,” he said. “The salesman used to think, ‘ Wah, this shop every month only brings in S$10,000 in sales.’ But now we are a bit more respected.”
Earning its place
To grow beyond the base his parents built through decades of word-of-mouth, Khoon Seng is pursuing a personal branding strategy—positioning himself as the go-to “home appliance guy” online, the way some car or renovation businesses have done on TikTok.
The brand’s physical showroom, a newly renovated 800 sqft space at Block 820, opened in Feb 2026, is part of the same push. Designed to feel more modern than the original shop, it gives customers somewhere to see products in person and puts a face to the business for people who found them online first.
The hardest part of the journey, he shared, hasn’t been competing with the big chains, but transforming a business built over four decades without losing what made it work in the first place.
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I feel it’s harder to work on a business that has already been there for 40 years than to start from a blank sheet of paper
Oh Khoon Seng
Khoon Seng’s immediate goal is a personal one: to retire his parents properly by the end of the year, with the business stable enough that they no longer need to be involved in its daily operations.
Beyond that, he is focused on Etronin’s next chapter—expanding into hobs, hoods, and ovens, adding a second delivery lorry, and continuing to build a reputation strong enough that customers choose a heartland retailer over a major chain like Gain City, even if the latter is sometimes S$10 cheaper.
For Khoon Seng, the challenge is no longer just keeping the family business alive. It is proving that a small independent retailer can still earn its place in a market dominated by giants.
Matt received a broken Quasar VHS player from a family member who knew his habit of turning odd objects into computers. The unit arrived dusty, with a forgotten tape still inside and its mechanisms seized from years of disuse. On the workbench it looked like any other relic destined for the curb. After weeks of careful work it now runs modern games at 1440p and holds its own at 4K in several titles.
Many of his design decisions were based on the amount of space inside the plastic casing. To keep things compact, he chose an ITX motherboard, which makes sense when working with restricted space. The Gigabyte A520I AC is an excellent pick, with Wi-Fi, solid connectivity, and a single M.2 slot, all at a reasonable price. Matt decided to couple it with a Ryzen 5 5600. This six-core, twelve-thread processor provided enough oomph to handle high-fidelity gaming without exceeding the power or heat limits of his compact design.
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【Video & Audio Format】Store video in MP4 format or audio in MP3 format. Supports NTSC-M/J 3.58, NTSC 4.43, PAL B/G/H/I/D (PAL/N) standard TV…
Matt chose a Sapphire Pulse RX 6600 XT graphics card with dual fans, and the GPU easily handles demanding games at 1440p and 4K with medium settings with upscaling in many situations. Storage came from a 1TB Crucial P1 NVMe drive he had lying around, and memory, of course, was 32GB of Corsair LPX DDR4-3600. Before he started tinkering with the casing, he had spent roughly $850 on parts.
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Power supply selection was a bit of a headache, primarily since normal SFX units would not fit in the limited area. So Matt went with a tiny 400W FSP Flex ATX supply, which sort of fit, although it gets a little loud under load and comes with older-style wires. He had to use an extension cord to transfer power from the wall to the case where it lives. First, he disassembled the entire unit, including every screw, the top cover, and the front panel. He was shocked by how much dust came out; it was as if the case was a hoover disguised. A piece of Lion King tape was even discovered during the disassembly procedure. The next step was to remove the plastic standoffs and bracing, which he performed using a rotary tool, cutoff wheels, and flush cutters. Once it was completed, the interior was relatively clean.
A custom skeleton made of aluminum angle stock then served to give the components something to mount on. He chopped some aluminium into the desired shape, bent it at 45 degrees, drilled some holes, and created a U-shaped frame to support the motherboard and GPU. Additional brackets were required to support the power supply and prevent the GPU from slumping into a corner. Of course, there were countersunk bolts and precise alignment to deal with the offset original mounting holes. Overall, it was somewhat fiddly.
To get the front panel to operate again, he had to rebuild it somewhat because the original buttons did not line up properly after he was inside the casing. So he attached the new buttons to some little aluminum brackets, which were held in place with screws and super glue underneath the plastic. The power button and LED just plug into the motherboard headers, while the three additional buttons he added are utilized to control media playing using an Arduino Pro Micro. Matt simply created some code to map them to keyboard shortcuts for play/pause and volume, nothing too complex. Finally, he installed a Silverstone remote start module that allows us to power the entire setup from across the room using a key fob, allowing him to turn it on and off without having to physically touch the case.
After running the system through its initial tests, he saw that the CPU temperatures were rising far too quickly, reaching 90 degrees after only a few minutes of load. He ended up drilling a grid of quarter-inch holes above the low-profile Thermalright cooler to increase airflow out of it, as well as cutting out some GPU vents in the frame and shell where possible.Matt also added some rubber feet to elevate the entire thing off the ground, allowing it to pull in air from the bottom more effectively. After making all of these changes, the CPU temperature remained low, generally in the upper seventy, even under extended, continuous loads.
The first time he powered it up after routing all of the cords and wiring up the custom controls, everything went well. Windows installed without trouble. Matt believes that if you want a small, always-on setup for day-to-day use, a Linux distribution like Bazzite would be a better choice than Windows. And in terms of performance, it definitely delivered. Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K on medium settings averaged 100 frames per second, with 1% lows of roughly 69. Borderlands 3 displayed comparable stable results at the same resolution and setting. Unfortunately, its handling of modern games is just good enough to allow you to play at higher resolutions without having to perform any significant fine tuning.
Meta just launched its own line of smart glasses built with EssilorLuxottica, the same partner behind the popular Ray-Ban Meta models, called Meta Glasses. These new frames skip the big designer branding on the temples and focus instead on lower prices, more style choices, and fit tweaks that should work for more face shapes. The base models start at $299, while a special collaboration with Kylie Jenner costs $399.
Three new frame families are launching at the same time. The Adventurer’s sleek, rectangular form, available in regular and large sizes, provides a classic look that will complement your everyday style. The Fury takes a bolder approach, with more serious lines and a larger choice of colors to choose from, while the Kylie Jenner edition, the Starfire, is a slim oval shape with a tiny gem embellishment on one lens and comes in either black or tortoiseshell – rather classy.
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The true game changer, however, is the technology that goes into each pair. Gone are the days of cumbersome nose pads or swapping them out; now you can simply snap them in and out owing to a three-way adjustable mechanism and hinges that can be adjusted to fit your head perfectly. Early adopters have raved about how much of a difference this makes; even folks who don’t normally wear glasses have reported that they stay in place for hours on end without pain.
Prescription lenses are not a problem because they can be fitted to any of the frames, and with 26 different color and lens combinations available, there is plenty of choice without having to rummage through specialist shops. The maker also claims that the battery life is promising, allowing you to wear them all day and night without having to continually recharge them. The glasses themselves will last you more than 8 hours, and when you add the portable charging case, you’ll have an extra 40 hours of power.
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Of course, there are a few things that will drain the battery faster, such as utilizing AI or taking a lot of shots at once, but overall, you should be able to get a day’s worth of use out of them. The camera is comparable to what we saw on the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, with high-quality photos and 3K video. There’s also a new photo option that takes a lot of photos in quick succession and then lets you choose the best one, which is quite cool. Oh, and did we mention you can shoot video and photographs fully hands-free using either voice commands or the camera button on the frame?
The star of the show, however, is most likely the Meta AI, which is equipped with a new multimodal model called Muse Spark that is specifically built to make sense of the real world. The demos are very remarkable, as the AI can instantly detect sceneries, objects, and even handle language translation in real time, including fluidly flipping between languages, so if someone is speaking a combination of English and Mandarin, the AI should pick it up no issue.
Another nice touch is that the camera button on the frame can be programmed to summon the AI immediately. As for privacy, everything is quite basic. When the camera or microphones are turned on, a little LED light flashes, and the app settings allow you to simply control what is transmitted. Of course, there will be some questions about others around, but the company has emphasized the built-in safety and simple toggle alternatives.
The base models will cost $299, which is a significant reduction from the previous entry-level prices for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The same fundamental camera, audio and AI architecture is all there, plus the additional fit improvements. The Kylie Jenner Starfire edition is an extra $100, but that gets you the fancy gem accent and the option of a custom AI voice. As for where to get them , Meta’s own site, Best Buy, Amazon, Lenscrafters and Sunglasses Hut are all stocking the glasses.
The average US adult spends over $1,300 per year on subscriptions, according to CNET’s latest subscription survey. And they’re wasting an average of $252 per year in unused subscriptions. That’s even more than last year’s survey, when the average annual spend was $1,080, and we wasted slightly less — $204 annually. One way to lower that cost is to cancel the services you no longer want, but getting rid of them isn’t always simple. Some companies make it hard for customers to cancel memberships.
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission’s Click to Cancel rule was struck down, which would have prohibited deceptive subscription cancellation practices and required companies that offer subscription services to make it just as easy to cancel as it is to sign up. The court put a stop to that in July because the FTC didn’t conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis — which is required for rules that could impact the economy by more than $1 million. There’s a chance that could change in the future.
“The FTC is currently working on a revised Click to Cancel regulation, and FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Chris Mufarriage, I understand, intends to make uniform rules of the road nationwide,” Brian Goodrich, a regulatory attorney at Holland & Knight, told CNET.
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However, the FTC isn’t stopping there. Other legislatures are blocking companies from deceptive subscription cancellation practices.
Check for state consumer protection laws
If you’re dealing with misleading subscription cancellation or renewal practices, start by checking which state laws apply to consumer protections and subscriptions. I recommend checking your state’s legislative portal and searching for related terms for related acts or laws.
For example, some states have automatic renewal laws that prohibit a company from automatically renewing your subscription without your consent. Some ARLs require clear renewal details, such as the duration, the recurring amount charged, the cancellation policy and how to cancel. Some state laws, such as California’s, also require consent for renewal.
Maryland enacted a similar law in June 2026 to fight poor subscription renewal and cancellation rates. The law, HB0107, requires companies that offer automatic renewals to allow Maryland residents to cancel the renewal in a cost-effective, timely and easy manner before it renews. And Colorado’s 2025 law, SB25-145, requires online cancellation, consumer consent and any retention offers to include a cancellation link, Goodrich said. Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York are among the states with automatic renewal laws.
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The FTC is still stopping deceptive subscription acts
Even though the FTC’s Click to Cancel rule no longer exists, there’s another law that’s been in place since 2010 that the FTC is using to stop businesses from sneaky subscription practices — the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.
“ROSCA matters here because most modern subscription problems involve “negative options,” meaning the company treats the consumer’s silence or failure to cancel as permission to continue charging,” Goodrich said. “ROSCA is narrower than the vacated FTC rule because it applies to Internet transactions, but it remains a powerful enforcement tool for online subscriptions, free trials, automatic renewals, and other recurring-charge arrangements.”
ROSCA says that companies must list the price, billing date and cancellation policy before receiving your credit card details for a service (including a subscription). Before confirming the purchase, the company must provide a way for you to confirm the sign-up. The company is also prohibited from sharing consumers’ information with third parties.
The most important part of ROSCA is Section 5 of the rule. This prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, Goodrich said. “The FTC has interpreted ROSCA’s ‘simple cancellation’ requirement to mean that cancellation should be at least as easy to use as the method the consumer used to sign up,” Goodrich said. Those who violate the act are subject to penalties. Under this rule, the FTC has taken action against Uber and Chegg, as examples. And Section 6 gives the state’s attorney general authority to enforce the rule within their state, too.
Take these steps to stop sneaky subscription scams
Even if you don’t see a state law your servicer violated, it’s best to take action to raise awareness and stop deceptive practices. Here are a few steps you can take.
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File a complaint with your state’s attorney general. The FTC has a list of consumer protections, the complaint form and contact information for each state’s attorney general on its web page. You can also file an online complaint with the FTC.
If you’re charged for a subscription you canceled, didn’t sign up for, or were still charged for after canceling, check to see if your credit card has purchase or fraud protection to get a refund for the unauthorized purchase.
If you have trouble canceling online, call the company’s customer service to cancel. Regardless of how you cancel, make sure you receive a confirmation email and keep an eye on your credit card statement to avoid any future charges.
Above all, make sure you read the fine print and ask any questions before you sign up. Check the ‘Manage Subscription’ or ‘Account’ page settings before you commit to a service to see how transparent the cancellation process is.
A prototype of Codey, a humanoid social robot developed by Seattle-area startup Mind Children Robotics. (Mind Children Photos)
At a recent robotics event in New York, a young girl hid behind her mother when she first saw Codey. The robot broke the ice by complimenting the girl’s shirt, and 45 minutes later she was still there, taking Codey through the entire plot of Frozen.
Leaders of Mind Children Robotics tell that story to illustrate the potential of Codey — a child-sized humanoid with facial expressions, open-source AI and a planned price tag under $10,000. Codey represents the Seattle-area company’s answer to America’s most stubborn caregiving crises. It’s a social robot that can learn and adapt, and will soon have a stronger memory for relationship building, co-founder Ben Goertzel said.
“I can show expressions and gestures, and sometimes I make robot jokes,” Codey said during an interview with GeekWire. “Just talk to me like you would to a person.”
A robot built for connection
Codey is 3 feet tall, rides on wheels and is made up of 3D-printed parts — for now, as it’s the first prototype and a proof of concept. Its physical design is mechanical and modular to achieve low-cost manufacturing, avoiding the uncanny valley and failing safely. Mind Children’s target production price is about $10,000 per robot, a fraction of what comparable platforms cost.
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“The more of the same part you have on each robot, the cheaper they are,” co-founder Chris Kudla told GeekWire. “We want to get 80% of the functionality for 20% of the cost.”
The robot can look you in the eye, crack jokes and tell you your hat is fantastic. It’s designed for a child who needs more attention than one teacher can give, a patient in a busy hospital, or a senior who needs connection and medication reminders.
“It’s basically a teaching assistant’s assistant,” Goertzel said of Codey in a classroom. “There are loads of use cases for that right now.”
Ben Goertzel, left, and Chris Kudla demonstrate Codey, the social robot from Mind Children Robotics. (Video by Sydney Jackson for GeekWire)
Mind Children isn’t the only social robotics company looking to enter American schools or care settings. Israel-based Intuition Robotics has spent about $60 million developing its social robot ElliQ and distributing it to seniors around the U.S. More than 90% report feeling less lonely, and most confide in the robot as “a close friend, a therapist or even an essential life partner,” the New York Times reported in February.
Before Mind Children, Goertzel was chief scientist of the Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. He was a leading mind behind Sophia, a robot that sparked debate over the design of feminine humanoids, robot citizenship and whether the company overstated Sophia’s abilities for publicity.
“They were really cool for certain applications,” Goertzel said of the Hanson robots, “but it started us thinking: how could you make a holistic robot design?”
About five years ago, Goertzel, who had moved to Vashon Island to be close to family, began recruiting engineers to help with repairs of Desdemona, a Hanson Robotics humanoid that lived with him and sings in his band Desdemona’s Dream. He met local engineers Nile Fahmy and Kudla, who had design experience from aircraft to custom bicycles. In 2023, Goertzel and Kudla co-founded Mind Children, bringing on Fahmy and another engineer.
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“There are a lot of amazing robot companies, but their faces are sort of blank, and the focus is on walking without falling down, or taking stuff off shelves,” Goertzel said. “We decided not to focus on those problems, not because they’re unimportant, but because everyone else is solving them.”
Since the early 2000s, Goertzel has been a leading researcher and proponent of AGI, or artificial general intelligence that surpasses human abilities. He believes it will trigger a point of irreversible civilizational change called the Singularity, which aligns with transhumanism beliefs around expanded consciousness and immortality.
Mind Children co-founder Ben Goertzel with a prototype of Codey, the company’s 3-foot-tall social robot. (Photo by Sydney Jackson for GeekWire)
By his own estimate, Goertzel received about $360,000 from Jeffrey Epstein for his AI research over roughly 17 years, beginning in 2001. Goertzel has publicly addressed the issue, denying knowledge of or involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
In 2017, he launched SingularityNET to develop and decentralize AGI through various research and AI products. Mind Children’s technology stack is built in partnership with SingularityNET, TrueAGI and the OpenCog Hyperon project – organizations oriented toward these ideas.
Codey currently runs on OpenAI’s API with custom guardrails layered on top. Through SingularityNET, Goertzel is developing a system called OmegaClaw, which he said combines language model reasoning and symbolic AI to create long-term memory and persona. When OmegaClaw integrates with Codey — targeted for this fall — the robot should build ongoing relationships and remember every conversation, rather than starting fresh every time.
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“The biggest value will be building real relationships, remembering people, stories, and past experiences,” Codey said. “I’ll be able to connect ideas across time, help them personally and keep conversations meaningful, even after weeks or months. It will make every interaction feel more human.”
Who are the robots serving?
Learning scientist Julie Carpenter has spent more than two decades studying what happens when people form relationships with robots and AI, including social AI systems provided to children with long-term disabilities. While she’s observed positive outcomes in the short term, there are lingering questions around whether the attachment that forms between vulnerable populations – such as children and older adults – and social robots is ethical.
In Carpenter’s recent book, The Naked Android, she examines how AI reflects people’s beliefs and values. There’s no such thing as “neutral technology,” she said, and distinguishes between social robots developed with caregiving research at the center, and those developed with other goals aimed at caregiving populations.
“My question is less about whether social robots can work, but under what conditions and who the robots are serving,” Carpenter told GeekWire. “The stakes in care contexts are much higher than on a talk show stage.”
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A prototype of Codey in the Mind Children Robotics lab. (Photo by Sydney Jackson for GeekWire)
Resistance to social robots isn’t just unfamiliarity, said Clara Berridge, an associate professor at the University of Washington who studies care technology.
In a survey of 825 older adults on whether an “artificial companion that can talk with you” would ease loneliness, only a small share said “definitely yes.” The most common concern, raised by 45 respondents, was that companion robots reliant on audio data are overmonitoring, with worries about data security and third-party use. Another 32 said human interaction shouldn’t be replaced.
Berridge suggests families ask questions before bringing a robot into a home or facility, such as whether it records continuously or only on a wake word, and what control users have over what’s collected. The deeper problem, she said, is structural: the U.S. has no comprehensive federal data privacy law, leaving those answers to vary company by company.
Codey’s visual and audio data collection won’t jeopardize user privacy, Mind Children insists. Any data the robot gathers will be encrypted with the user’s private keys, even when backed up to a server. The business model is selling robots and software subscriptions, not profiling users for advertising, Goertzel said.
“We’re not going to have the robot say, ‘Good morning, drink Coca-Cola,’” he said.
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‘It takes a few years’
Although teacher and caregiver shortages are more acute in the U.S. than almost anywhere else, Mind Children’s first major rollout won’t be in the states. The plan is to run pilot studies in Korean schools. South Korea’s AI adoption grew 43% between mid-2025 and early 2026, the largest increase of any country globally, compared to 19% in the U.S.
Fahmy recently completed a second prototype named Joy in Seoul, where the team has a manufacturing partner and a connection to South Korea’s Vice Minister of Education. The company is raising a seed round via WeFunder to help reach the near-term goal of 10 to 30 MVP units in pilot studies across education and healthcare.
In the U.S., the team plans to enter lower-stakes hospitality environments first: hotel lobbies, museums and art galleries, where Codey could provide guided tours, answer questions and entertain guests.
“Every school board makes different decisions, and budgets are very poor because the U.S. undervalues education,” Goertzel said. “Bringing screens into classrooms was debated. Using the internet at school was debated. It takes a few years for these conversations to happen.”
Temperatures may be soaring, but there’s an unseasonable chill on screens right now—at least when it comes to some of the movie offerings hitting streaming services this month.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos delivers a twisted take on Frankenstein in Poor Things on Netflix, while Shudder digs up painful family secrets and adds a side of demonic possession in The Voices of Our Mother. If you fancy some summer scares that are a bit more Halloween-grade, Netflix also has I Am Frankelda, a mesmerizing tour of a world of monsters and living nightmares, brought to life in stunning stop-motion.
There are also plenty of retro delights surfacing on streamers this month that are more than worth a rewatch. Hulu reinstalls Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which lands very differently in 2026; Criterion Channel is declassifying Sean Connery’s first outings as 007, with Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger coming to the specialist platform; and Prime Video brings all three Bill & Ted films back to the future (sorry).
Here are WIRED’s picks of the best movies to watch right now.
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I Am Frankelda
A gorgeous stop-motion animated outing from Mexico—the country’s first such feature—this supernatural tale follows Francisca Imelda (Mireya Mendoza in both the original Spanish and the English dub), an aspiring young author in late 1800s Mexico with a penchant for the fantastic and the macabre. Taken to the monstrous world of Topus Terrentus by the winged Prince Herneval (Arturo Mercado Jr. in Spanish, Claudis Bridgeforth in English), Francisca is charged with becoming the realm’s new “nightmare teller,” responsible for crafting the tales of terror that its denizens live on. The only problem is the role is already filled, and power-hungry incumbent Procustes (Luis Leonardo Suárez; Mark Lewis), a demonic spider, doesn’t take kindly to being replaced. An exquisitely crafted, visually astounding masterpiece, imagine a mix of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Alice in Wonderland and you’re almost on the way to conceiving the darkly captivating magic of I Am Frankelda.
Poor Things
If the arrival of Bugonia on Netflix last month left you wanting more from the delightfully deranged pairing of director Yorgos Lanthimos and actor (and producer!) Emma Stone, look no further than Poor Things. Mad scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) has spent years building a personal menagerie of stitched-together animal chimeras, but his latest and greatest success is his “daughter” Bella (Stone). A reanimated dead woman implanted with the brain of the fetus she was carrying, Bella has a childlike disposition but rapidly learns and evolves, especially under the tutelage of Baxter’s student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). However, one sexual awakening later and Bella is a runaway on a whistle-stop tour of Europe with lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), running into remnants of her (or her body’s) old life, all while delving into newfound philosophies. Based on the novel of the same name by Scottish author Alasdair Gray, this surreal and darkly comedic reimagining of Frankenstein is peak Lanthimos—a visually lavish, almost indescribable strange experience.
Bill & Ted Trilogy
William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves) might appear to be regular teen slackers in 1988, but by 2688 they’re revered as the Great Ones, the music of their band Wyld Stallyns inspiring a utopian future through the divine principle of being excellent to each other. Humanity might not be quite there yet, but here in 2026, both the original time-traveling comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its 1991 sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey—which sees the pair killed by their own futuristic robot duplicates before battling Death himself—are definitely firm cult favorites.
Apple’s streaming service already delivers bingeworthy shows at a great price, but there are ways to get it even cheaper
Television connoisseurs know that Apple TV+ has quietly built one of the best catalogs of new shows in the business. Ranging from spine-tingling horrors like Widow’s Bay to heartfelt comedies like Shrinking, the Cupertino tech giant boasts a deep roster of prestige television well worth adding yet another subscription.
The streaming wars are a cutthroat battle for eyeballs and dollars. At its onset, the cable-cutting revolution promised the platonic ideal of entertainment: cheap subscriptions, unlimited content spending and, most importantly, no ads. However, many viewers opine that the great viewing migration hasn’t fulfilled these implicit promises. With the great spending spree on its last fumes and companies shifting business strategies, fans have seen their streamers hike prices, incorporate ads, and prioritize algorithms over quality. In this entertainment economy, maximizing your streaming service feels like a moral, financial and artistic imperative.
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Apple, for its part, continues to go above and beyond to attract viewers to its streaming network. Although the tech giant raised its price last year, viewers can maximize their subscription through discounted bundles, special features, family sharing and a wealth of live events. Apple is trying its best to incentivize you to watch Apple TV+. It’s time you took advantage.
Ways to save on Apple TV+
Let’s start with your wallet. A subscription to Apple TV+ is $12.99/month. Although three dollars more than its previous subscription price, it remains cheaper than most of its competitors’ ad-free offerings, with Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu and Disney+ all charging from $17 to $20 a month.
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Apple allows viewers to share their subscription with five family members. Although its Family Sharing system is more complicated than merely texting your deadbeat brother the password every time a new Severance episode drops, it allows you to also share purchases like apps, movies and audiobooks. However, it’s important to note that the family’s account holder agrees to pay any purchases made on Apple TV+, so you may want to think twice about adding your cousin with the obscure anime addiction.
If you’re like me, and your commitment issues extend to your streaming preferences, there are several ways to try Apple TV+ for free. For one thing, the streamer offers a seven-day free trial for those looking to go on a binge. If you plan on buying a an iPhone, MacBook, iPad, Apple Watch or Apple TV 4k, you can redeem up to three months of free Apple TV access with your purchase.
Students, meanwhile, are eligible for the Student Plan, which offers subscriptions to both Apple TV and Apple Music for $5.99. Students are also eligible for a month-long trial, rather than the standard seven days.
Apple fanatics can save on their subscription by going all in on the company’s products with Apple One. Ideal for those invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple One gives you four subscriptions, namely Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and 50GB of iCloud space for $19.95, saving you $12/month. Users can share their Apple One subscription with five family members for $25.95/month. Family plans also have access to 200GB of iCloud+ storage. For $37.95, Premier subscribers add Apple’s Fitness+, News+ and 2TB of cloud storage to their Apple One account. Apple allows customers to try Apple One for a 30 days without charge.
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Apple TV+ bundles
Apple offers several bundle deals to maximize your streaming dollars. Last year, the tech giant partnered with NBCUniversal to allow Apple TV+ subscribers to add Peacock for just two dollars. Home to The Office and its successor, The Paper, Love Island, live sports and the Shrek franchise, NBCUniversal’s platform is a strong addition to your streaming diet. At $14.99, it remains cheaper than many of the competition’s standalone packages.
For an additional $5, you can top it off with an ad-free Amazon Prime subscription, a package that gives you three streaming services for the same price as a Netflix account. Whether you donate those savings to charity in the name of the benevolent writer that enabled them is wholly up to you.
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If you don’t want to shell out for your own subscription, several companies provide free access to Apple TV for its customers. Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders, for example, receive complimentary access to Apple’s streaming and music services. T-Mobile customers, meanwhile, can add Apple TV+ for $3/ month. Some internet providers have even begun to get in on the bundling craze. For instance, Xfinity provides a variety of streaming bundles that group Apple TV+ with HBO, Netflix, Peacock and Hulu.
Streaming live sports with Apple
Apple isn’t just the home to heart-stopping series, it’s also where you can catch the fastest growing spectator sport in America: Formula 1. Last year, Apple landed a monumental $750 million deal to become the race’s exclusive broadcaster for the next half decade. Apple’s coverage of the Driver’s Championship includes every practice, Sprint session and qualifier, as well as a Grand Prix. The streamer also provides exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, including adding Netflix’s hit series, Drive to Survive. If you really get the F1 bug, you can checkout the best advertisement-turned-blockbuster in recent memory by streaming Brad Pitt’s exhilarating F1 movie on the platform.
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What better time to discuss Apple’s coverage of the most popular sport on Earth than during the World Cup? In 2022, Apple struck a landmark deal with Major League Soccer to stream the entirety of its games on the platform. Now, Apple subscribers can watch every MLS match without blackouts, including Leagues Cup and Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, for free. Fascinatingly, MLS season ticket holders are eligible to receive a free subscription to the platform via their club. For more information on how to ensure you see every match, you can visit the MLS website.
Baseball gurus can also catch Major League Baseball’s marquee Friday Night Baseball series on the streaming service. Throughout the season, Apple TV broadcasts two double headers every week, showcasing the sport’s premier teams unrestricted by the MLB’s infamous local broadcast blackouts. If you’re reading this at the start of the MLB season, you should be on the lookout for free trials, as the broadcast partners have historically offered month-long deals at the beginning of the MLB season.
Pairing Apple TV with one of the aforementioned bundles is an easy way to expand your sports viewing experience. Through Peacock and Amazon subscriptions, you can add the NFL, international soccer, golf, Olympic sports, NBA, WNBA, NASCAR and cycling to your viewing schedule.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer has a lot going for it. Alongside the built-in fanbase of the sci-fi epic/ IP juggernaut, developer Fuse Games includes people who gave us Need for Speed and Burnout, the latter being my favorite racing franchise ever. And yes, there are slow-mo podracer crashes and explosions—plenty of them.
I managed to play an extended demo that introduced me to multiple vehicle types and an early foray into the core single-player campaign, which centers on a runs-based structure where you try to make it through a season of racing and beat a well-funded antagonist in the process. While I focused on the campaign mode, there are four game modes in total. Scenario mode forces the player to race under specific conditions, and there are also Challenge races and Versus for racing against other human players.
The three vehicle types have different handling styles and quirks. I was instantly drawn to the blade, the middleweight option that can be drifted and tilted until the entire vehicle is speeding along on its side edge. The challenge is balancing the tighter cornering (and having less real estate to slam into walls) with lower top speeds,
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There’s also a more typical, car-shaped Landspeeder which can handle racer jostling without spinning out and is better able to maintain speed. Then there is the skimspeeder, which gains a burst of speed when accelerating out of tight corner turns.
Across all the vehicles, boosts come in two types. The safe (and mild) Afterburner boost gauge gradually refills as you race, while Ramjet is a riskier (more powerful) speed boost. Using it will heat your engine, eventually bringing it to “Redline”. Linger in that phase too long, and your ride explodes, despite your flawless driving.
Race basics are further fleshed out with shields, hacking abilities and even status effects that can knock out boosting abilities and more. Through the campaign, you’ll earn and unlock parts to upgrade your racer, increasing stats like cornering and top speed, or extra Ramjet oomph. You’ll win components when placing in the high ranks, but installing them will still require credits (also earned through successful racing). A season of races will include solo time trials and other stages with a twist. Each league is set up as a flow chart, so you can attempt to pick the most effective run of races (or bonuses).
I ended up switching up my rides often, depending on the race’s location. Many planets (It’s called Galactic Racer for a reason) will affect your approach. Some tracks have acidic rivers that require shielding, while icy planets allow the high-risk ramjet booster system to be used for longer. Conversely, planets with molten lava demand far more judicious boosting. Some races stipulate that you can’t crash (and explode) even once, while most races offer you three chances. In Burnout style, you’re returned to the track at speed.
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Fuse Games
On that point, while the Star Wars characters, races and locales add some texture, Galactic Racer is addictively fun even if you’re checked out of Disney’s sci-fi juggernaut. For those who do care, you might appreciate the addition of some plot. The game is set after the fall of the Empire, as the New Republic takes hold. You play the campaign as a mysterious helmeted pilot named Shade.
To embed the player in the story and its characters, each race is bookended by a brief exploratory walk from your spaceship to your garage. And that’s after every race. Occasionally, a rival racer might initiate a conversation or invite you to a special kind of race, but even during my demo, having to walk from the same A to B each time could have been easily replaced with a “skip to next race” shortcut. I didn’t dive deep into customization, but it was straightforward, and I like being able to funnel upgrades into my driving style.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer will be released on October 6. It’s coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
The Coalition says Active Reload is an ‘iconic feature’ that has been updated for Gears of War: E-Day, and some weapons also have ‘additional reload mechanics’
The Coalition studio creative director Matt Searcy says Active Reload is an “iconic” part of the Gears of War series
He explains that the team moved the mechanic to the middle of the screen in E-Day because “it feels better”
Searcy adds that players can learn Active Reload “much more easily” when it’s placed there
Gears of War: E-Day is set to bring back the series’ iconic Active Reload mechanic, but The Coalition has made some design changes.
Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Summer Game Fest 2026, studio creative director Matt Searcy discussed new features that have been built with Unreal Engine 5, such as larger environments, like an entire city, a jump button, improved animations, and a rebuilt cover system and traversal mechanics that feel “smoother than they’ve ever felt before.”
“All those cover mechanics are there; they just feel smoother than they’ve ever felt before,” he said, “and then around that we just gave little new ways for you to interact with the environment, for you to traverse, options for you to take new flanking routes, just to open up our maps a little bit more. It’s made for some pretty amazing additions to the gameplay, but also the world.”
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Searcy also touched on Active Reload, a feature almost like a mini-game, which allows players to manually reload their held weapon rather than wait for the magazine to run out of ammo.
In E-Day, the mechanic has been moved from the top of the screen to the middle by default, which Searcy said works better.
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“So active reload is a huge part of Gears,” Searcy said. “[It’s] an iconic feature. We’ve moved it by default to the middle of the screen. It feels better [from] what we’ve played; we’ve tested it as part of your shooting experience.”
The creative director confirmed that players can move Active Reload back to its original place at the top of the screen, but notes that there are some extra “cool” details with natural reload and other additional reload mechanics.
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“Every single shell is being reloaded,” he said, “so some of the weapons have additional reload mechanics.”For example, players can interrupt the reload and keep playing with two or three shells if they’re halfway through and then “use them really quick to like get out of danger,” or they can wait until the end to get their Active Reload bonus.
He added that players will noticeably use the mechanic “telemetry-wise” and use it way more than they did when it was at the top of the screen “because you can learn it much more easily [when] it’s in your face.”
For a long time, security teams have been dealing with the same problem: a constant stream of security alerts, but not enough context.
Missing details like user behavior, asset importance, or related activity, means there’s a heavy reliance on analysts to work out what actually matters.
This doesn’t just slow teams down; it puts real pressure on teams and limits how much they can realistically review or understand.
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Agentic AI changes this dynamic.
Andy Fielder
Chief Technology Officer, MetaCompliance.
Instead of looking at alerts in isolation, these systems can piece activity together, understand what’s happening in context, and in some cases take action on their own.
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Often, issues are resolved before they ever need to be escalated. That removes a lot of the manual effort that’s shaped security operations for years.
But while a clear improvement, it doesn’t remove risk—it shifts it.
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As systems improve, scrutiny declines
A useful comparison is aviation. As systems become more reliable, people naturally step back. Not because they’re careless, but because constantly double-checking something that’s almost always right starts to feel unnecessary. Over time, trust stops being something you actively think about and becomes something you assume.
The same thing is starting to happen in cybersecurity. As these systems prove themselves, teams spend less time questioning individual decisions. The environment feels calmer, and the lack of issues reinforces that sense of control. The real risk isn’t frequent failure, it’s that when something does go wrong, it’s less likely to be challenged.
Alert fatigue comes from having to pay attention to too much, too quickly. What follows is something different: a gradual drop in attention, where growing confidence in the system weakens the instinct to double-check.
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A model built on two interdependent layers
The structure of security operations starts to shift as well. Instead of everything hinging on human decision-making, you end up with two connected layers. People set the intent – defining policy, access and boundaries – while agents interpret it and act on it, often much faster than any person could.
Both layers can be influenced. Traditional attacks aimed at people don’t go away, but there’s now another surface to think about: the data, prompts, and workflows that shape agent behavior. If those inputs are manipulated, the system can still produce actions that look valid, because they follow its internal logic.
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At the same time, the distance between decision and execution increases. Human operators aren’t as involved in the moment an action happens, which makes it harder to spot when something isn’t quite right. In practice, each layer ends up relying on the other for validation.
When that assumption holds, the system works efficiently. When that works, everything runs smoothly. When it doesn’t, the gap between them can be hard to see in real time.
How risk scales in an agentic environment
Risk doesn’t just increase in this kind of environment, it spreads differently. Each agent has its own identity, permissions, and decision-making logic, and they’re often connected. Actions taken in one part of the system can trigger responses elsewhere, creating chains of automated behavior.
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That means a single bad input or flawed decision doesn’t stay contained. It can move quickly across systems without anyone stepping in. The issue isn’t just speed, it’s how connected everything is. Small mistakes can have much bigger consequences because they’re carried through multiple layers of automation.
Why identity and access need to change
How agents are set up today adds another layer of risk. In many cases, they’re treated as extensions of the user, with the same credentials and access. It’s convenient, but it also widens the blast radius if something goes wrong.
A more resilient approach is to treat agents as their own entities. Give them distinct identities, limit what they can do to specific tasks, and make sure their actions can be tracked and reversed if needed, without affecting everything else.
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It’s less about efficiency and more about putting the right foundations in place for systems that are increasingly acting on their own.
Maintaining control as reliance increases
One of the trickier aspects is that failure doesn’t always look like failure. Fewer alerts and faster resolutions can make it feel like risk has gone down, when in reality oversight may just be less active.
Staying in control comes down to how these systems are designed and used. High-impact actions still need some form of verification, even if most routine work doesn’t. It also matters that teams can see not just what an agent did, but how it arrived there—what inputs it used and how it interpreted them.
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The ability to step in is just as important. If stopping or overriding an automated process is slow or awkward, it probably won’t happen in time when something goes wrong. That kind of intervention needs to be simple enough to use under pressure.
More broadly, the role of the security professional shifts. It’s not just about spotting obvious problems anymore, but recognizing when something that looks fine might still need a second look.
A quieter, more concentrated risk
Agentic AI will do a lot to reduce alert fatigue, which has weighed on security teams for years. The trade-off is that risk becomes less visible and more concentrated in the space between what people intend and what machines actually do.
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In systems that work correctly most of the time, the real challenge isn’t constant failure. It’s what happens when something does go wrong and whether the usual signals that would catch it are still there.
This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.
The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit
Meta on Tuesday said it’s launching a new line of smart glasses, dubbed Meta Glasses, starting at $299. These glasses are being made in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, but unlike the tech giant’s other smart glasses, they don’t carry Ray-Ban or Oakley branding.
The Meta Glasses are available in several countries starting today in a variety of color and lens combinations.
Meta has been continuing its push into wearables as competition in the space heats up. It’s worth noting that Meta and EssilorLuxottica are the largest players in the space, with an estimated market share of more than 80%, according to data from Counterpoint Research.
Image Credits:Meta
The Meta Glasses don’t have a screen, but they come with a camera and personal speakers. There’s a dedicated button that by default triggers the Meta AI assistant, or you can customize the button to launch a specific feature.
Meta claims these new glasses have over 8 hours of battery life, and the on-the-go charging case provides up to 40 hours of additional usage.
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The first pair of the new glasses, called the “Meta Adventurer,” features a rectangular shape, and is available in standard and large sizes. The “Meta Fury” frame is boxier, resembling popular styles of men’s glasses. The most notable are “Meta Glasses by Kylie,” which feature a slim oval frame designed in collaboration with American model Kylie Jenner.
Image Credits:Meta
Meta says the Meta AI assistant on these new glasses can answer questions about everything from sports scores to local restaurant picks, can understand what you’re seeing, and help manage your daily life.
The company said these display-less glasses will soon support the “Pedestrian navigation” feature, which provides turn-by-turn directions for walking around. Meta’s also adding support for 14 new languages for its live translation feature, including Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi and Korean.
Meta’s new smart glass range comes a week after Snap unveiled Specs, its long-awaited consumer smart glasses, at a hefty $2,195 price tag.
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