Hardware News

Agony of the German auto industry: BMW unveils AI-based restructuring plan BMW has unveiled a restructuring plan centered on the deployment of artificial intelligence, a reduction in management staff, and the launch of two new models. The German automaker is seeking to restore investor confidence amid continued declines in profits and a sharp drop in its share price. The company plans to cut around 8,000 jobs in Germany, joining Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz in efforts to reduce costs. Amid weak demand, competition from China, and punitive U.S. tariffs, BMW’s reputation as a stable company has suffered. In June, it issued its third profit warning in just over three years due to disappointing results in the Chinese market. The company’s shares have fallen by more than a third over the past year, reaching their lowest level in more than six years. Chinese consumers are increasingly favoring domestic brands. This is negatively affecting sales in the world’s largest automotive market, which for a long time served as a key source of profit for European automakers. Additional pressure is being exerted by U.S. import tariffs, although BMW is less affected by them than some competitors thanks to its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Today, BMW presented its recovery plan at an investor event held at the Gut Schwarzenbach estate in Bavaria and at the company’s headquarters in Munich. The company set a medium-term target of 3–5% profitability for its core automotive business by 2028. By the beginning of the 2030s, BMW plans to return to a profitability level of 8–10%. Its current profitability stands at 2.3%. By mid-2027, BMW intends to reduce the number of divisions and corresponding management positions by one-fifth. AI is expected to play a key role in optimizing the company’s operations and accelerating decision-making. BMW will also adapt its product strategy to different trends in key markets: starting in 2028, it plans to launch an affordable electric vehicle for Europe, while a new luxury SUV will target affluent consumers in the United States. BMW plans to deepen the localization of production in China and rely more actively on local partners for technology, particularly autonomous-driving systems and integrated software. The company is also considering exporting products from China to Southeast Asian countries. “Amid the growing complexity of the situation, we have identified priority measures to change our strategy and intend to move decisively toward their implementation,” said BMW CEO Milan Nedeljković, who took over the company in May 2026. According to him, the company could not have anticipated such rapid changes in the Chinese market. Nevertheless, Nedeljković is confident that the restructuring plan presented will help BMW “cope with the growing competition that will shape the industry in the years ahead.” He emphasized that “this is not simply a cost-cutting program.” If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

Samsung Introduced the Galaxy SmartTag3 — The Tracker Is Lighter and More Compact, Lasts Longer, and Is Compatible with iPhones Samsung introduced the third-generation Galaxy SmartTag3 Bluetooth tracker, which is more compact, significantly lighter than the previous version, and, for the first time in the SmartTag lineup, supports not only Samsung Galaxy gadgets but also iOS devices. The SmartTag3 is 35% smaller and 33% lighter than the SmartTag2. The new Bluetooth tracker has a “squircle” shape (a square with rounded corners) reminiscent of the original SmartTag, but with one difference: it does not have a hole for attaching it to a key ring. Therefore, users will additionally need to purchase one of Samsung’s branded protective cases. According to the company, the SmartTag3 is 10% more energy-efficient than its predecessor: the replaceable CR2032 battery lasts for 550 days of normal use or 790 days in power-saving mode. Using the SmartThings Find service, users will be able to check the tag’s location, share this information with others, and use the Search Nearby feature on supported devices. Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding technology enables the Compass View feature to determine the direction and distance to the tag within a range of up to 60 meters, which is approximately three times farther than with the SmartTag2. As the user approaches the tag, ultra-wideband (UWB) technology provides even greater accuracy. When the Galaxy SmartTag3 is outside the range of a direct connection, the Galaxy Find Network is used for tracking, relying on Galaxy devices that can act as network nodes and help detect the Galaxy SmartTag3 and update its location data even beyond the owner’s phone’s range. With the new Place Notification feature, users can set a specific zone and receive alerts when the SmartTag3 enters or leaves it. Using location data from the Galaxy Find Network, Place Notification can alert the owner if a pet leaves the garden or if a bicycle with the attached tag is detected moving beyond its parking area. The Location History feature allows users to view the tag’s travel route, while the Movement Detection Alert notifies the owner of any change in the device’s location. The Samsung Galaxy SmartTag3 will go on sale in white and black in South Korea on October 7. The device’s price will be announced closer to the launch date. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

Apple will unveil the HomePad smart home display on October 13 The presentation of Apple’s smart home control hub—known unofficially as the HomePad—will take place on October 13, Bloomberg analyst Mark Gurman reported. Alongside the smart display, the company will introduce a new smart speaker, the HomePod mini, as well as an updated version of the Apple TV set-top box. All three new products will feature integration with Apple’s updated AI assistant, Siri AI. The centerpiece of the presentation will be the smart home control hub—a fundamentally new product category for the company. The device will feature a 6-inch display and can either be mounted on a wall or placed on a horizontal surface. The display will be about as thick as an iPhone, while the bezels around the screen will be about as wide as those on older iPad models. Based on the description, the smart home control hub will resemble the Apple iMac G4 externally. It will feature a round metal base containing speakers and microphones, along with a metal stand supporting the display and allowing its tilt to be adjusted. Apple is also expected to release a wall-mounted version with a thinner base for the speakers and microphones. The so-called Apple HomePad will be powered via a USB Type-C port, as the smart display will not have a built-in battery. The device will be available in Apple’s standard silver aluminum finish. Its software platform will provide deep integration with Siri AI and iPad-style apps; the Messages app interface, in particular, will be divided into two panels. The smart display will be able to control smart home devices, support video calls and music playback, display photo slideshows, and offer intercom features, as well as identify users by their faces and voices. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

Gamer overclocks GDDR7 memory on an RTX 5070 Ti by an impressive 39% — FPS gains turned out to be negligible Owners of GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards can bypass the standard GDDR7 memory frequency limits using the mVolt+ extreme overclocking utility. With its help, one user managed to overclock the GDDR7 memory of an RTX 5070 Ti from its stock 28 Gbit/s per pin to 39 Gbit/s per pin, increasing its effective frequency by 5500 MHz. Increasing the speed to 39 Gbit/s per pin represents a 39% gain. This boosts memory bandwidth from the base 896 to 1248 GB/s. In this example, the graphics card was equipped with Samsung memory chips. GDDR7 overclocking potential depends on the manufacturer: some modules overclock better than others. The enthusiast reported a gain of “approximately 1 frame per second for every additional 1000 MHz of memory frequency” in Cyberpunk 2077. In other words, increasing the frequency by 5500 MHz resulted in a gain of approximately 5–6 frames per second. The improvement is small, but this is entirely expected: the RTX 5070 Ti does not suffer from insufficient memory bandwidth. In most cases, overclocking the memory does not produce results as significant as overclocking the GPU core. Increasing the memory frequency boosts its bandwidth, but the architecture of most graphics cards is designed from the outset with sufficient bandwidth to support the chip’s computational capabilities. Only poorly designed graphics cards suffer from insufficient bandwidth. This usually applies to models with a small amount of memory. In addition, memory overclocking is more likely to result in unstable system operation. As the frequency increases, the number of memory errors may also rise, and because GDDR7 features built-in ECC error correction, performance may fail to improve with overclocking partly due to the increased number of errors. Incidentally, the enthusiast did not test the graphics card’s stability after overclocking. Although a 39% memory overclock is impressive, such a significant increase in bandwidth does not provide a substantial advantage. If a graphics card already has sufficient memory bandwidth, increasing it further will have little effect. However, the overclocking results clearly demonstrate the potential of GDDR7 memory. Graphics cards of the next generation will likely be equipped with much faster GDDR7 modules. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

Chinese Scientists Have Figured Out How to Turn the Moon into an Anchor for Autonomous GPS Satellite Navigation Around Earth Today, autonomous satellite navigation is impossible and requires corrections from ground stations. Chinese scientists have found a solution to the problem and even promise to use it as the basis for creating a navigation platform near the Moon and on its surface. Interestingly, the Moon itself helped make this possible: it was transformed into a kind of gravitational anchor for satellite constellations in Earth orbit. The problem arises during autonomous orbit determination, when satellites calculate their positions by exchanging distance data with one another, without relying on ground stations. Such measurements accurately show the relative positions of the spacecraft, but they do not make it possible to determine the drift of the entire constellation relative to a nominally fixed point at the center of Earth. As a result, over time the orientation of the satellite constellation slowly “drifts,” and navigation errors increase. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted calculations based on adding four spacecraft in elliptical lunar frozen orbits (ELFO) to the 24 BeiDou-3 satellites operating in medium Earth orbits. The calculations used actual inter-satellite distance measurements from China’s BeiDou-3 national satellite navigation system, collected over 60 days, while communication with the lunar spacecraft was modeled for the time being. Lunar gravity played the key role in the project. The BeiDou-3 satellites are primarily influenced by Earth, whereas the motion of the ELFO spacecraft is determined mainly by the Moon. Both constellations inevitably drift, but in different ways, and this discrepancy becomes apparent in distance measurements. As a result, over 60 days the average ranging error for BeiDou-3 users relying on the lunar constellation was just 0.35 m, compared with 7.85 m without correction and 0.60 m using conventional orbit prediction. In the future, this approach could reduce navigation systems’ dependence on ground infrastructure while also providing the basis for autonomous navigation in cislunar space. However, this is not yet a ready-to-use technology: the lunar measurements in the study were simulated, and the next step will be to conduct actual observations using spacecraft in lunar orbits. Incidentally, NASA and ESA are also considering ELFO lunar orbits a priority for creating GPS navigation platforms near the Moon and on its surface. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

Samsung has introduced the flagship Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra tablet with a huge display and an exceptionally thin body, as well as the Tab S12+ Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Tab S12+ tablet computers. The devices feature high performance, long battery life, slim, durable bodies, and advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S12+ tablets are equipped with Dynamic AMOLED 2X displays and come with Galaxy S Pen styluses without Bluetooth Low Energy support. The larger model has a 14.6-inch display with a resolution of 2960 × 1848 pixels, while the smaller model features a 12.6-inch display with a resolution of 2800 × 1752 pixels. In both cases, the display refresh rate is 120 Hz, with a peak brightness of 1600 cd/m². The devices also feature Vision Booster technology, which improves image quality by adjusting the brightness in real time according to ambient conditions for a more comfortable viewing experience. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra has a body that is just 5.1 mm thick, making it the thinnest model in the history of the series. The manufacturer has provided both models with IP68 dust and water resistance. The devices are powered by the flagship MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip, manufactured using a 3 nm process. Compared with the chip in the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, it delivers a 19% increase in CPU performance, a 17% increase in GPU performance, and a 61% increase in AI accelerator performance. The tablets are available in 12/256 GB and 12/512 GB configurations, while the larger model is also offered with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of internal storage. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra has an 11,600 mAh battery, which provides up to 23 hours of battery life. The Galaxy Tab S12+ has a 10,600 mAh battery and provides up to 21 hours of operation. Both models support 45 W charging and can be charged from 0 to 100% in approximately 95 minutes. The tablets also feature four-channel spatial audio. Samsung has released the Pro Keyboard with a touchpad for the new tablets. It features an aluminum finish, a touchpad, and a Galaxy AI key. There is also the slim Book Cover Keyboard case, which allows users to choose a comfortable viewing angle. The software platform is Google Android 17 with the One UI 9 interface and a broad range of Galaxy AI artificial intelligence features. The Multi Window mode allows the large display to be divided into three sections for multitasking. Samsung Browser supports the creation of AI-generated summaries of open pages, and the Google Gemini suite of AI features is also supported. Samsung has promised seven major system updates as well as security updates. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S12+ tablets are available in gray and silver. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

BMW i3 electric car based on the Neue Klasse gets a range of up to 912 km and a starting price of $61,500 In mid-March, BMW unveiled the i3 electric sedan on the Neue Klasse platform, which will enter the US market early next year. As the fourth quarter of this year approaches, the car has received recommended pricing and more precise specifications. Its range can reach 750 km according to the US EPA cycle and 912 km according to the WLTP cycle. The sixth-generation battery cells have a cylindrical design, with their diameter increased to 46 mm and their height set at 95 mm. Combined, these features provide a higher energy-storage density—20% greater than that of fifth-generation prismatic cells. However, the intrigue remains, as BMW has not disclosed the capacity of the traction battery that gives the i3 a range of nearly 750 km on the realistic EPA cycle. At a 400 kW fast-charging station, the car can add 423 km of range in just ten minutes. The rear axle of the BMW i3 uses a separately excited synchronous electric motor, whose operation is controlled by an inverter to improve energy efficiency. Its output reaches 322 hp. An asynchronous electric motor rated at 165 hp is installed on the front axle; together with the rear motor, the two produce a peak output of 463 hp and 647 N·m of torque. In terms of usability, the BMW i3 can offer bidirectional power transfer through its charging port, allowing it to power external devices when necessary or feed electricity back into the grid at more favorable rates. The charging-port flap opens automatically when the car approaches charging stations that the owner uses most frequently. In the United States, fast charging will be available at stations operated by approximately 10 providers. The digital instrument panel can display its content on the head-up display, and the readings remain clearly visible even when the driver is wearing polarized glasses. The displayed information can also be customized, with passengers able to participate in the process. Widgets for the most frequently used functions can be placed on the main central display of the infotainment system, which has a freeform design and a 17.9-inch diagonal. Navigation prompts are projected onto the lower section of the windshield. Using the proprietary My BMW app, owners can display a favorite photo as the background image on the central screen, while the ambient cabin lighting synchronizes with its color palette. The control buttons on the steering wheel feature interactive lighting and haptic feedback, making it easier to activate functions without having to look down at the wheel. In the United States, BMW will also offer the i3 with Amazon Alexa integration, which will not only enable interaction with chatbots and control of the car’s service functions, but will also allow occupants to watch movies and TV series from the Amazon Prime catalog while the electric vehicle is stationary. BMW provides the map data itself but integrates it with Google Places, which allows points of interest to be marked based on the user’s search history. The onboard infotainment system runs on Android and can receive over-the-air updates. The all-wheel-drive BMW i3 50 xDrive will be offered in the United States starting at $61,500, excluding domestic delivery charges. In 2027, sales will also begin for the sporty i3 M60 xDrive sedan, which will feature different lighting and bodywork, along with enhanced performance capabilities. The price of this model has not yet been announced. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

Scientists have identified the source of mysterious X-ray flares from the depths of the Universe — two dead stars collided Astronomers have obtained the first compelling evidence that mysterious fast X-ray flares can arise from collisions between neutron stars. The breakthrough was made possible by the latest European–Chinese X-ray telescope, Einstein Probe. The discovery linked the nearly ten-minute-long X-ray flare EP250704a/GRB 250704B to the probable merger of two neutron stars. The key to solving the mystery came from rapid observations by ground-based telescopes. Within minutes of receiving the signal, the team began observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile and other observatories. The X-shooter spectrograph separated the flare’s radiation into its component wavelengths and detected characteristic absorption lines from iron and magnesium. Their shift made it possible to determine the source’s redshift, z = 0.6610. This means that the radiation traveled more than six billion light-years before reaching Earth. Thus, astronomers were able to determine not only the characteristics of the flare but also its cosmological distance, providing all the data needed to model the event accurately. As a precaution, the scientists searched the area around the event for signs of a supernova, which could also have produced an X-ray flare, but found none. Combined with the nearly 10-minute duration of the X-ray emission and the measured distance, this pointed to a different scenario — the merger of two neutron stars. These objects are ultra-dense remnants of massive stars, and their collisions are accompanied by a powerful release of energy and gravitational waves. The difficulty in observing them is that, under normal conditions, they are invisible in the optical and other wavelength ranges. In practice, astronomers are looking at an empty patch of sky and making assumptions about what is happening there based on indirect data. The researchers suggest that a magnetar may have formed after the collision — a rapidly rotating neutron star with an exceptionally strong magnetic field. In that case, the energy of its rotation and magnetic field could continue powering the surrounding emission for an extended period, explaining the unusually long-lasting X-ray flare. Previously, short gamma-ray bursts lasting less than two seconds were considered the primary electromagnetic signature of neutron-star mergers. However, EP250704a shows that such events can produce significantly longer-lasting X-ray emission. The development of gravitational-wave astronomy will help provide even more compelling evidence that X-ray emission occurs during neutron-star mergers. The merger of neutron stars generates powerful disturbances in spacetime, expressed as the propagation of gravitational waves. In the future, this will make it possible to link such observations to signals in the X-ray range and precisely locate the events. But that will be another story. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

In Just Two Months, Apple Could Capture a Quarter of the Foldable Smartphone Market with the iPhone Duo Apple could sell around 6 million foldable iPhone Duo smartphones by the end of this year, Bloomberg reported, citing a forecast from market research firm Counterpoint Research. The publication noted that this is the first estimate of how the company’s first foldable device will perform. Counterpoint senior analyst Ivan Lam said that such sales volumes are more typical of the niche foldable-device segment than of Apple’s usual smartphone sales figures. In this case, much will depend on how successfully the company can ramp up production of the new model. The iPhone Duo, which will go on sale in late October for $1,999, is expected to play a major role in stimulating consumer interest in foldable devices and driving sales growth. By comparison, global sales of foldable smartphones totaled around 18.2 million units in 2025. Sales are forecast to grow by 24% this year, reaching approximately 22.6 million smartphones. So if Counterpoint’s projections prove accurate, Apple will secure more than a quarter of the market and take second place behind Samsung in just over two months of iPhone Duo sales — an impressive start. Counterpoint also reported that the iPhone 18 Pro lineup made a strong sales debut in China. For the first time, the Pro models were released without a simultaneous update to the base model, prompting customers seeking to upgrade to the latest iPhone to choose the more expensive devices. This helped boost initial sales by 12% compared with the iPhone 17 Pro’s performance over the same period. The increase in new iPhone sales came amid an overall decline in smartphone sales in China. According to researchers, the bulk of the 17% year-over-year decline recorded over the summer affected Chinese brands. This enabled Apple to capture 33% of China’s highly competitive smartphone market, Bloomberg reported, adding that the achievement can be considered unusual given that companies such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi typically have market shares comparable to Apple’s. However, rising component costs are forcing them to raise prices and attempt to offset lower sales volumes by increasing revenue per device. This is narrowing the pricing advantage of local competitors over the US company, working in Apple’s favor, the publication noted. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.

China Achieves a Record 100 Million Fusion Reactions per Second — Hydrogen and Boron Bring Eco-Friendly Fusion Closer Chinese company ENN Group reported that its experimental spherical tokamak EXL-50U had produced fusion reactions using hydrogen–boron fuel. According to the company, this was the first time a private developer had independently initiated such a reaction, with its intensity exceeding 100 million reactions per second. The experimental results were presented on September 28, 2026. In the hydrogen–boron cycle, a proton from ordinary hydrogen collides with the nucleus of the boron-11 isotope, producing three alpha particles — helium nuclei — and releasing energy. Unlike the most common deuterium–tritium reaction, this process does not produce a flux of high-energy neutrons capable of contaminating reactor structural materials with radiation, making such processes genuinely environmentally friendly. In addition, hydrogen and boron are far more readily available than tritium, which is radioactive and virtually absent in nature. The main problem with hydrogen–boron fusion is that the proton–boron-11 reaction requires much more stringent plasma-confinement conditions than the deuterium–tritium reaction. Therefore, ENN specialists did not attempt to heat the entire volume of plasma in the reactor to an extreme temperature, although they will still do so at the next stage of testing. In the EXL-50U experimental facility, they simultaneously used high-energy neutral-atom injection and radio-frequency heating, generating a large number of fast protons in the plasma. Their energy fell within the region of the first resonance peak of the reaction with boron-11, increasing the probability of collisions and raising the frequency of recorded reactions to more than 100 million per second. The reliable confirmation that fusion had occurred came from detecting those very alpha particles — free helium nuclei produced during the reaction. It should be remembered that it will still take considerable time before this reaction produces energy, and even longer before its energy output exceeds the energy required to initiate the reaction. The number of reactions obtained per second is primarily evidence that the process was successfully initiated in this particular experiment. The company plans to continue increasing the plasma parameters, and its next major project will be the Helong-2 facility, whose construction began in September. The company expects to complete its assembly and place it into experimental operation by the end of 2027, while the generation of the first electricity from hydrogen–boron fusion is scheduled for 2030. If you value what we do, you can support our projects on Boosty. With love, NSWTL.