Following an immensely successful launch, the Honor X9c brings unrivalled durability and unmatched AI capabilities to the market. Global technology brand Honor on Monday announced that the highly anticipated Honor X9c, the unbreakable AI smartphone, is now available online at leading retailers. After last week’s fire launch, Mzansi has been buzzing about the Honor X9c’s next-level durability and AI-powered smarts. Now, it’s officially available for purchase, proving itself as a mid-range beast with flagship-level features. Part of the legendary Honor X Series, the X9c brings the solid build and slick performance that fans know and love. Built tough to handle the daily grind, this smartphone doesn’t just look good – it goes the distance. Honor is levelling up the game by packing premium durability and AI intelligence into a mid-tier
Category Archives: SCI-TECH
Feb
Major figures in artificial intelligence (AI) acknowledge the accomplishment of Chinese start-up DeepSeek , but caution against exaggerating the company’s success, as the tech industry weighs the implications of the firm’s advanced models developed at a fraction of the usual cost. Industry heavyweights from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to former Baidu and Google scientist Andrew Ng have praised the open-source approach of DeepSeek, following its release of two advanced AI models. Based in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, DeepSeek stunned the global AI industry with its open-source reasoning model, R1. Released on January 20, the model showed capabilities comparable to closed-source models from ChatGPT creator OpenAI, but was said to be developed at significantly lower training costs. DeepSeek said its foundation large language model, V3, released a few weeks
Jan
Hangzhou -based Unitree forecasts a breakthrough in humanoid robot capabilities by 2026, when these automatons are enabled with more advanced perception, comprehension and task-execution capabilities. That is expected to turn up more clear-cut commercial uses for humanoid robots within three to five years. The Lunar New Year eve performance marked the world’s “first large-scale, fully AI-driven and fully automated cluster humanoid robot performance in history”, Unitree said in a statement. That milestone showing at the Spring Festival Gala reflects the progress being made by Unitree, which has accelerated its humanoid robot efforts over the past two years, as the field gets increasingly crowded with more foreign and domestic players amid recent advances in AI models. 01:01 Dancing robots take the stage at China’s Spring Festival Gala performance Dancing robots take
Jan
The US should welcome China’s best scientific minds into its universities to compete with the mainland’s success in AI , American lawmakers in Washington heard on Thursday, as Chinese start-up DeepSeek unnerved the global tech market this week. “Let’s steal their best engineers,” said Melanie Hart of the Washington-based Atlantic Council at a hearing convened by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Referencing the Chinese talent behind DeepSeek’s AI models, Hart testified that “we’d be better off if the engineers behind that were working here in the US”. To achieve that, she continued, students from the mainland would need to feel safe in America, adding: “We can beat Beijing at making Chinese scientists feel safe.” Hart’s comments came as Washington debates how best to retain top talent while safeguarding US intellectual
Jan
Forget the EV tax credit. Rivian founder and CEO R.J. Scaringe is far more concerned about another threat from President Donald Trump: tariffs. “It has, in some ways, bigger implications, far bigger, than what happens with the IRA tax credits,” Scaringe told reporters last week, referring to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which contains pro-EV policies that Trump has attacked time and time again. “There’s not a car company in the world that’s not thinking about moving supply chains around right now,” Scaringe said. More From Our Chat With Rivian’s CEO Trump plans to slap 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada on February 1, in an attempt to pressure those governments into preventing the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants into the U.S. But it’s American consumers and
Jan
Alibaba Group Holding released on Wednesday an upgraded version of its Qwen artificial intelligence (AI) model, which it said “comprehensively outperformed” in certain benchmark tests DeepSeek-V3 , the large language model (LLM) launched in December by China’s hottest start-up . In a statement posted on WeChat, the e-commerce giant’s cloud computing and AI arm Alibaba Cloud said its new Qwen 2.5-Max model also outperformed OpenAI ’s GPT-4o and Meta Platforms ’ Llama-3.1-405B in LLM performance benchmark platforms Arena-Hard and LiveBench. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. The benchmark performance of Qwen 2.5-Max, part of Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen LLM family, was on par with Anthropic ’s Claude-3.5-Sonnet model, according to Alibaba Cloud. LLMs are the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT . Alibaba’s multimodal model is offered in various
Jan
The 2026 BMW iX gets a larger 113 kilowatt-hour battery with up to 340 miles of estimated range. A new entry-level xDrive45 trim with a smaller 100 kWh battery is good enough for 280-300 miles of range. It gets a new silicon carbide inverter that helps with a more efficient energy transmission from the battery to the motors. The BMW iX is a range champ. In one of InsideEVs’ long-term tests last year, it covered 351 miles on a single charge, smashing its 307-mile EPA range. Granted, the summer weather helped, but even in winter, it’s a solid road-tripper. Now BMW has upgraded the iX with new trims and a bigger battery which delivers even more range and power along with improved efficiency. Gallery: BMW iX (2025) The iX LCI—short for
Jan
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek has gone quiet this week as it enters “holiday mode” for Lunar New Year while its recent technological developments continue to send shock waves through Wall Street and Silicon Valley, prompting reflections about current industry strategies and business models. DeepSeek’s rapid rise in AI has attracted attention across the Pacific this week with comments from US President Donald Trump and OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, after stocks related to the industry saw significant declines on Monday. The correction resulted in the largest single-day loss ever for semiconductor giant Nvidia . Yet the Hangzhou-based start-up, including founder Liang Wenfeng and the firm’s young scientists, has shunned public attention as China entered its week-long Lunar New Year holiday. The company made its last update at
Jan
The world’s 500 richest people, led by Nvidia Corp. co-founder Jensen Huang, lost a combined US$108 billion on Monday as a tech-led sell-off tied to Chinese AI developer DeepSeek sent major indices plunging. Billionaires whose fortunes are linked to artificial intelligence were the biggest losers: Huang saw his fortune fall US$20.1 billion, a 20 per cent drop, while Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison’s US$22.6 billion loss was larger in absolute terms, but represented just 12 per cent of his fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Dell Inc.’s Michael Dell lost US$13 billion, and Binance Holdings co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao shaved US$12.1 billion. Tech-sector titans as a group saw US$94 billion of wealth evaporate – roughly 85 per cent of the Bloomberg index’s total decline. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell
Jan
The road ahead for Tesla is a bit rocky. With a CEO facing scrutiny over his vocal far-right politics and the electric vehicle brand suffering because of it, Tesla needs a win. Investors are pointing towards a more affordable model being the answer and are expected to grill the automaker over the so-called “Model Q” during its earnings call on Wednesday. Here’s what we expect. Welcome back to Critical Materials , your daily roundup for all things electric and automotive tech. Today, we’re chatting about Tesla’s investors looking for answers on its supposed cheap car, European EV buyers surveyed say they’d rather buy a Chinese EV than give Elon Musk their money, and OEMs file suit against Europe over tariffs. Let’s jump in 30%: Tesla’s Shareholders Expected To Want Answers About
Jan
Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC), China’s leading flash memory chip manufacturer, has achieved a significant technological breakthrough despite US sanctions, amid Beijing’s push for technological self-sufficiency, according to a report by TechInsights. YMTC has implemented its new Xtacking4.0 memory chip design in its highest-density 3D NAND chip, which was discovered in the commercial ZhiTai TiPro9000 solid-state storage device, according to a recent report from Canadian integrated circuit (IC) research firm TechInsights. The chip features a dual-deck structure – a lower deck with 150 gates and an upper deck with 144 gates – totalling 294 gates. It uses what is known as a hybrid-bonding technique to join two wafers together. Following last year’s release of Xtacking4.0 devices such as YMTC’s 160-layer product, industry observers anticipated the company would incorporate this architecture
Ghana’s newly appointed Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has called for the validation of data on the number of beneficiaries of the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme as a critical first step in his tenure. Speaking during his maiden visit to the Ministry of Education on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, shortly after his swearing-in by President John Dramani Mahama, Minister Iddrisu emphasised the need for accurate data to inform policy decisions and foster accountability. “My research indicates that the number stands at no more than 3.9 million students between 2017 and 2023. However, there are public claims and even parliamentary records suggesting 5.1 million beneficiaries. We need to validate this data to ensure clarity and accountability,” he stated. The Minister clarified that the objective of his call was
Jan
Zeekr’s second electric shooting brake model looks great, has impressive specs and is coming to Europe. The model will be called the Zeekr 7GT when it arrives in Europe in the second quarter of 2025. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but it will surely cost more than its $30,000 price tag in China. Even though crossovers seem to be the body style of choice for new car buyers, wagons are still pretty popular in Europe. So we’re pretty sure the sleek Zeekr 007 GT shooting brake will have no trouble finding fans. It’s set to debut in Europe in the second quarter of 2025, and while it could sell on looks alone, its range and charging performance put it at the top of its class. The name will change for Europe
Jan
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 22 – Kenyatta University (KU) has launched a comprehensive performance evaluation process for the 2023-2024 fiscal year as part of its efforts to enhance service delivery and establish itself as the leading institution for higher learning, research, and community service in the East and Central Africa region. The performance evaluation will assess key areas of the university’s operations, including student completion rates, the review of academic programs, student mentorship, Ph.D. enrollment among staff, intellectual property registration, commercialization of innovations, dissemination of research outputs, community outreach, and the development of an institutional repository. “The overarching goal is to identify gaps and propose strategies to address challenges, ensuring continuous improvement and alignment with both local and international educational standards,” said KU Council Chairman Ben Chumo, who will also lead
Jan
Tencent Holdings’ Honor of Kings: World is among China’s first batch of video games approved in 2025, raising expectations that the title, which is still under development, will turn out to be the latest hit from the world’s largest gaming company. The open-world, action role-playing game, a spin-off of the company’s massively popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Honor of Kings, is one of the 136 new titles approved in January by the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the agency responsible for licensing video games in China. While the launch date of Honor of Kings: World remains unclear, when Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 series last September it showed a small gameplay demo of the title, saying it would “come to iPhone” in 2025. “Everyone from the project