Society, Consumer, Technology, Games
300 storiesPope Leo XIV opens Vatican meeting on Francis' opening to remarried Catholics
Pope Leo XIV opened a weeklong, closed-door Vatican conference assessing the implementation of Pope Francis' 2016 document “The Joy of Love.” The text sparked controversy because it opened the door to letting civilly remarried Catholics rec…
ASUS unveils Zenbook 14 UX3480 line with Intel, AMD or Qualcomm chips
ASUS announced the Zenbook 14 UX3480 series, a 14-inch laptop line that lets buyers choose between Intel Core Ultra series 3, AMD Ryzen AI 300 and Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors. PC Watch reported the models go on sale in Japan from Octob…
Apple and LG Electronics jointly develop smart home devices under LG brand
Apple and LG Electronics are jointly developing smart home devices — a camera-equipped video doorbell, a smart door lock, a security camera and a smart temperature sensor and thermostat — to be sold under the LG brand, according to Bloomber…
KCTU to vote Oct 7 on return to social dialogue; council ready to talk
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (민주노총) will hold its 85th temporary delegate conference at 1 p.m. on Oct 7 at KINTEX in Goyang to vote on joining the Economic, Social and Labor Council (경사노위), which would end a 27-year absence from…
Busan shark Bukkangi crosses net, returns to waterway; rescue paused
The shark nicknamed Bukkangi, believed to be a dusky shark about 3 m long, crossed a large net and returned to the artificial waterway at Busan's Bukhang Chinsu Park around noon on Oct 3, a day after a second attempt to guide it to open sea…
Turkey's Aselsan announces Astralink network of 198 low-orbit satellites
Aselsan CEO Ahmet Akyol said at the International Astronautical Congress in Antalya that Turkey is building Astralink, a low-orbit satellite constellation of 198 spacecraft, with the first launch planned within two years. Akyol said work be…
Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days Begin With Discounts on Apple Macs, AirPods and iPads
Amazon's fall Prime Big Deal Days sale is live, with early discounts on Apple products including AirPods Pro 3 at $179.00, down from $249.00, AirPods Max 2 at $429.00, and about $200 off most M5 MacBook Air models. Outlets also reported all…
Off-duty firefighter rescues woman standing outside Chuncheon bridge railing
An off-duty firefighter heading home from a morning workout found a woman standing outside the railing of Soyang 2 Bridge in Chuncheon on Oct. 1 and held her arm until emergency crews arrived. Two passing citizens joined him, and a 119 crew…
Amazon’s October Prime Day runs October 6-8 as retailers cut prices early
Amazon’s October Prime Day, also called Prime Big Deal Days, runs from October 6 at 3AM ET through 3AM ET on October 8, with discounts already live, according to The Verge, NBC News and Wired. Wired listed Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 at $190 ($…
Hoban Construction develops AI design tech to auto-apply per-unit buyer options
Hoban Construction said it developed AI-based design technology that automatically reflects apartment buyers’ option contract choices in each unit’s building information model (BIM). The technology was developed jointly with building and in…
South Korea re-designates 92 population decline regions, adds Busan Geumjeong, Dongducheon and Tongyeong
South Korea's Ministry of the Interior and Safety re-designated 92 cities, counties and districts as population decline regions on Oct. 7, up from 89 in the first designation five years earlier. Busan's Geumjeong-gu, Gyeonggi's Dongducheon …
KCTU vote on rejoining Korea's social dialogue council collapses
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) failed to hold a vote on returning to the Economic, Social and Labor Council at an extraordinary delegate meeting in Goyang on October 7, after opposing delegates walked out and quorum was los…
Three Korean business dailies publish daily fortune columns dated Oct 5
Maeil Business, Chosun Ilbo and Korea Economic Daily each published a daily fortune column dated October 5, 2026, the 25th day of the eighth lunar month. Chosun Ilbo's feature, carried since 2017 and written by Han So-pyeong of Geumo Sanban…
Xreal opens pre-orders for Android XR Aura smartglasses from $1,279
Xreal has opened pre-orders for the Aura, its Android XR smartglasses announced earlier this year at Google I/O, starting at $1,279 for a 12GB RAM / 256GB storage model and $1,499 for a 16GB / 512GB version. The glasses are tethered to a co…
Xbox says GTA 6 will not stream exclusively or to PC, after report of streaming deal
Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball said Grand Theft Auto VI will not be streaming exclusively on Xbox, nor to PC, pushing back on an earlier report that Xbox had secured exclusive cloud streaming rights to the game. The Verge had repo…
Japan farm ministry orders Fukui seafood firm over mislabeled Echizen crab gifts
Japan's agriculture ministry issued a measures order on Oct 6 against Fukumaru Foods, a seafood processor in Echizen Town, Fukui Prefecture, for labeling products as Echizen crab while using mizugani, a crab not counted as Echizen crab. The…
ESRB ratings for Mafia II and Mafia III on PS5 and Xbox Series fuel port talk
Age ratings for Mafia II and Mafia III have appeared on the ESRB website for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, as spotted by Russian games outlets. The ports have not been officially announced. StopGame noted that a similar rating for Mafia: D…
Google and Unity to launch AI game platform Unity Spark later this year
Google and Unity announced a strategic partnership to launch an AI game platform for next-generation interactive entertainment. Google's experimental Playground is already live, letting users create playable games from natural-language prom…
Police fire tear gas at student protest in Paris; Saint-Denis mayor affected
Police used tear gas at a demonstration by Paris pupils and high-school students on 6 October, with protesters throwing bottles and firecrackers at officers, according to RIA Novosti and TASS. RIA Novosti later reported that the mayor of Sa…
Moscow SEZ resident Angstrom develops Russian chip for linking electronic devices
Angstrom, a resident of the Technopolis Moscow special economic zone, has developed a microchip for data transmission between electronic devices, according to the company and the zone’s representatives. The chip is built on the RS-485 indus…