TECHNOLOGY

MILAN — Italy's artificial intelligence sector is gaining momentum in 2026, with a mix of established enterprise players, fast-growing startups and deep-tech ventures pushing boundaries in healthcare, legal tech, robotics, finance and content generation. While the country still trails larger European hubs in total venture funding, Italian AI companies are attracting international attention through specialized applications that leverage the nation's strengths in manufacturing, design and regulated industries.

AUSTIN, Texas — Elon Musk lit up X on Thursday with a 10-second AI-generated video that has already racked up more than 2.2 million views in hours, featuring a grinning Musk in a traditional Japanese yukata and headband, proudly introducing his "cool" Shiba Inu companion — also sporting matching flag headbands and tiny glasses.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — After years of speculation and delays, Apple Inc. appears poised to finally enter the foldable smartphone market with its first folding iPhone, expected to be unveiled in September 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models.

SAN FRANCISCO — The once-mighty Digg, a pioneer of social news aggregation that helped shape the early Web 2.0 era, mounted a high-profile comeback in early 2026 with backing from its original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Gmail, Google's ubiquitous email service used by billions worldwide, showed no signs of a widespread outage Thursday as independent monitoring sites and Google's official status dashboard confirmed all systems operational.

Microsoft 365 and its flagship email service Outlook appeared fully operational Thursday with no widespread outages disrupting millions of users worldwide, easing concerns after scattered reports of connectivity issues earlier in the week.

A cascade of major cloud and server outages throughout 2025 exposed the fragility of the world's digital infrastructure, with analysts estimating that unplanned IT downtime inflicted hundreds of billions of dollars in global economic losses as businesses, governments and consumers grew ever more reliant on always-on services.

US Mobile, a fast-growing mobile virtual network operator known for flexible prepaid plans across major U.S. carriers, announced Wednesday it will launch "Starlink One" on Thursday — a bundled offering that combines unlimited cellular service on three major networks with reliable Starlink satellite home internet in a single plan.

Elon Musk's SpaceX holds a commanding lead in the intensifying rivalry with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, launching more rockets, deploying thousands of satellites and securing key NASA contracts, even as both billionaires pivot aggressively toward lunar ambitions in 2026 amid a broader U.S. push to beat China back to the Moon.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's ballistic missile program continues its relentless pace in 2026, with frequent short-range launches, upgrades to solid-fuel engines for intercontinental systems and a clear focus on survivable, nuclear-capable weapons that can threaten South Korea, Japan and the U.S. mainland.

Apple is gearing up for a significant update to its popular iPad mini lineup later this year, with reliable leaks pointing to the long-awaited addition of an OLED display, a more powerful processor and other enhancements that could make the compact tablet even more competitive against larger iPad models and rival devices.

WASHINGTON — As U.S. and Israeli forces have unleashed more than 11,000 strikes on Iranian targets since late February 2026, Palantir Technologies' artificial intelligence systems have emerged as a central tool in the Pentagon's targeting operations, compressing what military planners call the "kill chain" from days to minutes and enabling a tempo of attacks unprecedented in modern warfare.

SEATTLE — Amazon has begun distributing software update 5.19.3.0.1 for its latest Kindle e-readers, offering a corrected version of a problematic March 2026 firmware release that was quickly pulled due to severe battery drain, sluggish performance and other glitches.

YouTube appeared to suffer another widespread disruption Wednesday, leaving millions of users worldwide unable to load videos, with reports of blank homepages, endless buffering and error messages flooding social media and outage trackers as the platform's massive audience scrambled for alternatives.

Humanoid robots are no longer prototypes gathering dust in labs. In 2026, they are clocking shifts on factory floors, unloading trailers and even folding laundry in pilot homes. Global shipments topped 13,317 units in 2025 and are accelerating fast, with Chinese manufacturers claiming 87% of volume while U.S. firms lead on AI sophistication and valuation.

SAN FRANCISCO — Anthropic's popular AI chatbot Claude is experiencing renewed connectivity issues Wednesday, April 8, 2026, with hundreds of users reporting login failures, chat errors and degraded performance less than 24 hours after the company resolved a "major outage" that disrupted service on April 7.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — With roughly five months until Apple's expected September 2026 unveiling, rumors about the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are intensifying, painting a picture of one of the most significant Pro lineup refreshes in recent years.

SINGAPORE — As Singapore cements its position as Southeast Asia's AI powerhouse in 2026, a dynamic ecosystem of homegrown champions and global players is driving breakthroughs in fintech, retail analytics, healthcare, and enterprise automation. Backed by strong government support through the National AI Strategy 2.0, generous R&D incentives, and events like GITEX AI Asia, these companies are not only transforming local industries but also expanding influence across the region and beyond.

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday reported the strongest quarterly results in South Korean corporate history, posting a preliminary operating profit of 57.2 trillion won ($37.9 billion) for the first quarter of 2026 — an eye-popping 755% jump from a year earlier and nearly matching the company's all-time annual profit record from 2018.

Fresh leaks about Apple's iPhone 18 Pro models promise significant upgrades for the 2026 lineup, including the company's first 2-nanometer A20 Pro chip, a dramatically smaller Dynamic Island cutout and a striking new deep red color option that could replace the traditional black finish.

Roku Inc. enters 2026 as the dominant force in connected television, commanding nearly half of all U.S. streaming hours and expanding its reach through aggressive growth in free ad-supported streaming television (FAST), artificial intelligence personalization and new revenue streams that have finally delivered consistent profitability.

The Roku Channel is quietly becoming one of the biggest winners in the streaming wars, adding more than a dozen new free channels in March 2026 alone while rolling out user-requested features and leaning into AI personalization to keep viewers glued to ad-supported content without subscriptions.

Starbucks customers across the United States reported widespread issues with the company's mobile app Tuesday, with many unable to place orders, log in or complete payments during the morning rush as the coffee giant's digital platform experienced another disruption amid ongoing reliability concerns.

Meta Platforms Inc. shares slid more than 1% in morning trading Tuesday, dipping below $570 as the social media and advertising powerhouse navigates heavy artificial intelligence spending and a pullback from last year's highs, leaving investors debating whether to buy the dip or exercise caution ahead of first-quarter earnings later this month.

Anthropic's popular AI chatbot Claude went down again Tuesday, sparking a fresh wave of frustration among millions of users who rely on the service for everything from coding to creative work, as the company grapples with repeated reliability issues amid explosive demand in 2026.

Intel Corp. shares climbed more than 2.5% in early trading Tuesday as the semiconductor giant continues to ride optimism from a major deal that gives it full control of a key European manufacturing plant, part of a broader push to reclaim leadership in advanced chip production amid fierce AI competition.

Artificial intelligence video generation has matured dramatically in 2026, delivering near-cinematic results from simple text prompts, images or scripts in seconds rather than days. Creators, marketers and filmmakers now have powerful options for everything from short social clips to professional advertising and narrative storytelling.

Alphabet Inc. Class C shares (NASDAQ: GOOG) slipped 1.40 points, or 0.47%, to $296.26 in morning trading Tuesday, April 7, 2026, as investors continued to balance the company's aggressive artificial intelligence investments against ongoing antitrust pressures and broader market caution tied to geopolitical tensions.

Frustrated Spectrum customers across the United States are once again asking, "Is Spectrum internet down?" as reports of service disruptions continue to surface in 2026, marking what some users on Reddit describe as the 17th outage of the year so far.