Vincross, the company behind the six-legged robot Hexa, said on Tuesday that it's picked up $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Lenovo Capital, the startup fund managed by Lenovo Group. Returning investor GGV Capital and newcomer Seekdource Capital also participated. The company declined to disclose its latest valuation but said the proceeds will go towards research and development as well as new product lines. Neuroscience and artificial intelligence researcher Tianqi Sun started Vincross in Beijing back in 2016 when he raised $220,000 for Hexa on Kickstarter. At the time the insectile, programmable robot had separated itself from the horde of humanoids on the market by billing itself as the first robot that can climb stairs, making it suitable for firefighting and other rescue tasks.

Apple is working on a foldable phone of its own, new patents reveal, as just about every major handset company launches bendy products. A future iPhone could be hinged in the middle, according to the patents, allowing it to be folded up small and then opened again to allow the screen to be larger. The handset is just one of a range of bendy phones being worked on by companies. While Samsung's "Galaxy X" is the most famous – and has been shown off in the most detail – just about every major company is working on its own foldable handset. Apple is not thought to be releasing a rival model any time soon, and the new iPhones it is set to release in September will keep the same form factor as the existing line-up.

The battle between PewDiePie and T-Series to be the world's most popular YouTube channel has taken a bizarre turn, after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk revealed he hosted PewDiePie's'meme review'. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjelberg, has been the top channel on the world's most popular video-sharing platform since 2013. His dominance has been challenged in recent months by the Indian channel, which posts Bollywood film trailers and music videos. The rise of T-Series has proved controversial within some corners of the YouTube community, seen as a David vs Goliath-style contest between an independent creator and a major corporate brand. For PewDiePie supporters, T-Series' popularity reflects a perceived shift in YouTube's focus towards larger brands that have more potential for generating revenue.

The founder of Huawei has said that the firm can withstand attempts by foreign governments to shut out the Chinese technology giant. Ren Zhengfei said US was attempting to "crush" his company by encouraging allies not to use Huawei-made equipment. He warned that by turning their back on Huawei they risked falling behind in areas like 5G rollout, which Huawei has helped pioneer in recent years. "There's no way the US can crush us," he told the BBC. "The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit."

Group FaceTime calls on the iPhone and other Apple products are still not working properly, after the company rushed to fix a major bug. Earlier this month, it emerged that it was possible to listen in on people through their iPhone by exploiting a bug in FaceTime, the app used to make audio and video calls over the internet. By adding someone into a group conversation, their phone would start ringing – and during that entire time, the microphone would be switched on and allow the caller to hear everything a person was doing. Apple rushed to fix that bug, first by switching off the service entirely and then pushing out a software update that stopped it happening. But that update has still left some problems and the calls are not working entirely since the update was released.

In Shenzhen, even kindergartners have homework. You can see it in the workbook-laden backpacks weighing them down as they waddle through the school gates at 8 a.m. and back out again at 5 p.m. Many are not headed home yet. There are dance classes, piano lessons, English tutors, kung-fu sessions to get to. After classes, after dinner, it is time to tackle that homework.

Bangalore: India is on the cusp of a digital transformation, thanks to the spread of high-speed data services. Not just that, as new age technologies like digital, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics disrupt industry value chains, Indian firms would be at the forefront of driving this change in the global market, says a report. The report by Deloitte predicts that the year 2019 will be the inflection point for conversational AI in India, with voice assistants moving well beyond information access and entertainment in the next two to three years. AI-powered voice assistants could become an important element in home automation, hospitality sector, heath care, potentially progressing to voice-based commerce. "The technology industry in India is in a truly exciting phase right now, unlike any other country at any other point in time. For more than two decades, its technology services industry was at the forefront of driving the technology-enabled transformation of businesses across the world,'' said Hemant Joshi, Leader-Technology, Media & Telecom and Partner, Deloitte India. India's first phase of digital explosion was driven by smart phones and mobile internet penetration. Its next growth phase will be led by mobile-first and voice-first technologies. Original and localised content will play a crucial role in ensuring the faster adoption and wider application of voice technologies, the Deloitte's Predictions Report for 2019 said. Another area that will witness significant growth is financial services technology. The shift in consumer preference towards digital channels for investments and wealth management is steadily rising. While digital investing may increase at varying rates for different asset classes, the facility of immediate service, better discovery of products, and innovations in providing improved customer experience will cause customers to gravitate towards these new-age platforms, found the study. It expects the entertainment industry to reach a high-growth phase this year. Jehil Thakkar, Partner, Deloitte India, said: "This is a good time to be a (content) consumer in the Indian market.

The EU Commission has removed a strange and angry blog post that attacked internet campaigners, admitting its language was not appropriate and that it could be offensive. But campaigners against it say that it will fundamentally change how the internet works. Some suggest that it will "ban memes", by forcing websites to automatically check for the use of any media that is owned by somebody else, and that it could stop websites such as Google and YouTube from working. The blog post from the commission appeared aimed at taking on those criticisms. It referred to campaigners as a "mob" and suggested they were unwittingly working for websites like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Machine Learning as a Service Market to reach USD 16.13 billion by 2025 Machine Learning as a Service Market valued approximately USD 0.87 billion in 2017 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than 43.9% over the forecast period 2018-2025. Machine learning as a service is a significant range of solutions and services that are offered by cloud service providers. The tools offered by service providers include APIs, data visualization, natural language processing, face recognition, deep learning, and predictive analytics. The main benefit associated with these services is that the customers are able to quickly start with machine learning with no need to install or download any software on their servers. Enhancements in technology, growth in data volume and rise in IT spending in some of the developing regions are the major factors which are driving the growth in the global market.

The Chinese database Victor Gevers found online was not just a collection of old personal details. The discovery by Gevers, a Dutch cybersecurity researcher who revealed it on Twitter last week, has given a rare glimpse into China's extensive surveillance of Xinjiang, a remote region home to an ethnic minority population that is largely Muslim. The area has been blanketed with police checkpoints and security cameras that apparently are doing more than just recording what happens. The database Gevers found appears to have been recording people's movements tracked by facial recognition technology, he said, logging more than 6.7 million coordinates in a span of 24 hours.