GoKawiil
Tech News
An editorial in Nature urges Chinese regulators and researchers to make public the underlying evidence supporting new non-animal testing methods being adopted in the country. The piece argues that transparency is needed for international scientists and regulators to evaluate and trust these alternative methods.
China's Academic Degrees Committee released draft rules on October 22 allowing professional master's and PhD students in clinical medicine to graduate by presenting a practical achievement, such as a clinical case analysis, instead of a traditional thesis. Engineering students gained a similar option in 2024, and officials say translation, agriculture, accounting and arts programs are expected to follow.
At the Seventh Manned Spaceflight Conference in Beijing, officials including chief lunar designer Wang Xiang outlined a staged sequence of missions using the Long March 10 rocket, Mengzhou crew capsule and Lanyue lander. The plan runs from an uncrewed Long March 10A/Mengzhou test in early 2027 through lunar-orbit docking tests in 2029, culminating in a crewed landing attempt before 2030.
On October 16, 2026, China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology issued Announcement No. 48, proposing to add 40 technologies to its export control catalogue, 23 of them AI-related, covering frontier model weights, agent architectures, and offensive cyber capabilities tied to specific technical thresholds. The catalogue additions are open for public comment until November 15, 2026, but an interim pre-export registration requirement takes effect immediately and applies even to exports already underway.
Toyota and Lexus sold 309,766 battery electric vehicles globally in the first nine months of 2026, more than double the year-earlier figure, even as overall global sales fell 3.4% to 7.51 million vehicles. The company said China sales plunged nearly 20% over the same period, its eighth straight month of decline, with Toyota attributing weak demand there partly to rising gasoline prices hurting gas and hybrid vehicle sales.
A 2024 image captured by a Vantor (formerly Maxar) satellite shows China's secretive Shenlong spaceplane with a docked satellite featuring two large solar arrays. The photo was publicly released as part of a newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report on space-based threats, marking a rare direct look at the craft after six years of hidden missions.
Apple confirmed via its Chinese Newsroom that testing of Apple Intelligence in China will begin on November 4, tied to the next iOS developer beta. The company stopped short of confirming that iOS 27.3 beta 1 itself will launch that day, only that Apple Intelligence testing starts then. Siri AI will not be included in this initial rollout to Chinese users.
Apple announced via its Chinese newsroom that Apple Intelligence will debut in China with iOS 27.3, beginning as a beta on November 4th and reaching full release in December. The rollout includes features like notification summaries, real-time translation, writing tools, visual intelligence and object removal from photos, but not the new Siri. Apple has partnered with Alibaba to integrate its Qwen chatbot into some experiences, similar to its existing ChatGPT integration elsewhere.
Investigators reportedly suspect Alice Huang, a Chinese executive with ties to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, of passing information to China. According to the report, authorities believe she was recruited for this purpose specifically because of her relationship with the Nvidia chief.
Samsung officially unveiled the W27, a China-exclusive luxury version of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra with a gold-toned textured frame and dark red or blue rear covers. It shares the same core specs—an 8-inch folding OLED display, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 5,000mAh battery, and 200MP main camera—but is only offered in 16GB/512GB and 16GB/1TB configurations, priced at roughly $2,852 and $3,303 respectively.
The New York Times reported that US intelligence identified Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based data center firm Megaspeed, as a possible operative for the Chinese government who had built a close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Officials were already surveilling her over alleged illegal sales of advanced Nvidia chips to China, including to buyers linked to Alibaba, when they discovered she may also have been passing information to Beijing. Nvidia says Jensen Huang's contact with her was routine customer engagement and no sensitive information was shared.
The New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence agencies spent roughly a year surveilling Alice Huang, a senior executive at Singapore-based AI cloud firm Megaspeed, over concerns she may have been a Chinese intelligence asset. Huang had appeared alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at business dinners in Singapore, and Megaspeed was separately investigated by the Commerce Department in 2025 for allegedly reselling restricted Nvidia chips to Chinese buyers in violation of export rules.