AfterTech, Dhanmondi, Dhaka (2026)

08/09/2026

Dhaka is hosting telecom regulators and engineers from across Asia-Pacific for discussions that will shape how future wireless networks share one of technology's most limited resources: radio spectrum.

The 37th meeting of the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity Wireless Group is being held in Dhaka from September 7 to 11, hosted by BTRC. Nearly 400 participants are discussing spectrum management for existing networks as well as emerging technologies such as 6G, satellite connectivity and low-Earth-orbit services. Spectrum is invisible, but almost every wireless technology depends on it. Mobile networks, Wi-Fi, satellites, broadcasting, aviation systems and many other services all need specific frequency ranges.

As more technologies compete for those frequencies, regulators have to decide how spectrum is allocated, shared and protected from interference. For Bangladesh, the meeting matters because the country is simultaneously trying to expand 5G, satellite internet and future wireless infrastructure. Poor spectrum planning can make services slower or more expensive even when the underlying hardware is capable. 6G is still a future technology, but the policy work around it starts years before ordinary users ever see a 6G icon on a phone.

What matters more for Bangladesh right now: preparing for 6G, improving 5G coverage, or making existing mobile internet cheaper?

08/09/2026

Indian space-tech company Pixxel has raised $100 million in Series C funding, one of the biggest private funding rounds ever announced by an Indian space startup. Pixxel is best known for hyperspectral Earth-observation satellites.

Unlike normal cameras that mainly capture visible colours, hyperspectral sensors split reflected light into many narrow wavelength bands. That can reveal information about vegetation health, minerals, pollution, water and other material properties that ordinary imagery may miss.

The company says the new funding will expand its satellite constellation, manufacturing capacity and Aurora Earth-intelligence software. Pixxel is also moving beyond simply selling satellite imagery toward what it calls “planetary infrastructure” - combining sensors, software and spacecraft systems into one data platform. Reuters reports the round was co-led by Temasek and Seraphim, bringing Pixxel's total funding to about $195 million. Google has previously invested in the company.

For South Asia, the story is important because it shows the region's private space industry moving beyond rockets and satellites into commercial data services. Which use of hyperspectral satellites sounds most useful to you: agriculture, climate monitoring, mining or disaster response?

08/09/2026

RPCS3 has reached a major game-preservation milestone: original PlayStation 3 discs can now be played directly from a compatible Blu-ray drive on PC. Direct disc support had previously been more limited, but the RPCS3 project has expanded it across Windows, Linux, macOS and FreeBSD.

Instead of dumping the entire game to storage first, a physical disc can be read and decrypted on the fly. There are still requirements. You need a compatible Blu-ray drive and the correct decryption key for your specific disc release. This is not a magic “put any PS3 disc into any laptop” feature. But for collectors and preservation enthusiasts, it reduces one of the biggest friction points around using physical PS3 libraries with modern hardware. The bigger story is preservation.

Many PS3-era games remain trapped on old hardware, and digital storefronts cannot guarantee permanent access forever. Projects like RPCS3 give physical copies another path to remain playable as original consoles age. The PlayStation 3 launched two decades ago, yet its physical library has just become easier to use on modern computers.

Would you rather keep old games on original consoles, or use emulation to preserve them for the long term?

08/09/2026

TikTok is turning the comment section into something much more complicated than a row of text replies. The platform is rolling out Voice Comments, allowing users aged 18 and older to record audio replies of up to 60 seconds directly under a video.

Creators can also add Comment Polls with up to five options, letting followers vote without leaving the conversation. TikTok is expanding photo replies too, including carousel-style photo comments and Live Photo support in eligible regions. The company says more than 1.7 billion comments are posted on TikTok every day, so these features are effectively adding new content formats inside one of the busiest parts of the app.

That could make comment sections more expressive, but it could also make moderation harder. Text is relatively easy to scan. Audio, polls and multiple images create more formats that automated systems and moderators need to review. TikTok says Voice Comments are rolling out globally over the next month to adult accounts.

Would you actually listen to voice comments under a TikTok, or are comment sections already chaotic enough?

08/09/2026

Google is turning three of its most familiar productivity apps into conversational tools.

Gmail Live, Docs Live and Keep Live are now rolling out with Gemini-powered voice features that go beyond normal dictation. Gmail Live can search your inbox conversationally, so instead of digging through threads you can ask something like, “What gate is my flight leaving from?” and let Gemini find the answer. Docs Live is closer to a spoken writing partner. You can talk through an idea, ask it to organize your thoughts and build a structured first draft. With permission, it can also pull context from Gmail, Drive, Chat and the web.

Keep Live is aimed at quick thoughts: speak a messy brain dump and it turns the speech into organized notes or lists. Google says Gmail Live is available to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers, while Docs Live and Keep Live have more limited plan availability during rollout. Business customers are also expected to get access. This is a bigger change than adding a microphone button. The goal is to make Workspace feel less like a set of apps you operate and more like a system you can simply talk through.

Would you actually draft emails and documents by speaking to AI, or is typing still faster for you?

07/09/2026

iRobot has shown one of the strangest robot-vacuum ideas at IFA 2026: a Roomba that carries another Roomba. The Roomba Duo is a dual-robot cleaning system. The larger main unit handles open floor areas with vacuuming, steam pre-treatment and a large roller mop.

When it reaches areas where its bigger body cannot fit, a mechanical arm on top can lower a smaller companion robot onto the floor. That mini robot is designed to reach under low beds, sofas and cabinets, clean along edges and squeeze into spaces the main machine cannot reach. Both units share the same map and communicate through the Roomba app so they can divide the cleaning work instead of moving around independently.

The main robot also uses LiDAR, AI cameras and object detection to build a more detailed view of the home, while the shared dock can empty dust, wash the mops and manage clean and dirty water. It is still a prototype rather than a normal product you can buy today, but the idea is surprisingly logical: instead of forcing one robot to be thin, powerful, large-battery and good at deep cleaning all at once, iRobot is giving different jobs to two different machines.

Would you want a robot vacuum system like this at home, or has cleaning technology officially become too complicated?

07/09/2026

Civilization VII is about to get much bigger. Firaxis and 2K have announced Arc of Tomorrow, a free 2027 update that adds an entirely new fourth Age to the game: the Atomic Age. That pushes Civilization VII's playable timeline from the 1950s into the near future, with new cities, technologies, civics, units, leaders, social policies, narrative events and visual changes built around the modern world. That alone would already be a major update, but Firaxis is also preparing Civilization VII's first paid expansion, Earthrise.

The expansion will focus on humanity's relationship with the environment and space, eventually letting players build space agencies and launch missions across the solar system. Later this month, Update 1.5.0 will also bring quality-of-life improvements and the long-requested True Start Location: Earth map.

This matters because one of the biggest criticisms around Civilization VII was how its Age structure limited the feeling of playing one civilization across an enormous sweep of history. Adding an Atomic Age gives the game more room to tell the modern part of that story instead of ending before many of the technologies players associate with today's world. Firaxis says Arc of Tomorrow will be larger in scope than last year's Test of Time update.

Would an Atomic Age and a full space-focused expansion be enough to bring you back to Civilization VII?

07/09/2026

The AI boom is starting to show up in a place most people did not expect: the price tag on ordinary electronics. The shortage has become so severe that people in the industry are calling it 'RAMageddon.' AI data centres need huge amounts of high-bandwidth memory, and memory manufacturers are prioritising those more profitable chips.

That leaves less production capacity for the DRAM used in phones, laptops, game consoles, TVs, routers and even cars. The result is rising component costs. J.P. Morgan estimates DRAM prices will have risen more than 400 percent from the beginning of 2024 to the end of 2026. Counterpoint has also reported sharp quarter-to-quarter increases in smartphone memory costs. Consumer Reports says the effects are already visible in retail prices, with several consoles, computers and connected devices becoming more expensive.

The weird part is that this is almost the opposite of how consumer technology normally works. We are used to getting more RAM, more storage and better performance for roughly the same money every few years. AI infrastructure demand is disrupting that pattern. New factories will eventually add supply, but memory production takes time to expand, so analysts do not expect the pressure to disappear quickly.

If phones and PCs keep getting more expensive because of AI data centres, would you keep your current devices longer instead of upgrading?

07/09/2026

If you use Google Chrome on Windows, Mac or Linux, this is a good time to restart the browser and make sure it has updated. Google has released Chrome 152.0.7977.82/.83 for desktop with fixes for 12 security vulnerabilities.

The most urgent is CVE-2026-85046, a high-severity type-confusion vulnerability in Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. Google has confirmed that an exploit for the bug already exists in the wild. That phrase matters. A normal security vulnerability may be discovered and patched before attackers are known to be using it. An 'exploited in the wild' vulnerability means there is evidence that someone has already been using the flaw against real targets.

Google is keeping some technical details restricted until more users install the update, which is normal for actively exploited vulnerabilities because publishing full exploit information too early can make attacks easier. Chrome updates automatically, but the new version normally does not fully take effect until the browser is restarted. You can check by opening Chrome, going to Settings, then About Chrome, letting it finish updating and relaunching the browser.

When was the last time you actually checked whether your browser had finished installing its security updates?

07/09/2026

Google is turning Gemini Spark into something closer to a personal photo assistant. Gemini Spark can now connect to Google Photos and carry out multi-stage photo workflows from one instruction. Instead of searching for photos, editing them, creating an album and sharing it as separate jobs, users can describe the whole task at once.

Google gives an example like: find the best 15 photos from a recent trip, improve the beach shots, create a shared album and draft an email containing the link. Spark can search and curate photos, filter duplicates, enhance images, create collages and highlight videos, extract text from screenshots, build albums and work across connected apps such as Gmail and Google Docs. It can also schedule recurring tasks, such as creating a weekly collage automatically.

Google says original photos are not overwritten when edits are made; edited copies are created instead. Some actions, including sharing albums or sending messages, still require confirmation. The Photos integration is rolling out gradually and initially has eligibility and region restrictions, so not everyone will see it immediately. For people with thousands of unorganised photos, this could be genuinely useful. For everyone else, it raises a different question: how much personal history are you comfortable letting an AI sort through?

Would you use AI to automatically clean up and organise years of your camera roll?

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