THE RUNDOWN

Apple's big smart home-focused launch event is almost here, and the rumour mill has been running hot. The star of the show looks set to be a product called the HomeView — reportedly Apple's most serious attempt yet at cracking the smart home market after years of half-measures. Alongside it, expect a refreshed Apple TV with a built-in microphone for voice control, plus an upgraded remote that'll actually have a speaker in it. It's a lot of home hardware at once, and it signals Apple is done tiptoeing around this space.

A joint study from Northeastern University and Consumer Reports found that many modern vehicles are quietly passing your driving and behavioural data to third-party companies, letting advertisers build detailed profiles on you. This isn't buried in fine print most people read — it's just happening. If you're thinking about connected devices and your personal data security, the car in your driveway deserves as much scrutiny as your phone.

Two of the biggest names in artificial intelligence now have competing AI agents on the market, and they're going directly after the same users. OpenAI's Dot and Meta's Muse both promise to handle tasks, answer questions and act more like digital assistants than chatbots — but they differ meaningfully in cost, access and capability. The race to own your daily AI workflow is very much on.

Autonomous trucking just got a significant regulatory roadblock removed in the US, according to TechCrunch Mobility. The details are still emerging, but this is the kind of policy shift that tends to accelerate timelines — expect more autonomous freight pilots on American highways sooner than most people anticipated. Africa's own logistics sector will be watching: what gets tested in the US today tends to shape the tech that arrives here in a few years.

If you've been following the Artemis programme, NASA just gave you a lot of homework. The agency posted over 800 gigabytes of science data, imagery and video from the Artemis II mission this week — all publicly available. It's a rare moment of genuine openness from a government agency, and space researchers and enthusiasts worldwide are already digging through it.

The AI industry has a growing fight on its hands with communities opposing new data centers — and one proposed solution is surprisingly simple: get rid of the non-disclosure agreements that stop companies from explaining what they're actually building and why. The argument is that secrecy is feeding opposition more than the projects themselves are. It's a real tension between corporate caution and the need for public trust, especially as power and water demands from AI infrastructure grow.

A college in Illinois tried to cancel its contract with Flock Safety — the company behind those automated licence-plate-reading cameras you're seeing more of everywhere — and found it couldn't. Elgin Community College had the cameras installed in April 2025, had second thoughts by September, and discovered the exit wasn't as simple as they'd expected. It's a cautionary tale about surveillance tech contracts that deserves attention from any institution thinking about signing one.

A startup called Vurt is making the case that vertical video isn't just a format — it's a genre. With Disney Plus, HBO Max and others all experimenting with portrait-mode content, there's clearly an appetite. Whether a dedicated platform can carve out space in an already crowded streaming market is another question, but the bet on mobile-first storytelling isn't an unreasonable one given how most people on this continent actually watch video.

That's your Monday sorted. A lot is moving at once — from the politics of AI naming to the hardware sitting in your living room and the car tracking your every turn. Stay sharp out there.