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Can an AI Assistant Really Control Your Phone?

2026-09-16 by Pierce Allen
An AI wordmark beside a head filled with circuitry

Last December, a strange phone went on sale in China. It could open your apps, find the right buttons, tap them for you. Here was an AI assistant that could actually control your phone. Only 30,000 units existed. They sold out in 48 hours, and resellers soon asked around $1,110 for a phone that retailed … Read more

Categories AI Tags AI Agents, Chinese Tech, Smartphones

Why Chinese Phones Have Bigger Batteries Than Yours

2026-09-16 by Pierce Allen
Honor Magic9 renders in green, mint, and yellow finishes

Honor published a battery spec sheet this week that reads like a typo. The Magic9 Super Edition, arriving September 28, carries an 11,000mAh battery in a body 8.1mm thick that weighs 227 grams. The standard Magic9 gets 8,000mAh. The Pro Max gets 8,800mAh. For comparison, the biggest battery Apple or Samsung sells in the United … Read more

Categories Tech Tags Apple, Chinese Tech, Hardware, Smartphones

Phone Prices and Memory Costs: What Xiaomi’s Hike Shows

2026-09-192026-09-16 by Pierce Allen
Hands installing a memory module into a server board

Xiaomi just held the most revealing phone launch of the year, and the interesting part wasn’t the phone. It was the apology. Lei Jun, the company’s founder, stood on stage and pre-explained the price before anyone could complain. Memory has gotten very expensive, he said, so the new Xiaomi 18 Fold starts at $1,540, and … Read more

Categories Tech Tags Chinese Tech, Hardware, Smartphones

Chinese EVs Sell Everywhere Now. America Is the Exception.

2026-09-16 by Pierce Allen
Light trails on a curving highway exit at night

In March, Canada started taking Chinese electric cars at a 6.1% tariff, with room for 49,000 of them a year. The US rate is still 100%, stacked on a 2.5% base duty. Same cars. Same continent. One open door. Start with where these cars already are. BYD sold 557,000 battery electric passenger vehicles worldwide in … Read more

Categories Tech Tags Chinese Tech, Electric Vehicles, Pricing

DeepSeek Harness Desktop App: What V4.1 Flash Users Get

2026-09-192026-09-16 by Pierce Allen
A blue whale app icon beside white lettering on a dark banner

DeepSeek’s official Harness desktop app is nearly ready. Run V4.1 Flash daily? Then this is the client worth waiting for. Here is the state of it. A few days ago people noticed a desktop client branch inside the DeepSeek Harness repository. Compiling it yourself was the only way to run it. Now the main branch … Read more

Categories Tools Tags AI Agents, DeepSeek, Developer Tools

The Chinese AI Apps You’ve Never Heard of Are Already Huge

2026-09-16 by Pierce Allen
A chip labeled Made in China on a red circuit board

The apps you have probably never opened There is a quiet gap between what Americans think is happening in AI and what is actually happening. In the US, the names are ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Midjourney. In much of the rest of the world, a different set of apps leads. Most of them come from … Read more

Categories AI Tags AI, Chinese Tech, DeepSeek

Foldables Just Got Good, and China Built Most of Them

2026-09-15 by Pierce Allen
Hands holding an open red tri-fold phone against a dark background

Three companies, seventy-two hours In early September 2026, three companies showed a new foldable phone. All inside the same week. Huawei, Xiaomi, and Apple. And each one is aimed at a different buyer. Huawei went first, on September 7, with the Mate XT2. It starts around $2,800. Xiaomi followed the same evening with the 18 … Read more

Categories Tech Tags Apple, Chinese Tech, Smartphones

Huawei Mate 90: The Most In-House Phone on Earth

2026-09-152026-09-15 by Pierce Allen
Silver phone back panel with a large circular camera module

What “in-house” actually means here The Huawei Mate 90 series launched in China this September. The line everyone repeats is that it is the most self-contained flagship on the market. That sounds like marketing until you look at what is actually inside. The processor is Huawei’s own Kirin 9050. The operating system is HarmonyOS 7, … Read more

Categories Tech Tags Chinese Tech, Hardware, Smartphones

Codex Tips for Beginners: What to Set Up on Day One

2026-09-15 by Pierce Allen
Close-up of colorful code on a dark screen

A Codex session that ends well and one that ends in a mess start the same way. Same model, same repo, same person. The difference shows up a week later. That gap is not about prompts. It is about how you set the project up before any code exists, and how you hand work to … Read more

Categories Tools Tags AI, AI Agents, Developer Tools

iOS 27 Is Out: Should You Upgrade, and What Actually Changed

2026-09-15 by Pierce Allen
Table showing iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 build numbers and release dates

iOS 27 is out for the iPhone 11 and newer. Apple says apps open up to 30% faster. Here’s what actually changed, and who should wait. iOS 27 landed on Monday, September 14. The build number is 24A437. The download runs about 8GB. It ships for the same device list as iOS 26: anything from … Read more

Categories Tech Tags Apple, Smartphones, Update
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  • Chinese Chargers and Appliances in the US: What Works
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