Summary

TechLinked's twice-weekly news roundup for 9 September 2026, hosted by Riley Murdock, led by Apple's 'surprise and shine' event and running through nine further items in a comic register. It argues almost nothing on its own account: the structure is vendor announcement or outside investigation first, then a joke at its expense. Two items are worth the archive's attention because the presenter's scepticism is itself the content — Apple's always-on audio features, where he pointedly declines to accept 'private by design' at face value, and the LG television story, where a researcher's findings and the manufacturer's flat denial are both reported the same morning without the video attempting to settle which is right.

• Apple announced the iPhone Duo, its first foldable. As announced: folds to a pocketable 5.4-inch form and opens to a 7.6-inch display with a minimised crease, thin titanium build, a new A20 Pro chip, two rear cameras, one front camera and one under-display camera inside, no Face ID (Touch ID on the power button), and iOS 27 features built around the larger screen. Priced from US$2,000 for 256GB, pre-orders 16 October, on sale 23 October. The presenter notes the reveal followed years of rumour and that dbrand had spoiled the phone the day before.
• iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max: a 48-megapixel main camera that the video says allows aperture adjustment for the first time, plus new pro camera controls, faster performance, and a claimed up to 45 hours of video playback on the Pro Max. Vendor figures, reported not tested.
• There was no non-Pro iPhone 18 at the event. The presenter says rumour puts it in March and flags it explicitly as rumour.
• AirPods 5 now ship with ANC by default, alongside a second AirPods 5 variant with on-stem volume controls, slightly better battery and a wireless charging case for US$20 more. Apple Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4 both get a new health sensing system working with Apple Intelligence, with the Ultra 4 claimed to gain further battery life.
• Two new audio features, 'Live Rewind' and 'Siri Recap', record ambient real-world audio if the user enables it. The presenter compares them to Windows Recall and treats Apple's 'private by design' claim sceptically rather than reporting it as established. Apple's privacy claim is the company's own; the video offers no independent assessment.
• iOS 27 was dated 14 September, bringing an AI-powered Siri refresh, more Liquid Glass personalisation and new icons.
• A Gamers Nexus investigation, run with Level1Techs and outside security researchers using packet captures and firmware analysis on retail LG OLED sets, reportedly found that out of the box the TV scanned the network and enumerated every device in the house, collected what users watched, and kept plain-text transcripts of voice commands including whatever conversation was caught in what the video calls a surprisingly long recording window after the wake word. The researchers reportedly demonstrated a set recording through its microphones while it appeared to be off, holding the audio until it could reconnect and hand it over. These are one investigation's reported findings.
• LG issued a statement the morning of recording calling the claims not true and insisting voice data is only processed on a button press or a wake word. The two accounts directly conflict and the video records both without resolving them.
• X won a court order preventing Operation Bluebird from using the Twitter name for its new social network. The judge noted X still lists its app as formerly known as Twitter in Apple's App Store, but that X likely abandoned the term 'tweet' and the bird logo; Bluebird then launched tweet.app. Bluebird's general counsel is named as former Twitter trademark lawyer Stephen Coates.
• The UK government said it intends to legislate to force Apple and Google to block minors from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on their phones, after both missed a three-month deadline to do it voluntarily. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced the plans in Parliament and is reported as calling legislation almost certain, though a deal could still happen. The blocks would run inside the operating system by default unless an adult user proves their age. The presenter notes Apple attempted something similar itself in 2021 and killed it over privacy implications.
• Hypertune, an Intel-endorsed auto-overclocking tool, launched at US$10 a month claiming FPS gains of up to 60% by stress-testing the specific chip rather than applying a one-size-fits-all profile. The 60% figure is the vendor's claim. The company defends the subscription on the grounds that Windows and game patches change weekly. Tom's Hardware reportedly found the advertised free trial billed them immediately, and noted free tools already do most of what Hypertune does.
• At IFA, robot lawn mower models from Mammotion, Dreame, Eufy and Anthbot demonstrated handling of lawn edges. The video notes all of them could be affected by US restrictions on foreign robotics, delaying American availability.
• Japanese internet conglomerate GMO will launch what is described as the country's first ambulance service for humanoid robots in Tokyo this month: when a customer's robot breaks down a technician is dispatched to repair it on site, and the robot is recovered to the shop if it cannot be fixed there.

Why it matters

Two things here are durable and the rest is perishable product detail. First, the LG story is a clean, citable instance of the pattern this archive keeps meeting — an independent investigation reports a consumer device collecting far more than disclosed, the manufacturer flatly denies it the same day, and nothing adjudicates between them. Keep both framings. Second, the UK's move to legislate OS-level nudity blocking, set against Apple's own abandoned 2021 attempt over privacy, is a concrete data point on the child-safety-versus-privacy trade-off that the EU Kids Act entry from the same week also touches. On the hardware: Apple entering foldables at US$2,000 fixes the top of that market, and the Live Rewind / Siri Recap features move always-listening ambient capture from Windows to the phone and the wrist — the same capability that makes the LG finding matter.

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