Tech Express | September 12, 2026 iPhone 18 Pro Pre-Orders Begin Today

1. iPhone 18 Pro Pre-Orders Begin Today

Source: MacRumors

Pre-orders for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max begin today, Saturday, September 12, at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time, opening simultaneously in many countries around the world.

Customers could use the "Get Ready" pre-order setup until 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time Friday night to select their model, confirm their carrier, and enter payment and shipping details in advance.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max at $1,299. U.S. carriers are offering various discounts, and Apple provides its upgrade program and trade-in options. The first orders will be delivered on Friday, September 18.

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2. LG Responds to Smart TV Spying Allegations

Source: FlatpanelsHD

LG responded today (September 12) to allegations that its smart TVs spy on users, confirming that its TVs scan home networks for other devices while denying that they record or snoop on conversations without the user activating the microphone.

The controversy followed a Gamers Nexus video exposé. LG acknowledged that its TVs can record and transcribe ambient conversations even in standby mode, but denied that this can happen without the user manually activating the voice system.

LG also confirmed it uses ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) but emphasized that the data requires user consent before it can be used for personalized recommendations and ads.

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3. Anthropic Accuses Chinese AI Firms of "Distillation Attacks"; Beijing Responds

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

AI company Anthropic published a threat intelligence report on September 10, accusing Chinese firms such as Moonshot AI and DeepSeek of launching "distillation attacks" against its Claude model.

The report said Moonshot AI routed nearly 300,000 user requests to Claude through a network of 5,380 fake accounts, while DeepSeek launched more than 12.1 million distillation attacks over 14 days in July. It also named Alibaba, alleging more than 151 million attacks between May and July.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a Friday press briefing that she was unaware of the specifics, that China upholds AI for good, and that it firmly opposes distorting facts to attack and smear China.

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4. DeepSeek Reverses Decision, Keeps V4 Pro API

Source: Mydrivers

DeepSeek had earlier surveyed users on whether to replace V4 Pro with V4.1 Flash, then decided to delist V4 Pro and route it directly to V4.1 Flash.

The move drew user backlash, with critics saying DeepSeek should not make the decision for customers. DeepSeek announced on September 11 that it will continue offering the V4 Pro API after September 14, 2026, with unchanged pricing.

The report said the original intent was that V4.1 Flash offers stronger performance at a lower price. DeepSeek is currently valued at $70 billion.

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5. Yu Minhong: AI Could Widen the Wealth Gap

Source: Mydrivers

At the 2026 Chongli Forum on September 12, New Oriental founder Yu Minhong said AI is creating new jobs while rapidly replacing many ordinary workers' existing positions.

Yu said nearly all new AI-driven jobs require systematic re-learning, and the impact is far more severe than the Industrial Revolution.

He added that AI-linked listed companies easily reach hundreds of billions or even trillions in market value, but little of that wealth reaches ordinary people, so AI is likely to widen social inequality.

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6. AMD Launches Ryzen AI Max PRO 400

Source: Mydrivers

AMD held a media event in Beijing on September 10 to launch its Ryzen AI Max PRO 400 series processors for the Chinese market, showcasing nine new products with partners.

The flagship Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 features Zen 5 architecture, 16 cores and 32 threads, up to 5.2GHz, integrated Radeon 8065S graphics and a 55 TOPS NPU, supporting up to 192GB of unified memory — the first x86 client processor capable of running a 300-billion-parameter model locally.

AMD said AI inference's share of compute demand will rise from 40% in 2024 to 60% in 2026, with the inference market reaching $1.4 trillion by 2030.

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7. Loongson 9A1000 Graphics Card to Launch Next Year

Source: Mydrivers

Loongson's latest earnings report showed first-half revenue of 272 million yuan, up 11.64% year over year, with a net loss of 224 million yuan. Chairman Hu Weiwu said the self-developed 9A1000 graphics card is expected to go on sale in the first half of next year.

Hu said the 9A1000 is a two-in-one product — both a consumer discrete graphics card and an AI accelerator — with consumer-market performance comparable to the RX 550.

Loongson's self-developed HBM products are expected to supply mainstream memory makers in the first half of next year, and its sixth-generation high-performance CPU core has entered development.

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8. First Adult T. Rex Trackway Discovered

Source: The Guardian

Scientists have found the first known series of footprints from an adult Tyrannosaurus rex in North Dakota, with the findings published in a scientific journal.

The 23-foot-long trackway consists of four three-toed footprints — two left and two right — dating from 66.5 million years ago. Each footprint is about 3 feet long, with a stride of about 13 feet.

The team used high-resolution 3D scanning to record each footprint and estimated the animal was walking at about 3.5–4.5 mph. One of the discoverers is Colorado schoolteacher Kent Hups.

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9. Xiaomi Pengcheng Begins Nationwide Delivery

Source: Mydrivers

On the afternoon of September 12, Xiaomi founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun announced that the Xiaomi Pengcheng began nationwide delivery that day, and he traveled to Xuzhou (ancient "Pengcheng") to hand over cars to first owners.

Lei Jun personally opened doors, handed over keys and took photos with owners' families. Xiaomi announced the day before that the Pengcheng series would start nationwide delivery on September 12 across 75 cities.

The Xiaomi Pengcheng series launched at a September 7 event, with all-model lock-in orders exceeding 10,000 units in just four minutes.

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10. Economic Daily: AI Support Must End Crude Competition

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

The Economic Daily, a newspaper directly under the CPC Central Committee, published a commentary on September 12 warning that crude-style support for AI is a risk worth watching.

The article listed problems such as insufficient differentiation in subsidies, unbalanced standards, low fulfillment rates and idle funds, as well as regions blindly following AI projects into a "me-too" competition trap.

The article suggested building tiered policy frameworks tailored to local conditions and strengthening coordination to end inter-regional policy "involution."

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