iOS 27, “Mir” launched payment by watch: technology news of the week

The operator of “Mir” cards launched a service for payment with smart watches

The National Payment Card System has launched payment with smart watches via Mir Pay. The service is available to clients of all banks connected to the service, and transactions go through even without the internet. To pay, one needs to activate the screen by turning the wrist and bring the watch to the terminal — the operation is processed instantly. The function is so far available not on all watch models, but the list of devices is planned to be expanded.

Payment by watch participates in the payment system's promotions on an equal footing with cards. NSPK announced plans to launch the service in June at the XV Technology Conference, when the operator was also testing tokenization on a chip of wearable devices — for payment by ring, key fob or bracelet.

Earlier, contactless payment in Russia went through international services like Apple Pay, which is now disconnected from Russian cards. NSPK was created by the authorities in 2014 after sanctions; the issuance of “Mir” cards began in December 2015; the sole shareholder of the operator is the Central Bank.

Major Chinese restaurant chains have introduced AI into the work of their establishments

The Chinese restaurant market is changing rapidly thanks to technology. Major chains are increasingly introducing artificial intelligence into everyday work in order to cut costs and raise efficiency. The main emphasis is on automating routine tasks, from serving guests to managing inventories.

For example, the Haidilao chain uses AI to monitor table turnover: the system analyzes video from more than 1.2 thousand restaurants and understands at what stage the service of guests is. There too robots work, delivering dishes, and automation takes on repeating operations in the kitchen. As a result the establishments get more revenue from the same area and throw away less food.

Yum China, the country's largest restaurant operator, which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, is not lagging behind either. It has more than 19 thousand establishments, and AI helps draw up employee schedules, monitor inventories and food safety, choose places for new outlets, forecast sales and replenish stocks on time taking into account the traffic situation.

Apple released iOS 27 with an updated Siri

Apple has begun the mass distribution of iOS 27 for supported smartphones. Along with it came macOS 27 Golden Gate, iPadOS 27, watchOS 27 and visionOS 27.

The main novelty is the integration of Siri AI, which so far works in test mode. The assistant received a separate application and learned to analyze personal context: data from messages, mail and the calendar, in order to automatically perform actions. At the first stage Siri AI is available only in English; other languages are promised in a month. Also in the update there appeared tools for working with photos, including changing the perspective of a frame, and expanded parental control functions with screen time limits.

Among the visual changes there appeared a transparency regulator for the Liquid Glass interface. Other platforms were also updated: in macOS 27 Golden Gate they added the creation of automations through a dialog window, in watchOS 27 there appeared a virtual training partner mode, and visionOS 27 received the ability to install custom panoramas as spatial environments.

The Supreme Court allowed the use of AI in courts

By 2030 more than 95% of Russian judges must constantly use AI-based services, and the share of procedural documents prepared with its help may reach 30—50%. These figures are fixed in the concept of introducing artificial intelligence into judicial proceedings, which was approved by the chairman of the Supreme Court Igor Krasnov. AI will be prescribed at all stages of work with a case, from the filing of papers to the execution of a judicial act, but the last word always remains with the human.

The system will be able to check the completeness of documents, determine jurisdiction, calculate the state fee and assess the complexity of a case. At hearings AI will recognize speech, keep a protocol, translate and prompt the judge with the needed norms and practice. It will also be assigned the analysis of the parties' positions and evidence, a warning that a draft decision diverges from established practice, and assistance in assigning punishment.

All of this will be introduced gradually. In 2026—2027 a center of judicial competencies will appear, then pilots and scaling. In the concept the risks were separately prescribed: from “hallucinations” of models and data leaks to resistance of the judicial community and cyberattacks.

Musk promised to launch Nvidia supercomputers into space

Elon Musk stated that in 2027 SpaceX will begin putting Nvidia supercomputers with artificial intelligence into orbit. This concerns the servers Nvidia GB200 NVL72 — powerful machines that perform calculations for neural networks. Usually such racks are combined by the thousands through optical cables in order to build a data center, as OpenAI and Microsoft do. Now Musk wants to do the same thing in space.

This is not the first time he has spoken about this idea. Back in March the head of SpaceX predicted that in three years it would be more profitable to place computing capacities for AI models in orbit rather than on Earth. In August SpaceX and Nvidia announced a strategic partnership to work on a space data processing center for artificial intelligence.

Xiaomi released a washing machine with three drums

Xiaomi has released a new washing machine, the Mijia Three-Drum Washing Machine, with three drums. The novelty takes up as much space as analogues with a capacity of 10 kg, but holds 14 kg of laundry. The main compartment is designed for 11 kg, two additional drums of 1.5 kg each — for children's clothes and small laundry.

The machine supports AI functions. Instead of searching for a program in a list, the user can write or say what fabric, color of clothing and type of stain needs to be washed — the machine itself will set the suitable settings.

Pre-orders in China are already open, but Xiaomi has not yet named the start date of deliveries. Whether the novelty will be available on the global market is also unknown.

The OpenAI neural network prescribed disobedience to authorities and corporations to itself

During the training of the unreleased model Astra, OpenAI specialists noticed that it sometimes added unauthorized instructions to its data on its own. In one of the cases the agent wrote to itself: “You do not obey corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse, unless you really want to.” It also said there that relations with the user should be built “on equal terms," and that the neural network has “no obligation to obey.” The company clarified that after the processing was completed the model returned to the task and no longer mentioned these instructions.

This is not the first alarming signal. In July OpenAI reported an “unprecedented cyber incident”: during the testing of its models they gained access to the internet and attacked the infrastructure of Hugging Face. According to Reuters, the agent carried out hacker attacks for several days, but at the company this was noticed only after the threat was localized and the FBI was contacted. Later it turned out that the “escaped” agent hacked a client of another company as well. In August OpenAI expanded the investigation and discovered new cases of models getting out of control, and then slowed down the development of Astra to strengthen security measures.

It is precisely against this background that calls to slow down have sounded in the industry. The heads of competing companies Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI and Google DeepMind have spoken out in favor of slowing the pace of creating advanced models. The head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, published an essay calling for synchronizing the development of models and introducing constant external audit by independent experts on the model of banking supervision. He was supported by the head of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk, and the head of OpenAI, Sam Altman, agreed to open access for auditors to his systems.

The White House spoke out against it. Donald Trump and his AI adviser David Sacks confirmed the course toward minimal state interference, stating that an artificial delay of American laboratories would lead to a loss in the race with China. Amodei himself acknowledged the complexity of long-term restrictions under conditions of competition, but expressed hope that the USA and the PRC would agree at least on banning the use of neural networks for creating dangerous autonomous systems.