• Apple’s big reveal: Apple launched its new iPhone 17 lineup – including a 5.6 mm-thin iPhone 17 Air starting at $999 – alongside updated AirPods Pro and Apple Watch models, largely holding prices steady reuters.com reuters.com.
• Internet cables cut: Multiple undersea data cables were mysteriously severed in the Red Sea, disrupting internet traffic across parts of Asia, the Middle East and East Africa reuters.com. Microsoft warned Azure cloud users of higher latency as data rerouted around the outage reuters.com.
• Ransomware kingpin indicted: U.S. prosecutors charged a Ukrainian hacker for allegedly running major ransomware attacks (LockerGoga, MegaCortex, Nefilim) that hit 250+ companies globally bleepingcomputer.com. Officials called him a “serial ransomware criminal” and posted a $11 million reward for his capture bleepingcomputer.com bleepingcomputer.com.
• SpaceX’s $17B spectrum bet: Elon Musk’s SpaceX struck a $17 billion deal to buy wireless spectrum from EchoStar, aiming to beam Starlink satellite internet directly to ordinary mobile phones and eliminate “dead zones” worldwide reuters.com.
• Satellite race heats up: SpaceX also notched its 113th launch of 2025, surpassing 2,000 Starlink satellites deployed this year alone ts2.tech. Amazon’s rival Project Kuiper now has 100+ satellites in orbit and plans a 27-satellite launch on Sept. 25 to kickstart its service by year-end ts2.tech.
• Oracle’s cloud surge: Enterprise software giant Oracle saw its stock soar ~31% after projecting that its cloud division’s booked revenues will exceed $500 billion, boosting confidence in Oracle’s growth versus rivals reuters.com.
• Big biotech buyout: Novartis agreed to acquire U.S.-based Tourmaline Bio for $1.4 billion in cash, gaining a Phase III-ready cardiovascular drug candidate to bolster its heart disease portfolio reuters.com reuters.com.
• Next-gen chips unveiled: U.K. chip designer Arm launched “Lumex” – a new suite of mobile CPU designs optimized to run AI-powered features on smartphones and wearables without offloading to the cloud reuters.com reuters.com.

Consumer Electronics: Apple Unveils Ultra-Thin iPhone 17 Air and More

Apple’s latest devices on display at the September 9 launch event in Cupertino. Apple introduced its 2025 lineup of devices at a splashy Cupertino event. Leading the announcements was the iPhone 17 Air, Apple’s thinnest phone ever at just 5.6 mm reuters.com. This new “Air” model (starting at $999) slots between the base iPhone 17 and the Pro flagships as a premium mid-tier option reuters.com. Despite its slim build, it packs the same high-end A19 Pro processor as the Pro, and Apple execs touted it as offering “MacBook Pro levels of compute in an iPhone” reuters.com. The standard iPhone 17 got a 6.3-inch high-refresh display and an upgraded 48 MP camera, while the iPhone 17 Pro ($1,099 and up) introduced a new aluminum unibody design, a vapor-chamber cooling system for sustained performance, and up to 2 TB of storage – a first for iPhone reuters.com reuters.com.

Alongside the phones, Apple rolled out refreshes to its wearable lineup. The Apple Watch Series 11 (starting $399) debuted with new health features like a hypertension alert (pending FDA clearance) and even satellite SOS connectivity on the high-end Ultra 3 model reuters.com. Apple also revealed AirPods Pro 3 earbuds, which double the active noise cancellation strength and add a novel “live translation” feature powered by on-device intelligence – triggered with a simple gesture reuters.com. The new AirPods include smaller earbuds with improved fit and even pack a tiny heart-rate sensor for fitness tracking reuters.com. All the new devices are set to hit the market in the coming weeks (e.g. iPhones and AirPods on September 19) as Apple gears up for the crucial holiday season reuters.com reuters.com.

Cybersecurity: Major Ransomware Operator Busted by U.S.

A significant win for cybersecurity officials made headlines as the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Sept 9 against a Ukrainian national allegedly behind several infamous ransomware strains bleepingcomputer.com. According to court filings, Volodymyr Tymoshchuk (alias “deadforz” et al.) served as an administrator for the LockerGoga, MegaCortex, and Nefilim ransomware operations that have plagued companies worldwide since 2018 bleepingcomputer.com. He’s accused of orchestrating or assisting ransomware attacks that breached over 250 U.S. companies and hundreds more abroad, causing millions in damages and often paralyzing business operations until victims paid up bleepingcomputer.com bleepingcomputer.com.

Officials painted Tymoshchuk as a “serial ransomware criminal” who targeted blue-chip firms, hospitals, and industrial giants and would leak stolen data if ransoms were refused bleepingcomputer.com. Notably, when police and partners cracked some of his earlier malware (releasing free decryption keys in 2022), Tymoshchuk simply pivoted to newer strains – a cat-and-mouse game that kept him ahead of law enforcement for years justice.gov justice.gov. The indictment details how his schemes evolved: in one phase, his crew compromised networks and were on the verge of deploying ransomware at hundreds of companies when law enforcement quietly warned the targets in time justice.gov.

Though Tymoshchuk remains a fugitive (believed to be overseas), U.S. authorities are turning up the heat. They announced an up to $11 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction bleepingcomputer.com – one of the largest bounties ever for a cybercriminal. “Today’s announcement should serve as a warning,” said an FBI official, “cyber criminals may believe they act with impunity… but law enforcement is onto you and will hold you accountable” justice.gov justice.gov. The case underscores a broader international crackdown on ransomware gangs, as agencies worldwide collaborate to indict kingpins and even extradite suspects (one co-conspirator was arrested in Spain earlier this year) bleepingcomputer.com. Cybersecurity experts hailed the indictment and reward as a clear signal that authorities are prioritizing the fight against ransomware, which has become a top-tier national security threat.

Telecom & Infrastructure: Undersea Cable Cuts Cause Widespread Outages

An unusual internet outage crisis struck multiple countries after a cluster of undersea fiber-optic cables in the Red Sea were cut around September 6–7. By Sept 9, connectivity had slowed to a crawl or gone down entirely in at least 10 nations across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE ts2.tech ts2.tech. Network data from monitoring groups like NetBlocks confirmed “multiple countries including India and Pakistan have been affected” by what appears to be a “series of subsea cable outages” near the Saudi coast ts2.tech. Major Gulf telecom operators (e.g. Etisalat, Du) experienced nationwide slowdowns, and users inundated social media with complaints of sluggish internet ts2.tech.

Who or what cut the cables? Thus far no culprit is confirmed, but telecom experts strongly suspect an accident – specifically, a ship’s anchor dragged along the seabed. “Early independent analysis indicates that the probable cause of damage is commercial shipping activity in the region,” John Wrottesley of the International Cable Protection Committee told the AP broadbandbreakfast.com. The Red Sea’s narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a busy shipping chokepoint where 15 undersea cables are bunched together – an anchor drop in the wrong spot can sever multiple lines at once broadbandbreakfast.com broadbandbreakfast.com. Indeed, industry data shows roughly 30% of cable cuts each year are caused by ships dragging anchors or nets broadbandbreakfast.com. (While sabotage hasn’t been ruled out, officials note there’s no clear evidence of deliberate attack in this case, despite the region’s past incidents.)

The impact of the cuts was immediately felt online. Microsoft sounded an alert that its Azure cloud customers may see increased latency after “multiple undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea” forced data to detour onto longer network paths ts2.tech. Providers scrambled to reroute traffic to alternate cables (including via Europe), which kept services mostly online but introduced significant lag for users reuters.com broadbandbreakfast.com. “Nobody’s completely offline, but each provider has lost a subset of their capacity… it’s like if you lose some water pressure in the pipes,” explained Doug Madory of Kentik, noting that with several major cables out, remaining links became congested broadbandbreakfast.com.

Fixing the broken cables will take time – possibly weeks – as specialized repair ships must locate and haul up each damaged section from the sea floor for splicing ts2.tech. In the meantime, millions of users from South Asia to the Gulf are stuck with spotty, bottlenecked connectivity ts2.tech. The episode underscores the fragility of global internet infrastructure. Just a handful of undersea routes carry the bulk of Eurasia’s data, so a single point of failure in a narrow chokepoint can disrupt online access across entire regions. “Even an errant anchor drop in the shallow Red Sea could sever vital links between continents,” one regional network operator noted, calling it a wake-up call to better protect these critical cables ts2.tech. Policymakers in several countries have echoed that sentiment, urging accelerated efforts to build redundant routes and improve cable security against both accidents and hostile acts.

Space Technology: Satellite Internet Arms Race Accelerates

Space tech news over the past two days was dominated by dramatic moves in the satellite internet arena. On Sept 8, SpaceX announced a $17 billion deal to acquire a swath of wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar, aimed at supercharging SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband service ts2.tech ts2.tech. The blockbuster spectrum purchase (which includes coveted 2 GHz mobile satellite bands) will allow SpaceX to roll out next-generation “Direct-to-Cell” Starlink satellites, enabling standard smartphones to connect directly to satellites for voice and data ts2.tech. “With exclusive spectrum, SpaceX will develop next-gen Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellites… a step change in performance to enhance coverage for customers wherever they are in the world,” said SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who promised the deal will help “end mobile dead zones around the world” ts2.tech. As part of the pact, EchoStar’s own Boost Mobile unit will bundle Starlink connectivity into its cellular plans, extending coverage to rural and remote areas beyond reach of cell towers ts2.tech. U.S. regulators (including the FCC) cheered the partnership as an innovative marriage of satellite and terrestrial networks to broaden wireless coverage ts2.tech. Investors took notice too – EchoStar’s stock jumped 19% on the news, while shares of traditional mobile carriers dipped on fears of new competition reuters.com reuters.com.

Meanwhile, SpaceX continues to launch satellites at an unprecedented pace, underscoring its first-mover advantage in the space-based internet race. Over the weekend, SpaceX conducted its 113th launch of 2025, lofting yet another batch of 24 Starlink satellites on Sept 6 ts2.tech. This pushed the number of Starlink satellites deployed in 2025 alone to over 2,000, a blistering rate that far outstrips any competitor ts2.tech. (For context, SpaceX has launched more than 8,000 Starlinks since the project began reuters.com, with about 8,100 currently in orbit providing service worldwide space.com.) And they’re not slowing down – the company has multiple Starlink launches scheduled per week, leveraging its fleet of reusable Falcon 9 rockets to build capacity in orbit rapidly space.com. This strategy is aimed at reinforcing SpaceX’s lead before rivals fully arrive on the scene.

Those rivals are now ramping up. Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a planned satellite internet constellation, quietly reached a milestone by deploying over 100 test satellites in orbit to date ts2.tech. Amazon is gearing up for its first major Kuiper launch on September 25, when a Vulcan rocket is slated to carry 27 more Kuiper satellites to space ts2.tech. The company intends to begin beta broadband service for pilot customers by the end of this year. Similarly, OneWeb (now merged with Europe’s Eutelsat) announced it has finished deploying its initial fleet of ~650 satellites and is activating coverage across new regions from South Korea to India ts2.tech. OneWeb’s network, which delivers low-latency internet via satellites in low Earth orbit, is already serving parts of Europe and North America and is now expanding into Asia. The flurry of activity shows that the satellite internet race is entering a decisive phase: incumbents and newcomers alike are pouring billions into hardware, spectrum, and launches. The goal is to blanket the globe in connectivity – especially remote or underserved areas – and capture a share of what could be a massive future market for space-based broadband.

Enterprise Software & Cloud: Oracle’s $500 Billion Ambition and Big Tech Adjustments

In the enterprise tech arena, Oracle Corporation made waves with a bold forecast that sent its stock price soaring. During an analyst meeting, Oracle said it expects the booked revenue of its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) business to exceed $500 billion, reflecting enormous long-term demand reuters.com. (It’s not entirely clear over what timeframe Oracle projects hitting this half-trillion figure, but the mere suggestion underscored management’s optimism about cloud growth.) Investors reacted exuberantly: Oracle’s shares jumped as much as 31% in overseas trading on Sept 10 following the announcement reuters.com, adding to the stock’s roughly 45% year-to-date climb. The rally also lifted other enterprise software stocks – for instance, German SAP rose ~2% on the news – as it was seen as a positive signal for cloud spending broadly reuters.com reuters.com. Oracle’s cloud business, which lags behind leaders Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, has been trying to differentiate with a focus on enterprise workloads and recently, AI partnerships. The eye-popping $500 billion figure suggests Oracle believes it can capture a much larger slice of the cloud pie in coming years, perhaps via AI-driven demand or strategic wins. While some analysts remain skeptical, the projection indicates Oracle’s confidence that its heavy investments in data centers and cloud services will pay off handsomely.

In related cloud news, Google announced a policy change in Europe to preempt new regulations. On Sept 10, Google said it is scrapping data egress fees for customers who move workloads across different cloud providers in the EU and UK reuters.com reuters.com. This comes just as the EU’s Data Act is about to take effect (on Sept 11), a law that aims to make it easier for users to switch between cloud platforms. Under the Act, cloud firms are required to lower barriers like excessive data transfer charges. Google went a step further – it eliminated certain data transfer fees entirely for multicloud customers, which it touted as exceeding the law’s requirements reuters.com reuters.com. Microsoft had already reduced EU data transfer charges to cost in August, and AWS allows some customers to request discounted rates reuters.com reuters.com. Google’s move is likely an attempt to attract enterprises operating in hybrid- or multi-cloud environments by removing a pain point (egress fees). European regulators have been scrutinizing the big three cloud providers for anti-competitive practices, and Britain’s antitrust agency specifically criticized Microsoft’s licensing rules in July for making it harder to use multiple clouds reuters.com. By proactively dropping fees, Google is positioning itself favorably with regulators and customers. For cloud buyers, it means more freedom to distribute workloads without incurring hefty penalties, potentially leading to more cloud interoperability in the EU market. This is a notable shift in an industry known for trying to “lock in” customers – and a sign that policy pressure is forcing big tech to play nicer in Europe’s cloud landscape.

Biotechnology: Novartis Drops $1.4 Billion on Heart Drug Startup

The biotech sector saw a major acquisition on Sept 9 as Switzerland’s Novartis AG agreed to buy Tourmaline Bio, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in New York. The all-cash deal – $48 per share, totaling about $1.4 billion – will give Novartis full control of Tourmaline’s experimental cardiovascular drug candidate reuters.com. Specifically, Tourmaline is developing pacibekitug, a novel therapy aimed at reducing systemic inflammation to treat atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (a leading cause of heart attacks and strokes) reuters.com. The drug is Phase III-ready, meaning it has shown promise in mid-stage trials and is prepared for large-scale efficacy testing reuters.com. Novartis’s purchase will secure this promising asset and fold Tourmaline’s team into Novartis’s existing cardiovascular R&D unit.

For Novartis, the acquisition bolsters its heart drug pipeline at a time when the pharma giant is doubling down on cardiovascular and immunology therapies. The company recently reorganized to focus on high-growth therapeutic areas, and Tourmaline’s lead compound complements Novartis’s portfolio (which includes drugs for cholesterol and heart failure). “With this deal, Novartis will acquire a Phase III–ready asset that will complement its existing cardiovascular disease portfolio,” the company said in a statement reuters.com. It’s Novartis’s fourth buyout this year targeting heart disease, underscoring its strategy of using bolt-on acquisitions to maintain a strong pipeline biospace.com. The transaction has been approved by both companies’ boards and is expected to close in Q4 2025, pending regulatory clearance reuters.com. Once completed, Tourmaline Bio will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Novartis reuters.com.

The Tourmaline deal also highlights a broader trend: big pharmaceutical companies are actively scouting biotech startups for innovative drugs, rather than developing everything in-house. This $1.4 billion exit rewards Tourmaline’s investors and provides Novartis a near-ready product without the time and risk of early research. Analysts noted that Novartis likely moved now to get ahead of competitors, as positive Phase II data for pacibekitug made Tourmaline an attractive target. If the drug’s Phase III trials succeed, Novartis could have a first-in-class therapy for inflammatory cardiovascular disease – a potential blockbuster in a huge patient population. For now, Novartis will focus on integrating Tourmaline and preparing that critical Phase III program, hopeful that this acquisition will pay off in the form of a lifesaving new treatment and a revenue boost in a few years.

Semiconductors & Hardware: Arm Debuts “Lumex” Chips for On-Device AI

Finally, in chip industry news, U.K.-based Arm Holdings (fresh off its 2023 IPO) unveiled a new generation of processor designs on Sept 10 aimed at powering the next wave of mobile devices. Codenamed “Lumex,” these latest blueprints are optimized for artificial intelligence tasks on smartphones, smartwatches and other gadgets reuters.com. Arm’s goal with Lumex is to enable phones and wearables to run advanced AI-driven features locally, without needing constant cloud access. “AI is becoming pretty fundamental to… real-time interactions [on devices],” explained Arm executive Chris Bergey, noting consumers now expect AI capabilities like intelligent voice assistants, translation, and image recognition to work even in offline or privacy-sensitive scenarios reuters.com. The Lumex designs come in four tiers, from power-efficient cores for wearables and IoT up to high-performance cores intended for flagship smartphones reuters.com. The top-end Lumex variant is designed to handle large AI models directly on-device, thanks to beefed-up neural processing horsepower and memory bandwidth reuters.com.

Technically, Lumex chips are built for cutting-edge manufacturing nodes (down to 3 nm), aligning with the processes used by the likes of TSMC for the newest smartphone chips reuters.com. In fact, Arm timed this launch alongside Apple’s event – Apple’s A19 chip announced on Sept 9 uses 3 nm tech, and Arm clearly aims for other phone makers (especially in China, where most non-Apple/Samsung vendors reside reuters.com) to adopt Lumex cores in their 2026 models. By offering more ready-made CPU designs and reference subsystem layouts, Arm is moving further along the value chain: instead of just providing basic core IP, it’s giving device manufacturers a fast-track to integrate AI-optimized silicon into products. This helps Arm tap into new revenue streams as it seeks growth beyond smartphones (which have plateaued in sales).

The announcement of Lumex in San Francisco (with a launch event in China following) shows Arm’s confidence in the on-device AI trend. From privacy considerations to reducing latency, there are strong incentives to run AI computations locally, and Arm is positioning its architecture as the go-to solution for that future. The company also hinted at broader ambitions – it’s investing more into possibly designing its own chips down the line reuters.com reuters.com, a move that would mark a shift from its pure-IP business model. In the near term, though, Lumex will enter a competitive market as rivals like Qualcomm and Apple develop their own AI silicon. Tech observers will be watching in 2026 and beyond to see which flagship devices adopt Arm’s Lumex designs and how they measure up in real-world AI performance. If successful, Lumex-powered phones could bring users slick new features (like on-the-fly language translation or enhanced AR) running entirely on the handset – no cloud required.

Sources: Official announcements and press releases; Reuters reuters.com reuters.com reuters.com reuters.com bleepingcomputer.com bleepingcomputer.com reuters.com ts2.tech reuters.com reuters.com reuters.com reuters.com; Associated Press broadbandbreakfast.com; BleepingComputer bleepingcomputer.com.