Shocking Breaches, Bold Bets & Gadget Breakthroughs: Global Tech Roundup (Aug 18-19, 2025)

In the past 48 hours, the tech world has witnessed everything from major cybersecurity scares and big-ticket corporate bets to surprising gadget launches and record-breaking feats in electric vehicles. Below is a comprehensive roundup of the biggest global technology developments on August 18 and 19, 2025, spanning consumer devices, enterprise moves, cybersecurity incidents, telecom upheavals, software updates, and more.
New Gadgets and Consumer Tech Highlights
Smartphones & Devices: Tech enthusiasts got a teaser of Google’s upcoming Pixel 10 lineup, with Google releasing new promotional hints ahead of its August 20 launch event. The teasers suggest a heavy focus on advanced camera features and AI-powered photo tricks techradar.com. Meanwhile, Apple’s next flagship is already stirring buzz – “iPhone 17 Air” dummy unit photos leaked in Asia reveal an ultrathin design that “almost makes the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge look thick,” hinting Apple’s 2025 iPhone may set a new bar for slimness techradar.com. In India, Xiaomi’s sub-brand Redmi confirmed it will launch the Redmi 15 5G on August 19, packing a massive 7,000 mAh battery and a new Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 chip to deliver marathon endurance on a budget ndtv.com.
Wearables & Home Tech: Meta is gearing up for a second try at smart eyewear with a more practical pricing strategy. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Meta’s next-generation smart glasses with built-in displays are slated to debut in September at a starting price of around $800 – a significant drop from prior iterations – as Meta is willing to take thinner margins to encourage early adoption techradar.com. Over in the audio space, Samsung quietly launched the Galaxy Buds 3 FE earbuds, which bring premium Galaxy Buds 3 Pro features to a more affordable “Fan Edition.” The Buds 3 FE offer real-time language translation and boast the longest battery life of any Galaxy Buds to date techradar.com. Smart home aficionados also have new gear to anticipate: Philips Hue accidentally leaked details on four new smart light models coming soon, and Chinese TV maker Skyworth unveiled the world’s largest “Art TV” – a design-focused 4K TV that spans 100 inches, fully 15 inches larger than Samsung’s high-end Frame Pro model techradar.com.
Big Tech Bets and Enterprise Moves
SoftBank’s $2B Bet on Intel: In a major boost for a struggling chip titan, Intel secured a $2 billion lifeline from Japan’s SoftBank Group in exchange for an equity stake reuters.com reuters.com. The infusion, announced August 18, is seen as a vote of confidence in Intel’s turnaround plan as it battles financial losses and fierce competition. SoftBank will become one of Intel’s top investors but notably will not take a board seat or commit to chip purchases reuters.com. Industry analysts view the deal as a strategic win-win. “Intel’s dual role as designer and manufacturer uniquely positions it as potentially the best platform in the U.S. to compete with TSMC,” noted Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo, arguing the capital could help Intel rejuvenate its foundry ambitions reuters.com. Intel shares jumped ~5.6% in after-hours trading on the news, even as SoftBank’s stock dipped on investor caution reuters.com. The cash comes amid a broader SoftBank investment spree in 2025 (the firm also poured $30B into OpenAI earlier this year), underscoring SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son’s appetite for big tech bets.
E-commerce Giant Eyes Homecoming IPO: Fast-fashion juggernaut Shein is reportedly exploring a dramatic headquarters relocation to smooth the path for its long-awaited public offering. Sources told Bloomberg that Shein, currently based in Singapore, is considering moving its legal domicile back to mainland China to appease Chinese regulators and win approval for a planned IPO in Hong Kong reuters.com reuters.com. The company has struggled for years to go public – aborting past IPO attempts in New York and London – due to geopolitical tensions and Chinese authorities’ concerns. By re-rooting itself in China, Shein hopes to finally secure Beijing’s blessing for a Hong Kong listing. Discussions are preliminary and Shein declined comment, but investors are watching closely, as the move could value Shein in the tens of billions and mark one of 2025’s biggest retail tech listings reuters.com reuters.com.
Other Enterprise Updates: In Japan, Fujitsu announced a new partnership with Palantir’s Japanese unit to integrate big-data analytics into R&D, reflecting how enterprise software tie-ups are spanning borders (as seen in the Fujitsu-Palantir deal signed August 19). And in enterprise software news, Microsoft revealed upcoming price changes that could affect countless business customers. Redmond said that starting Nov. 1, it will “take the next step in standardizing pricing” for cloud-based products in volume licensing, aligning Enterprise Agreement pricing with the public online prices techradar.com techradar.com. In plain terms, many organizations that used to enjoy steep discounted rates for Microsoft 365, Dynamics, Azure, etc. may see those discounts shrink or disappear, potentially raising costs for midsize customers. Microsoft claims the move improves transparency across sales channels techradar.com techradar.com, but IT procurement managers are bracing for budget impacts once their next contract renewals come due.
Cybersecurity Shaken by Breaches and Crackdowns
It has been an especially turbulent 48 hours in cybersecurity, with multiple high-profile data breaches coming to light. On August 18, TechCrunch reported that a July cyberattack on insurance giant Allianz Life compromised personal records of over 1.1 million customers techcrunch.com. Hackers infiltrated a cloud-based customer database (hosted on Salesforce) and exfiltrated names, contact info, dates of birth and even some Social Security numbers techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. Allianz confirmed the breach affects the “majority” of its customers techcrunch.com. More troubling, this incident appears linked to a broader criminal campaign by a hacker crew known as “ShinyHunters.” The same group is believed to be behind recent data thefts at Workday, Google, Cisco, Qantas Airlines and others – all by exploiting Salesforce-hosted databases via clever social engineering of employees techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. In Workday’s case, the HR software provider admitted on Aug 18 that hackers stole contact data from a third-party database, likely for use in phishing scams techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. Google’s security team has attributed these attacks to ShinyHunters, warning that the group is preparing a leak site to publish stolen data and extort victims – a tactic mirroring ransomware gangs techcrunch.com techcrunch.com.
Meanwhile, law enforcement and industry players struck back against cybercriminals in a big way. A coordinated crackdown spanning multiple countries froze over $300 million worth of cryptocurrency tied to online scams techradar.com techradar.com. In one effort, a coalition that includes crypto firms Tether, Binance and TRM Labs helped track and lock up $250+ million in illicit crypto assets linked to romance scams and “pig butchering” fraud schemes techradar.com. “Freezing over $250 million in illicit assets in less than a year is a powerful testament to what’s possible when the industry comes together with a shared goal,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether, emphasizing the success of public-private collaboration techradar.com. Separately, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis announced that police operations in North America (dubbed Project Atlas and Operation Avalanche) uncovered another ~$74 million stolen in investment scams and froze “tens of millions” more in criminals’ funds techradar.com. While recovering crypto from scammers is notoriously difficult, these actions show that authorities and crypto companies are making headway by pooling expertise and aggressively tracing funds across the blockchain techradar.com techradar.com.
Telecom & Infrastructure Under Pressure
It’s been a rough week for telecom operators, with cyberattacks hitting providers on two continents. TPG Telecom, Australia’s second-largest internet service provider, disclosed on Aug 19 that an unknown intruder breached its systems and accessed a legacy database from its iiNet division reuters.com. The attackers made off with a list of about 280,000 customer email addresses and 20,000 landline numbers, plus roughly 10,000 records including names, street addresses and some account passwords reuters.com reuters.com. TPG said no identity documents or payment details were in the affected system, and it quickly cut off the unauthorized access after discovery over the weekend reuters.com reuters.com. Initial forensics suggest the breach began with stolen login credentials of a TPG employee, highlighting yet again the human element in security failures reuters.com. The company has brought in external cybersecurity experts and notified regulators as it continues to investigate reuters.com.
Across the globe in Europe, Colt Technology Services – a major UK-based telecom and IT connectivity provider – was struck by what appears to be a ransomware attack that disrupted services for several days techradar.com. Colt took portions of its network offline as a precaution after detecting a “cyber incident” on August 18, causing outages in its customer portal and voice API platforms techradar.com techradar.com. Though Colt has been tight-lipped publicly, cybercrime monitors observed a Dark Web forum post by a group calling itself “WarLock” claiming responsibility techradar.com. The WarLock hackers allege they stole “a million company documents” from Colt and even offered samples for sale for $200,000 on a crime forum techradar.com. Those claims remain unverified. Colt’s IT team worked through the weekend to restore systems, and the company emphasized that the breach was isolated from customer infrastructure. “We detected the cyber incident on an internal system… separate from our customers’ infrastructure. We took immediate protective measures to ensure the security of our customers, colleagues, and business, and we proactively notified the relevant authorities,” Colt informed clients in a status update techradar.com. The incident is an unwelcome reminder of the ransomware epidemic plaguing critical network providers; just last month, India’s Tata Communications also suffered a multi-day outage due to a similar attack.
Beyond cyber threats, infrastructure capacity emerged as a hot topic, especially around the power-hungry data centers underpinning the internet. An industry analysis by Reuters on Aug 18 highlighted how surging data center electricity demand is straining power grids in the U.S. and Europe reuters.com reuters.com. The U.S. Department of Energy now projects up to 20 GW of new data center load by 2030, with data centers potentially consuming as much as 12% of all U.S. power by 2028 (up from ~4% in 2023) reuters.com reuters.com. This exponential growth, driven largely by cloud computing and AI workloads, is causing significant interconnection delays as utilities scramble to build out capacity reuters.com. Microsoft’s VP of Energy, Bobby Hollis, noted that slow grid hookups in some regions are already influencing where tech giants expand next. “We are having to make geographic choices based on the fact that we need to move pretty quickly to deploy the infrastructure we need. If one location is moving significantly slower than another [in upgrading transmission], then we might have to go to another location,” Hollis told Reuters, underscoring the pragmatic decisions forced by grid constraints reuters.com. In Europe, regulators are introducing efficiency mandates for data centers to curb their energy appetite reuters.com. In the U.S., efforts are more fragmented: some utilities like Dominion Energy in Virginia are proposing special rates and incentives to handle the data center boom without overburdening local residents reuters.com reuters.com. The takeaway is that as digital infrastructure grows, it is running up against physical infrastructure limits, pushing the tech industry and power sector into an increasingly intertwined dance.
Software and Services Updates
Several notable software updates and digital service changes are on the radar. Microsoft’s pricing shake-up (detailed above in Enterprise Moves) isn’t the only change out of Redmond – the company also announced new security features rolling out in Microsoft Teams to combat phishing. An update is coming that will automatically warn or block users from clicking suspicious links and attachments in Teams chats, an effort to curb the rise of malware scams targeting corporate Teams users techradar.com. (This follows Microsoft’s broader push to integrate its Defender security into Office 365 apps).
On the consumer side, Windows 11 may finally be getting a true “dark mode” overhaul. Testers of the latest Windows 11 Insider build noticed that more legacy interface elements now properly support dark mode styling – leading outlets to predict that the next Windows 11 update will, at long last, deliver a consistent dark theme across the OS techradar.com techradar.com. Users have complained that Windows 11’s dark mode felt half-baked, as some dialogs and menus stayed blindingly bright. Microsoft appears to have heard the feedback; though it’s surprising it took until late 2025 to iron this out, the forthcoming update should please night-owl PC users. On the Apple side, iPhone owners received iOS 26 beta 6, which testers report adds a collection of fresh ringtones and makes apps launch noticeably snappier – minor tweaks as Apple polishes its mobile OS ahead of the iPhone 17 launch techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. And for multimedia enthusiasts, Plex (the popular media server app) urgently pushed a patch to fix a mysterious security vulnerability. Plex sent an email alert telling users a potentially serious bug was reported in versions 1.41.7 to 1.42.0 of Plex Media Server, and users should update immediately techradar.com techradar.com. The company didn’t disclose details of the flaw or assign a CVE, but implied it could allow unauthorized access if left unpatched. Thanks to a bug bounty submission, Plex was able to “address the issue, release an updated version… and [urge] everyone [to] update… as soon as possible,” the company wrote in its notice techradar.com techradar.com. In short: check your software updates, whether you’re running enterprise cloud services or a media server at home.
Green Tech and EV Milestones
Amid the flurry of enterprise and security news, the past two days also delivered inspiring developments in clean tech and automotive innovation. Electric vehicles have shattered a pair of world records, signaling rapid improvements in battery range and charging. In one feat, a team of hypermiling drivers in a Polestar 3 SUV managed to squeeze out 581.3 miles on a single charge, earning a Guinness World Record for EV single-charge range semafor.com. The drivers employed extreme efficiency techniques on flat roads to push the Polestar far beyond its normal range, highlighting how far EV endurance has come. Meanwhile in China, an XPeng P7 sedan set a 24-hour distance record by covering 2,461 miles in a single day semafor.com. By driving and fast-charging nearly non-stop, the XPeng barely edged out a previous record (held by a prototype from China’s Xiaomi). These achievements help chip away at “range anxiety” concerns and showcase the strides in EV technology. Indeed, consumers are taking notice – global EV sales for January-July 2025 reached 10.7 million units, up 27% year-over-year semafor.com. With more drivers trusting EV capabilities, automakers are racing to one-up each other in range and performance. Analysts say innovations in battery chemistry and power management are arriving at a blistering pace, and these record-breaking runs provide a tangible peek at what next-gen electric cars can do in the real world.
From massive data breaches and billion-dollar deals to cutting-edge gadgets and green tech breakthroughs, the start of this week has underscored the tech sector’s dynamic, sometimes tumultuous nature. As we move further into the latter half of 2025, one thing is clear: there’s never a dull moment in technology – and staying informed is as critical as ever.
Sources:
- TechRadar, August 2025 News Archive techradar.com techradar.com techradar.com
- NDTV Gadgets360 – Rohan Pal, Redmi 15 5G Launch Details ndtv.com
- TechRadar – Hamish Hector, Meta Smart Glasses Price Leak techradar.com
- TechRadar – Becky Scarrott, Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 FE Launch techradar.com
- Reuters – Max A. Cherney et al., Intel Gets $2B Investment from SoftBank reuters.com reuters.com
- Reuters – Ananya Palyekar, Shein Considers China Move for HK IPO reuters.com reuters.com
- TechCrunch – Zack Whittaker, Allianz Life Breach Hits 1.1M Customers techcrunch.com techcrunch.com
- TechCrunch – Zack Whittaker, Workday Confirms Hack via Salesforce Database techcrunch.com techcrunch.com
- TechRadar – Sead Fadilpašić, $300M in Stolen Crypto Frozen in Crackdown techradar.com techradar.com
- Reuters – Sneha Kumar, Australia’s TPG Telecom Cyber Incident reuters.com reuters.com
- TechRadar – Sead Fadilpašić, Colt Faces Ransomware Outage techradar.com techradar.com
- Reuters – Juliana Ennes, Data Centers Strain Power Grids reuters.com reuters.com
- TechRadar – Craig Hale, Microsoft Alters Enterprise Pricing techradar.com techradar.com
- TechRadar – Darren Allan, Windows 11 Dark Mode Improvements techradar.com
- TechRadar – Sead Fadilpašić, Plex Urgent Security Patch Warning techradar.com techradar.com
- Semafor – Prashant Rao, EVs Break Range and Endurance Records semafor.com semafor.com