Saudi Arabia is currently building the largest urban park in the world. At six square miles the King Salman Park, which should be completed around 2026, will be five times the size of New York's Central Park. The Visitor's Centre was erected last year. Designed by Adjaye Associates, the firm headed by Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye, the structure features rammed-earth walls precisely placed to create passive cooling. What really caught my eye is this handrail detail that I've never seen before:I poked around and found a couple other examples of recessed handrails (they're pretty rare). This is at Bloomberg's Hong Kong office, designed by Neri & Hu: And this is at a private residence in Toronto, designed by PLANT Architect Inc.: I prefer Adjaye's design over the other two. There's something decidedly unfriendly about the right angle corner the latter two designs present you with.

/May 30, 2025/4:28 p.m. ETTrump Attacks Harvard With Social Media Screening for All VisasThis pilot program will soon be expanded across the country.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThe Trump administration has begun carrying out its expanded vetting for student visa applicants, surveilling their social media accounts to make sure they aren’t posting anything in support of Palestine, which the administration considers antisemitic. This vetting will start with Harvard visa applicants but is expected to be adopted nationwide.Secretary of Stato Marco Rubio sent a cable to all U.S. embassies and consulates on Thursday ordering them to “conduct a complete screening of the online presence of any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose.” That would apply not just to students but also to faculty, staff, and researchers visiting the university.The Trump administration is taking particular interest in people who have their social media accounts on “private,” an obvious, ominous crossing of boundaries.The State Department has ordered officers to examine “whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to ‘private’ or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.”This is yet another instance of Harvard serving as a test subject for the administration’s larger crackdown on free speech and international students at American universities. Trump has already revoked billions of dollars in research funding from the Massachusetts school, and even banned it from admitting any international students at all, although the latter policy was temporarily revoked by a judge. Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:53 p.m. ETStephen Miller Grilled on Musk’s Drug Use as Wife Lands New GigTrump’s chief adviser seems desperate to avoid questions on Elon Musk. Does that have anything to do with his wife’s new job? Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesStephen Miller had a dismissive response Friday to new reports of Elon Musk’s drug use during Trump’s campaign last year. CNN’s Pamela Brown asked the far-right Trump adviser if there was “any drug testing or requests for him to drug test when he was in the White House given the fact that he was also a contractor with the government.”  A chuckling Miller ignored the question and said, “Fortunately for you and all of the friends at CNN, you’ll have the opportunity to ask Elon all the questions you want today yourself,” before he then segued into the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. “The drugs I’m concerned about are the drugs that are coming across the border from the criminal cartels that are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Miller said. Perhaps Miller laughed instead of answering because his wife, Katie Miller, has left her job as adviser and spokesperson for the Department of Government Efficiency to work full-time for Musk and his companies. Miller has probably had enough of Musk, as he has also been subtweeting the tech oligarch, trying to refute Musk’s criticisms that the Republican budget bill would raise the deficit. “The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs,” Miller said, in a long X post earlier this week. Is there bad blood between Miller and Musk that has now spiraled because Miller’s wife is working for the tech oligarch and fellow fascism enthusiast? Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:19 p.m. ETOld Man Trump Repeatedly Fumbles in Weird Speech Praising Elon MuskDonald Trump couldn’t keep some of his words straight as he marked the supposed end of Elon Musk’s tenure at the White House.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesHours after reports emerged Friday that Elon Musk had been under the influence of heavy drugs during his time advising the president, Musk and Donald Trump stumbled and fumbled their way through a White House press conference recognizing the end of the tech billionaire’s special government employee status.The wildly unusual joint conference featured Musk’s black eye, a giant gold key that Trump said he only gives to “very special people,” cringe-worthy regurgitations by Musk of Trump’s take on his Pulitzer Board defamation suit, and claims that Musk’s unpopular and controversial time in the White House was not quite over.But as Trump continued to praise Musk and his time atop the Department of Government Efficiency, the president’s verbal gaffes became more apparent. He claimed that DOGE had uncovered $42 million in wasteful spending, referring to expenditures related to Uganda, which Trump pronounced as “oo-ganda.” The 78-year-old also mentioned he would have Musk’s DOGE cuts “cauterized by Congress,” though he quickly corrected himself by saying they would be “affirmed by Congress,” instead. Trump’s on-camera slippage has gotten worse in recent weeks: Earlier this month, Trump dozed off while in a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That is despite the fact that the president received a clean bill of health in a medical report released in April that described Trump as being in “excellent health,” including neurological functioning.Musk, meanwhile, refused to acknowledge emerging reports of his alleged drug use. But the news of White House drug use under Trump’s helm is nothing new: In fact, if the reports prove true, it would be little more than a return to form. Last year, a report by the Department of Defense inspector general indicated that the West Wing operated more like a pill mill than the nation’s highest office. Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—like Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House Medical Unit, according to anonymous sources that spoke to Rolling Stone.While other presidents were known to take a mix of drug cocktails to fight off back pain (like JFK) or bad moods (like Nixon), no previous administrations matched the level of debauchery of Trump’s, whose in-office pharmacists unquestioningly handed out highly addictive substances to staffers who needed pick-me-ups or energy boosts—no doctor’s exam, referral, or prescription required.“It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever someone needs, we were going to fill this,” another source told Rolling Stone in March 2024.Meanwhile, pharmacists described an atmosphere of fear within the West Wing, claiming they would be “fired” if they spoke out or would receive negative work assignments if they didn’t hand pills over to staffers.Read more about the press conference:Trump and Elon Musk Have Ominous Warning About Future of DOGEMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:00 p.m. ETElon Musk Gives Strange Excuse for Massive Black EyeMusk showed up a press conference with Donald Trump sporting a noticeable shiner.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesElon Musk sported what looked like a black eye during his DOGE goodbye press conference with President Trump on Friday. When asked about it, he blamed the bruise on his 5-year-old son punching him in the face. “Mr. Musk … is your eye OK? What happened to your eye; I noticed there’s a bruise there?” one reporter finally asked near the end of the press conference.“Well, I wasn’t anywhere near France,” Musk said, in a weak attempt at a joke regarding footage of French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife slapping him in the face.“I was just horsing around with [my son] little X and said, ‘Go ’head and punch me in the face,’ and he did. Turns out even a 5-year-old punching you in the face actually does—”“That was X that did it? X could do it!” Trump chimed in. “If you knew X …”“I didn’t really feel much at the time; I guess it bruises up. But I was just messing around with the kids.”Musk chose an impeccable time to show up to a press conference with a black eye. Earlier in the day, The New York Times reported on Musk’s rampant drug use on and off the campaign trail, as the world’s richest man frequently mixed ketamine and psychedelics and kept a small box of pills, mostly containing Adderall. The shiner only adds to speculation around his personal habits.More on that Times report:Elon Musk Was on Crazy Combo of Drugs During Trump CampaignMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/2:51 p.m. ETTrump and Elon Musk Have Ominous Warning About Future of DOGEElon Musk’s time as a government employee has come to an end, but his time with Donald Trump has not.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesDespite the fanfare over Elon Musk’s supposed departure from the Department of Government Efficiency, Donald Trump says that the billionaire bureaucrat isn’t really going anywhere.“Many of the DOGE people are staying behind, so they’re not leaving. And Elon’s not really leaving. He’s gonna be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling. It’s his baby, and he’s gonna be doing a lot of things,” Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office Friday.The press conference was held to mark the end of Musk’s time as a so-called “special government employee,” a title that allowed him to bypass certain ethics requirements during his 134-day stint in Trump’s administration. The president made sure to give Musk a gaudy golden key—what it actually unlocks went totally unaddressed—to make sure he could get back into the White House. “This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” Musk said, promising that DOGE’s “influence” would “only grow stronger” over time.Earlier Friday, the billionaire bureaucrat shared a post on X asserting that the legacy of DOGE was more psychological than anything else. Surely, it will take longer than four months to forget the image of Musk running around with a chainsaw. Read more about Musk:Elon Musk Was on Crazy Combo of Drugs During Trump CampaignMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/1:21 p.m. ETDem Governor Vetoes Ban on Surprise Ambulance Bills in Shocking MoveThe bill had unanimous support in both chambers of the state legislature.Michael Ciaglo/Getty ImagesColorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis has vetoed a bill that would ban surprise billing by ambulance companies, over the unanimous objections of both chambers of the state legislature. Why would Polis veto a bill that’s popular with everyone, even Colorado Republicans? The governor wrote in his veto statement that drafting errors in the bill made it “unimplementable” and estimated that it would make insurance premiums go up by as much as $0.73 to $2.15 per person. “I am committed to working with proponents and sponsors to protect Coloradans from surprise bills, but I encourage all parties to work towards a more reasonable reimbursement rate that mitigates premium impacts and nets a better deal for Colorado families,” Polis wrote. In Colorado, if legislators in both chambers repass the bill with a two-thirds majority, they can override the governor’s veto, especially considering that the bill passed with the support of every single legislator. But the legislature adjourned on May 7, meaning that the bill has to be passed again when the legislature reconvenes in January.  For some reason, ending surprise ambulance billing nationally is not the slam-dunk issue it should be. Congress ended most surprise medical bills in 2020 but exempted ground ambulances from the bill. Was Polis’s veto due to badly drafted language and a (seemingly modest) price hike in insurance premiums, as he said, or was it for a different, more nefarious reason? We might not know unless and until the bill is reintroduced next year. More on surprise ambulance bills:Congress Doesn’t Care About Your Surprise Ambulance Bill Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/12:21 p.m. ETTrump’s Pardons Since Jan 6 Spree Show an Infuriatingly Corrupt TrendSince his January 6 pardon spree, Donald Trump has tended to grant clemency a little closer to home.Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty ImagesA good chunk of the white-collar criminals pardoned by Donald Trump after his massive “Day One” pardoning spree either have a political or financial tie to him.The president has issued 60 pardons since he offered political forgiveness to some 1,600 individuals charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But out of those subsequent 60 unrelated to the attack, 12 people—or roughly one in five—were already in Trump’s orbit, according to ABC News.They included several politicos, including former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on several counts of corruption, including for an attempt to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat after he left the position for the White House; former Republican Representative Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud; former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore, who allegedly stole public funds intended to commemorate a slain police officer; and former Tennessee state Senator Brian Kelsey, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud in 2022.Trump also pardoned major financiers of his presidential campaigns. Trevor Milton, the founder of the Nikola electric vehicle company, donated nearly $2 million toward Trump’s 2024 campaign. Imaad Zuberi, who has donated to both parties, issued “at least $800,000 to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party,” ABC reported.Others helped Trump advance his retribution campaign against his political enemies, or helped advance his own image in the broader Republican Party. Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, both former business partners of Hunter Biden, accused the younger Biden of leveraging his father’s name and influence in order to conduct business overseas. Archer had defrauded a Native American tribal entity, while Galanis was serving time for multiple offenses. Trump also forgave Todd and Julie Chrisley—reality TV stars known for their show Chrisley Knows Best who were sentenced to a combined 19 years on fraud and tax evasion charges—after their daughter Savannah Chrisley spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.Speaking to press Friday after her parents’ release, Savannah Chrisley said that the “biggest misconception right now is I either paid for a pardon or slept for a pardon—,” but she couldn’t finish her sentence before Todd interjected: “That’s something I would have done,” he said.Read who else Trump is thinking of pardoning:Trump Considering Pardons for Men Who Tried to Kill Gretchen WhitmerMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/12:04 p.m. ETTrump Knew He Was Deporting Innocent People to El Salvador All AlongMany of the people deported to El Salvador have no criminal record, and Donald Trump knew it.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesDonald Trump’s administration was well aware that many of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it shipped off to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador had no criminal records at all, according to a Friday report from ProPublica.  While Trump officials claimed that the deportees were brutal gang members and “the worst of the worst,” only 32 of the deportees had actually been convicted of crimes, and most of them were minor offenses such as traffic violations, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security reviewed by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, and a team of journalists from Venezuelan media outlets. One of the men, 23-year-old Maikol Gabriel López Lizano, faced a misdemeanor charge after he was arrested in 2023 for riding his bike and drinking a can of beer.Little more than half of the deportees, 130 of the 238, were charged only with violating U.S. immigration laws. Twenty of them had criminal records from other countries. The U.S. government data showed that 67 individuals had pending charges, with only six being for violent crimes. In several cases, the government data about the pending charges differed from what ProPublica was able to find. In some cases, the men had actually been convicted, and in one, the charges had been dropped. But in many cases, these individuals were remanded to a foreign prison before their criminal cases were ever resolved. The Trump administration has touted allegations of gang affiliation as a justification for denying the deportees their due process rights. But none of the men’s names appeared on a list of roughly 1,400 alleged Tren de Aragua members kept by the Venezuelan government, ProPublica reported. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan tried desperately in March to downplay reporting that many of these individuals did not have criminal records. “A lot of gang members don’t have criminal histories, just like a lot of terrorists in this world, they’re not in any terrorist databases, right?” Homan said on ABC News. But the methods the government relies on to classify individuals as gang members—such as identification of gang-affiliated tattoos—have been disproven by experts. Not only were many of the men who were deported not proven gang members, they weren’t even criminals, and by denying them the right to due process, they were remanded to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses without ever getting to prove it. Trump has continued to pressure the Supreme Court to allow him to sidestep due process as part of his massive deportation campaign, claiming that the judiciary has no right to intrude on matters of “foreign policy.” But immigrants residing on U.S. soil—who are clearly not the bloodthirsty criminals the administration insists they are—are still subject to protections under U.S. law. Read more about the deportations:Trump Asks Supreme Court to Help Him Deport People Wherever He WantsMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/11:41 a.m. ETJoni Ernst Stoops to Shocking Low When Told Medicaid Cuts Will KillSenator Joni Ernst had a disgusting answer when confronted by a constituent at her town hall about Trump’s budget bill.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesRepublican Senator Joni Ernst had a particularly unhinged response to questions from her constituents at a town hall in Parkersburg, Iowa, on Friday.Ernst was asked about the GOP’s budget bill kicking people off of Medicaid, and her condescending answer quickly became callous and flippant as the Iowa politician smirked at the audience.“When you are arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid, 1.4 million, they’re not eligible, so they will be coming off, so—” Ernst began, before an audience member shouted, “People are going to die!”“People are not—well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded, as the audience drowned her in loud protests.What was Ernst thinking with that answer? Almost every Republican town hall this year has gone badly for the politician holding it, thanks to President Trump upending the federal government, and Ernst surely knew that choosing death over Medicaid wouldn’t go over well with the crowd. Earlier this week in Nebraska, Representative Mike Flood was heckled after he admitted that he didn’t read the budget bill.Ersnt’s town hall wasn’t even the first one in Iowa to go badly for a Republican. On Wednesday, Representative Ashley Hinson was met with jeers and boos, with audience members in Decorah, Iowa calling her a fraud and a liar. But at least Hinson had the good sense not to seemingly embrace death over a vital, lifesaving government program. More on Trump’s bill:Here Are the Worst Things in Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/11:35 a.m. ETKetanji Brown Jackson Blasts “Botched” Supreme Court Ruling on TPSSupreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a scathing disssent, called out the rest of the court for allowing Trump’s harmful executive order to stand.Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesSupreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks the Supreme Court “botched” a decision to allow the Trump administration to revoke the Temporary Protected Status protections of about 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan immigrants.Jackson and fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor were the only two dissenters.“The Court has plainly botched this assessment today. It requires next to nothing from the Government with respect to irreparable harm,” Jackson wrote in the dissent. “And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives of and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”TPS is a long-standing program that allowed those 500,000 immigrants to stay in the U.S. after they fled violence and risk in their home countries. After the Supreme Court’s ruling, all of them are at high risk of sudden deportation. “It is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage,” Jackson wrote.Read the full dissent here.View More Posts

Menu Home News Hardware Gaming Mobile Finance Deals Reviews How To Wccftech MobileSoftware tvOS and watchOS To Receive Major Redesign At WWDC 2025 Featuring Transparent UI, visionOS-Inspired Elements, And A Unified Design Language Across Apple Platforms Ali Salman • May 25, 2025 at 09:10am EDT Screenshot Apple's WWDC event is mere days away and the company is gearing up to announce a plethora of front-facing features and changes. Even though the company has reached stagnancy when it comes to design and innovation, it will make certain changes that will break the spell. A new report claims that Apple's watchOS and tvOS operating systems for the Apple Watch and Apple TV will see a major redesign across various aspects, alongside iOS 19. Apple is preparing to transform tvOS and watchOS with modern visuals and seamless cross-platform design integration iOS 19 was previously slated to be a bigger update than anticipated, as the company is planning to redesign different aspects of the Home Screen. We have been hearing details on circular app icons and Apple Intelligence upgrades for the iPhone and it only goes on to show that the company is on a roll to offer more than users had expected. It appears that the company's ambitions are greater than what we previously perceived. Mark Gurman states in his latest Power On newsletter that watchOS 12 and tvOS 19 will also bring a handful of major visual design changes for the Apple TV and Apple Watch. Other than this, visionOS is also expected to get some minor touch-ups. Today's report is an indication that Apple is planning to redesign all of its software platforms for its entire product line. Apple has been working to unify the design aspects of the operating systems of its devices and the upcoming updates will add to the company's ambitions. We have previously reported that the company has taken design inspiration from visionOS with its glass-like transparent effects and we could possibly see the same change applied to the entire line of operating systems. Other than the transparent effects, we could also see changes to navigation hierarchies within apps, new icons, and a lot more. Apple's WWDC 2025 artwork also highlights the same transparent elements, which is a clever portrayal of what is coming in the next two weeks. While iOS, watchOS, and macOS have received their due share of visual overhauls in the past few years, tvOS has remained the same. This time around, the company is planning to change that by offering a handful of variations for an entirely new experience on the Apple TV. At this point, the tvOS user interface seems a bit outdated compared to the rest of the software updates and a design overhaul could elevate the user experience. If we are lucky, Apple could streamline the look of iOS and tvOS, but it remains to be seen if the company will take this route or keep the two versions apart. According to Gurman, the UI 'adjustments' will revolve around a design inspired by visionOS, which means that the transparent effects will come into play at WWDC for tvOS as well as the rest of the operating systems. Subscribe to get an everyday digest of the latest technology news in your inbox Follow us on Topics Sections Company Some posts on wccftech.com may contain affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com © 2025 WCCF TECH INC. 700 - 401 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Saudi Arabia’s (KSA’s) attempt to turn from one of the least to most developed data markets in the world has advanced with measures it and the US have taken to encourage investors to build artificial intelligence (AI) datacentres in the country. KSA came closer to finalising plans to treat foreign computer systems as “data embassies”, reassuring firms their customer data would be safely stored in the authoritarian Gulf monarchy. Meanwhile, the US scrapped export controls on its most advanced AI chips, which had threatened to stop KSA from ever realising its plan to become a global leader in AI. Those legal preparations bore fruit this week before either was actually enacted, when Nvidia, whose advanced AI chips are the subject of US export controls, said it had done a deal to ship 18,000 of them to the Saudi state-owned Public Investment Fund. The chips were the first stage in a plan to install “several hundred thousand” Nvidia Grace Blackwell AI chips in five years, consuming 500MW of energy. Political analysts and industry insiders said, before KSA’s plans unfurled this week, that its proposed Global AI Hub Law would allow KSA to get banned AI chips that both it and foreign firms would need to build AI systems in the country. The draft law offers to give foreign computer systems embassy status, so their operators answered only to the laws of their home nations. It would forbid the Saudi state from intruding. KSA concluded a public consultation on the law the day after an Investment Summit, at which US president Donald Trump and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud signed a broad economic partnership and presided over $600bn of trade deals, the White House said in a statement. They had done $300bn of deals when the conference opened, and aspired to $1tn, the prince told the conference on Tuesday. The deals encompassed defence, energy, tech and health. The audacity of KSA’s ambition was made apparent by data that in February, according to Computer Weekly analysis, showed how among 20 of the most notable data markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Saudi capital Riyadh had the second-least of all operational, planned and unfinished datacentres, above only Athens. With 125MW of computing capacity then planned in Riyadh, it was barely 5% of the forecast size of EMEA market leader London, and not 15% of the size of its rival and neighbour, the United Arab Emirates, according to numbers published by commercial estate agent Cushman & Wakefield. The largest datacentre investment deal apparent, among those announced at the Forum, was Saudi firm DataVolt, investing $20bn in the US. Read more about US and Saudi agreements On Monday, the US scrapped the AI Diffusion Rule, by which former president Joe Biden had blocked exports of powerful AI chips to all but a handful of countries because, US AI tzar David Sacks told the conference, it stopped US technology proliferating around the world and stifled strategic partners such as KSA, when it was supposed to hinder AI development in only a few countries. The US had decided instead to model AI policy on Silicon Valley’s software ecosystems, where firms became dominant by publishing application programming interfaces (APIs) that others could use to build on their technology. “They’re able to build these ecosystems without even having any lawyers involved,” said Sacks. “There’s no need for a contract. You just publish an API. In a similar way, the US needs to encourage the world to build on our tech stack. “President Trump said ‘the US has to win the AI race’. How do we win the AI race? We have to build the biggest partner ecosystem. We need our friends like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and other strategic partners and allies, to build on our tech. “We want our technology to spread,” he said. “We want people to use it. We want to become the standard.” KSA’s attempt, meanwhile, to encourage foreign firms to build AI datacentres in the country by allowing their home nations to retain sovereignty over their data was widely commended as a strategic masterstroke. “It’s still an immature market, but the opportunity is huge,” said Stephen Beard, a real estate deal-maker for Knight Frank in Dubai. KSA could be a top-seven datacentre market in a decade. His firm estimated US cloud computing firms had recently committed to $9bn of investment there by 2027. Knight Frank alone was handling $7bn of datacentre deals for firms attracted by the local market opportunity, in a country with 20% lower power costs than the UK, a large, growing population and a non-democratic government able to digitise rapidly without the inconvenience of parliamentary process. President Trump commended KSA’s ruling family for that in a speech in Riyadh this week. “The AI Hub law is optically a fantastic move,” said Beard. “It should go some way to appeasing investors’ concerns. But we are talking about Saudi Arabia. Who decides the law in Saudi Arabia? Any developer looks for a higher return because of the macro risks.” But computer firms would invest there to serve KSA. The idea of KSA becoming a “super-hub” was flawed. Munir Suboh, a lawyer at Taylor Wessing in Riyadh, said the law would give KSA an “unprecedented advantage” over other countries which hesitate to cede sovereignty over foreign facilities. Contrast Saudi Arabia's attempt to make life easier for foreign investors with Europe’s regulatory preoccupation with imposing safety standards. “Traditionally, cross-border data transfers require compliance with multiple data localisation regulations, especially in data-heavy industries,” said Oliver Subhedar, a commercial dispute lawyer with Burlingtons. KSA is seeking a comparative advantage over other states by regulating datacentres themselves.” KSA would slash the cost of risk and compliance for multinationals that ordinarily had to accommodate a host of different regulations around the world, said Jade Masri, managing director of investment advisory R Consultancy in Dubai. That would cut capital costs for investors. “Hyperscalers need this law to import data into KSA to run large language models and generate meaningful AI,” said Amrik Sangha, a consultant with Gateley in Dubai. But KSA needed to address the question of “grey” fibre optic cables that would carry foreign data transfers “without monitoring”, he said. Grey, or “dark”, cables are private, point-to-point communications lines not reliant on local connections. Notwithstanding the unexpected US U-turn, Juliana Rordorf, Middle East director for political consultancy Albright Stonebridge Group, said the law might influence the global debate about data localisation, as well as AI export controls. Neighbouring Bahrain has had a data embassy law since 2018, while UAE, whose datacentre market and planned construction dwarfs that of KSA, recently made bilateral data embassy agreements with France and Italy. Such a law has even been mooted as a way to encourage investors deterred by Europe’s onerous data protection rules, having been pioneered in Estonia, and aped in Monaco, as a means of securing government backup datacentres in Luxembourg, because they otherwise had nowhere to put them safely.

Over a billion people experience disability globally, and many are gamers. 30% of gamers in the U.S. identify as disabled, yet 66% say they face barriers or issues related to gaming.Fortunately, this situation is starting to change.From Tribe Games and Owlchemy Labs to Insomniac and Naughty Dog, studios of all sizes are creating more accessible gaming experiences. Today, 70% of allplayers use accessibility features built into games, whether they have a disability or not. Players want flexibility, and accessible game design can provide that.Owlchemy Labs, the studio behind titles like Job Simulator,Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, and, most recently, Cosmonious High, champions accessibility in VR. In June, they introduced Cosmonious High’s first accessibility update, with a range of updated gameplay options, including one-handed control mode, features to accommodate seated players, colorblindness enhancements, an immersive subtitling system, and more.Andrew Eiche (chief operating owl and cable slinger), Jazmin Cano (accessibility product manager), and Peter Galbraith (accessibility engineer) joined Unity’s Hasan Al Salman on Twitch to discuss the update.Read on to learn how this innovative studio built a culture of accessibility, get tips you can apply to your own games, or watch the full stream below.Their accessibility statement explains that, “At Owlchemy Labs, we believe deeply in making VR for everyone! Improving our accessibility helps us achieve that goal.” The studio has built a strong, accessibility-first culture that every Owl experiences from their first day of onboarding.“There’s a huge developer documentation page, which is fantastic. It has a fabulous guide on accessibility,” says Jazmin. “There are tools, learning resources, and examples of how Owlchemy approaches games with this thinking. From day one, it shows everyone at Owlchemy how important this is.”Conversations about accessibility at the studio aren’t relegated to specific Slack threads and channels, but are discussed openly everywhere. “It’s really important for everyone to see what’s going on in the industry and even just learn about it as we develop,” says Jazmin.Owlchemy Labs considers every gameplay element through the lens of universal design. Where possible, each feature is built to be used easily by anyone, without having to enable specific accessibility settings from a menu.“There’s a great saying that goes: ‘Design for one, extend to many,’” says Jazmin. “When you create something that’s accessible for one person, it’s likely going to benefit more people than you had in mind.”The team considers accessibility from the start and draws on learnings from previous projects, which makes it easier to implement or iterate on new gameplay features.“We do a lot to think about these things from the beginning as much as we can,” says Andrew. “We’re always improving and getting better, which is why we created the accessibility update. But having the thought process from the beginning makes the whole process significantly easier.”Accessibility options in Cosmonious High generally aren’t hidden in menus. To play in one-handed mode, you can just turn off your second controller and start playing.Peter Galbraith, the team’s accessibility engineer, shares how Owlchemy Labs adapted features like the Powers Menu, the way you select various VR superpowers, for one-handed mode. “Previously, you would have to tap the back of your hand and it would pull up a radial menu of your powers. With the new accessibility update, you can just double tap, and it opens up the menu so you’re good to go.”Players can grab objects telekinetically by gesturing towards them and pulling them with a flick of the wrist. “You don’t have to reopen your hand and get the exact timing when it hits right. It’s a really nice way to make you feel powerful, while making it easy to identify and grab what you want,” Peter says.One-handed mode obviously helps players who don’t have use of both hands, but it has subtle benefits for players who do.“When you design for one use case, you can actually end up solving for a lot of different situations,” says Jazmin. “You can play Cosmonious High while holding a drink, or a snack, or a pet. Maybe only one of your controller’s batteries is charged, so you only have one to play with. If we didn’t have this one-handed mode, in these situations, you just wouldn’t be able to play at all!“During the stream, one viewer asked what makes VR games inaccessible to players who use wheelchairs.“Imagine looking around your own room. All the things that are more than an arm’s length above your head – all of those are inaccessible,” says Andrew. “Imagine if you’re a person who is capable of leaning or moving in your chair, so literally all you can do is stick your arms out in front of you and move them. Those are the kind of things that we have to consider for wheelchair accessibility.”One-handed mode is one way to remove barriers for seated players, but Owlchemy Labs has also implemented other features to ensure players of all heights and abilities can explore the halls of Cosmonious High.For example, every surface in the game functions like a standing desk, with a handle you can adjust to change the height. Players can dynamically change their own height in-game using Small student mode, allowing them to reach areas they might not be able to reach through height sliders and other toggles.Cosmonious High has been praised for its distinctive, colorful visuals. However, Owlchemy Labs was careful to ensure the game remains completely accessible to players with different types of colorblindness.“We have these puzzles where players have to match up different crystals,” explains Peter. “Each has patterns and shapes in addition to colors. Blue triangles connect to blue triangles, yellow squares connect to yellow squares – that way no puzzle or feature is entirely reliant on color alone.”Owlchemy Labs uses Colorblind Effect from the Unity Asset Store to simulate what the scene would look like for players with the three most common types of color blindness. See the tool in action below.Owlchemy Labs has put a huge amount of work and research into the subtitling system for their games, which they believe is among the best in the industry for XR. Cosmonious High’s subtitles are embedded into the HUD, and feature the name, image, and pronouns of the speaker, as well as an arrow pointing in their direction that adjusts based on the player’s position.“The big thing is, unlike television or a 2D view where you can just pop things on the bottom of the screen, we don’t want players to be forced to look at a character when they’re playing,” says Andrew. “But we also want players to know where that character is, so that’s where that little arrow design comes from. We want everyone to have the same level of fidelity that players who hear in the game with the spatialized audio would have.”Owlchemy’s subtitling features ended up being useful for developers, too. “A lot of our developers play without the audio on because they want to listen to music – they just want to hit play, make sure that all the subtitle timings are lined up, and not hear the chaos,” says Andrew. “And now they can do that.”For more information on Owlchemy Labs’ subtitles, check out their talk, “Subtitles in XR: A Practical Framework.”Owlchemy Labs regularly conducts interviews and feedback sessions and performs user testing with the disability community. VR is a physical medium by nature, so in-person testing is ideal. “A player’s body, their range of motion, and their physicality are all important considerations,” says Peter.“In-person feedback is super valuable,” agrees Jazmin. “Not only do you get direct feedback, but you also get feedback through body language. If someone’s scratching their head, maybe they’re a little confused. There’s a lot of nonverbal feedback that you get from meeting with someone.”During the pandemic, Owlchemy Labs began conducting more player research remotely on video calls – now, they do a mix of both. Reaching out and building community online via channels like Discord means they’ve been able to reach even more players in the accessibility community.“There’s a really important saying in the accessibility community: ‘Nothing about us, without us,’” says Jazmin. “It’s important to respect that statement. Listening to people with disabilities provides feedback, and that’s a must. We have to have diverse voices for this work to actually work.”Closing out the stream, Owlchemy Labs offered advice on implementing accessibility features into your projects – and why you should consider it as part of your game design.Jazmin: “Whether you’re making a game right now, or you’re about to launch, or you’ve already launched, it’s never too late to add accessibility. Accessibility is a journey: There’s a lot to learn, a lot to explore and a lot to try out. It’s never too late! For example, Cosmonious High launched before our accessibility update. You can always do more.”Peter: “I echo exactly what Jazmin was saying: It’s never too late to add accessibility. It benefits everyone, not just the people that you assume to have accessibility needs. When you improve accessibility, you are improving your game not just for players with disabilities, but for every one of your players. And the sooner you start thinking about that, the more accessibility features you get to help everyone share virtual reality.”Andrew: “If, for some reason, you need one last bottom-line way of convincing the folks in your organization that accessibility matters, let me remind you that the entertainment market is a very crowded market: Finding a good niche is always a benefit to you. When you cater to a community and you show that you care, that community is going to respond in kind. It’s going to create a market for you, and it’s going to increase the amount of people that are capable of playing your games. But if you want to do it altruistically, which is where, hopefully, Owlchemy expresses itself – we think that it’s a really, really important goal.”Cosmonious High is available now on Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR. To learn how to make your own games accessible, check out our Unity Learn course, Practical Game Accessibility.

Menu Home News Hardware Gaming Mobile Finance Deals Reviews How To Wccftech Mobile Foxconn Pours $1.5 Billion Into India As Apple Quietly Prepares To Shift iPhone Production Away From China Amid Growing U.S. Tariff Pressures And Supply Chain Challenges Ali Salman • May 20, 2025 at 12:01am EDT Apple has been dealing with a tariff situation imposed by the Trump administration in recent days, and it has stirred up the company's supply chain to a greater degree. While the company is seeking amendments in the percentages, Chinese suppliers have taken the most hit with a massive 125 percent reciprocal tax. The U.S. government wants Apple to move production of its products to the United States, which is one of the reasons why a hefty tax was put in place. It is now being reported that the iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has invested a massive $1.5 billion into India to bolster production away from China. Apple is shifting iPhone production to India as Foxconn invests $1.5 billion amid rising tariffs on China Bloomberg reports that in order to move production away from China, the iPhone manufacturer has invested a whopping $1.5 billion in India. Foxconn has been actively expanding its production facilities for iPhone manufacturing, and the investment was seen in a stock exchange filing. In an attempt to move away from China, the supplier is also expanding its footprint in the United States. Apple is forced to move its production away from China with heavy import taxes right around the curb, and Foxconn's decision to move its production could be extremely important for what's to come. Even though the U.S. government has imposed a tax on imports from China, India also faces the same fate. However, the taxes on imports from India are far less than those of China, making it an emerging market for suppliers to step in and set a footing in the region. Apple has already begun iPhone manufacturing in India, with the company assembling over $22 billion worth of units in the region in the last 12 months. The number was 60 percent higher than the previous year, which only goes on to show that the company is heavily invested in increasing its presence on Indian soil. Foxconn is not the only manufacturer to have secured a spot in India, but Tata Electronics and Pegatron also operate their facilities in the region for iPhone manufacturing. By 2026, Apple aims to manufacture most of the iPhones in India that will be sold in the United States. However, the higher-end iPhone models that are slated to launch this year or the next are expected to be manufactured in China due to a more complex design. Moreover, China has the upper hand when it comes to manufacturing technology and Apple would not risk it for its 20th anniversary iPhone. It remains to be seen when Apple will completely ship away from China for iPhone manufacturing. Subscribe to get an everyday digest of the latest technology news in your inbox Follow us on Topics Sections Company Some posts on wccftech.com may contain affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com © 2025 WCCF TECH INC. 700 - 401 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman supports Trump's AI deals with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Sean Gallup/Getty Images 2025-05-18T16:09:34Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Trump struck some major AI tech deals on his Gulf tour this week. The deals have alarmed some lawmakers who worry the technology could fall into the wrong hands. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called those critics "naive." President Donald Trump went to the Gulf this week and struck some deals that AI companies in Silicon Valley are excited about.Lawmakers, on the other hand, are less excited.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called those critics "naive" in an X post on Saturday."This was an extremely smart thing for you all to do and i'm sorry naive people are giving you grief," Altman said on X, responding to David Sacks, Trump's AI czar and a former PayPal executive.In his own X post, Sacks said he was "genuinely perplexed" how anyone could see Trump's AI deals in the Gulf as anything but "hugely beneficial for the United States."Among the deals announced during Trump's tour was a partnership between chipmakers Nvidia, AMD, and Humain, a new Saudi AI company launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to bring billions in chips and hardware to the kingdom. Amazon Web Services also announced a $5 billion plan to build an "AI Zone" in Saudi Arabia. The UAE announced a new AI campus.OpenAI, too, is ramping up investment in the Middle East. The company this week announced plans for a new data center in the UAE. It may end up as one of the largest in the world, and is another sign that the tech industry is eyeing the region as a new AI hub.In Washington, however, these deals have drawn critics from both sides of the aisle who worry the emerging technology could end up in the wrong hands.During a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said the chip deal was "dangerous because we have no clarity on how the Saudis and Emiratis will prevent the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, the Chinese manufacturing establishment, from getting their hands on these chips."The Republican-led House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, meanwhile, said in a post on X that "Reports of new U.S. chip deals with Gulf nations — without a new chip rule in place — present a vulnerability for the CCP to exploit."The competition between the United States and China to dominate AI technologies has ramped up in recent years. The US has tightened export controls on advanced chips and manufacturing tools to curb China's progress, while also boosting domestic production. China, meanwhile, has accelerated investment in its own AI companies and sought suppliers outside the United States. Recommended video

The final episode of Saturday Night Live's 50th season began with a cold open featuring, what else, a sketch about Donald Trump. Cast member James Austin Johnson fired up his spot-on impression to recap Trump's recent trip to the Middle East. And the sketch hit the points you might expect. Most notably, it touched on the $400 million plane gifted by Qatar and Trump's seeming adoration of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The sketch is pretty funny and centers on how much Trump seemed to be enjoying himself during his trip away from the States. And we won't spoil the end, but it takes a turn you might not see coming before we get the "Live from New York..." Tim Marcin Associate Editor, Culture Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).

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Watching the behavior of our tech overlords has answered questions I’d never thought to ask. How do you NDA an army of baby mamas? Is there anything more embarrassing than impersonating Benson Boone? (Also, who is Benson Boone?) And now, the latest: how long after a sovereign ruler of a repressive state murders one of your columnists should you make a deal with him? The answer, it turns out, is a little over six years.In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a writer for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, was killed and dismembered with the approval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (better known as MBS) after Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His body has never been found. On May 13th, Bezos’ Amazon announced it would work with Humain, MBS’ AI company, to build an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia — and the two companies will spend more than $5 billion in the process.Saudi money is old news in the tech industry — the Public Investment Fund has sloshed into lots of startups, either directly or via intermediaries such as SoftBank. Morally bankrupt moneygrubbers such as Andreessen Horowitz have been wooing Saudi funds for a while. (Perhaps that’s the real reason they endorsed the Saudis’ preferred candidate?) This isn’t the first deal for Amazon, either. In March, Amazon pledged to invest $5 billion to build data centers in a country that’s scrambling to look futuristic. In 2024, Saudi Arabia said it wanted to build an AI-powered economy. There’s a fancy website for Project 2030, which I guess is meant to distract us from all the oil money. That date isn’t a coincidence — many projections say that’s when oil production will peak and then decline. Regardless of when the actual peak occurs, a global shift away from petroleum threatens Saudi Arabia’s wealth. That’s why the country is behaving like a dipshit startup.Take Neom, billed as the city of the future, vaporware at a previously unimagined scale that also served as a “key tool” for MBS to consolidate power, according to Ali Dogan, a researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. Khashoggi’s murder was a blow to the project, as luminaries such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz suspended their involvement. A number of companies publicly renounced Saudi money — at least, for a while. Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?Neom is moving down the entirely predictable vaporware path. It keeps getting delayed and downsized, which makes sense because it’s no longer the city of the future and a spectacular investment opportunity once it’s built — it’s just another city. But, according to Saudi officials, we won’t have to worry about that for another 50, or possibly 100, years. In the meantime, though, contracts! Investment! AI!Look, I don’t expect ethics out of Altman or any of his ilk. But for basic reasons of maintaining employee morale, I would hesitate to invest in a state that literally murdered one of my contractors. And didn’t merely murder him — but dismembered and then disappeared him. An opportunity the state had only because Khashoggi wanted to get married. Murder is bad enough, but every single detail makes it worse.Lately, it seems Bezos has been dismantling the Washington Post, one of the US’ premier journalistic institutions — putting British failure machine Will Lewis, known for his role in the UK phone-hacking scandal, in charge. Last year, the Post didn’t endorse a candidate in the US presidential race for the first time since 1960, resulting in more than 200,000 canceled subscriptions. Its stars have been fleeing in droves. (Ann Telnaes, who was driven to quit the Post after a cartoon making fun of Bezos was killed, recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her work. Oops!) Now, after all Bezos’ posturing about the free press, he’s cutting deals with people who murder journalists for saying inconvenient things. But maybe we should have seen that coming when he banned op-ed writers from opposing “free speech and the markets.” Does the freedom to assassinate count as one of the personal liberties Bezos claims to treasure?It’s all so spineless. I mean, we already know that MBS may have hacked Bezos’ phone, but I guess that’s water under the bridge. Or maybe not. Maybe MBS got something real good in that hack. Impossible to say whether this is motivated by kompromat or greed, I suppose. But whatever the motive, we know one thing: it takes five years for Bezos to go from posting his photo op with the headstone of a murdered reporter to making billion-dollar deals with his killer.See More: