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Apple releases HomeView smart home hub with screen as showcase for Siri AI

The iPhone maker also announced the new Apple TV 4K and HomePod Mini.

Apple on Tuesday announced a new home hub called HomeView.

Apple said the device with a 7-inch screen was designed to be mounted on a wall or placed on a table. It’s designed for multiple people in a household, and will recognize the user by their face to display pertinent information. It starts at $299 and ships on Nov. 13.

Tuesday’s launch event is the second under new CEO John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook in September. Last month, Apple announced new models of its most important product, the iPhone, including a foldable model called the Duo that retails for nearly $2,000.

Apple also announced new Apple TV and HomePod hardware on Tuesday. The new Apple TV 4K costs $299 and has a redesigned remote that can play a sound if it is lost. Apple’s HomePod Mini speaker comes in new colors and costs $149, a slight increase over its previous $129 price.

The products announced Tuesday are less critical for Apple than the iPhone, and investors remain focused on iPhone sales, but the accessories were positioned on Tuesday as a showcase for the company’s new Siri abilities released last month.

Apple said that HomeView features Siri AI, which can answer a broad range of questions. Users will be able to converse with Siri, and their conversations will continue on their iPhone or iPad. It has a built-in speaker for playing music.

“It recognizes your face to shift from a household screen to your own experience, fills the room with incredible sound, keeps you connected to the people who matter most with FaceTime, and makes it easy to control your smart home,” Apple’s chief marketer Greg Joswiak said in a statement.

Apple said that HomeView will show information from the Messages, Photos, Calendar, and Reminders apps based on who is using the device, powered by Apple Intelligence. It can also be used to make FaceTime calls and as a digital photo frame. It’s equipped with an Apple A18 chip. It supports up to six users.

But while Apple has dabbled in home products and platforms in the past, Tuesday’s announcement shows Apple is making its home products a higher priority under Ternus.

Apple said on Tuesday that its new products, including HomeView, can be used as a smart home hub, coordinating notifications and actions in the home and working with a range of products, including new locks, doorbells, and cameras from LG Electronics and Schneider Electric.

Apple’s integration with the smart home is not just about sales but also helps further lock customers into its own ecosystem. People who use multiple Apple products and connections are less likely to switch to an Android phone.

HomeView can also become a smart home dashboard, Apple said. It can be used to view camera feeds, adjust the thermostat, or lock connected doors around the house.

Apple said that setting up a new smart home device takes one tap from the user’s iPhone.

Tuesday’s launch shows Apple’s confidence as it launches new product categories. But the broader consumer electronics industry has been dealing with price increases and demand deterioration related to component shortages in memory and storage. It also comes as new boss Ternus has reportedly pushed the company to release products faster.

Apple’s new Apple TV 4K got a price hike from $199 to $299, and comes after a similar price increase earlier this year, after Cook said that memory costs for Apple were unsustainable.

Technologies

Six Flags shares decline following deadly roller coaster incident

One person died and several others were injured in an incident involving the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, according to reports.

Shares of Six Flags Entertainment declined more than 16% Tuesday following a deadly roller coaster incident at one of its amusement parks in Georgia.

One person died and several others were injured Monday in an incident at Six Flags Over Georgia, according to a statement from Georgia’s Cobb County Board of Commissioners. The board’s chairwoman, Lisa N. Cupid, said that county authorities are working with Six Flags and other partners in the investigation.

According to reports citing local police, the incident occurred on the Atlanta-area park’s 200-foot-tall Goliath roller coaster shortly before 4 p.m. Monday. Riders were later seen being evacuated from the roller coaster after it stopped near the top of the ride, according to the report.

Witnesses told a local news station that they saw a man fall from the roller coaster and strike the ride several times.

In a statement to ABC News, a Six Flags spokesperson said it is cooperating fully with the investigation and had temporarily closed similar attractions across its parks.

Six Flags did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Tuesday’s decline is on pace to be the stock’s worst day since August and puts shares at their lowest level since December 2009. Shares have now fallen by more than 50% over the past year.

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Technologies

French supermarket fridges get hacked, heating to 122°F and sparking fires

Hackers targeted hundreds of French supermarkets in a large-scale cyberattack, causing refrigerators to overheat, spoiling food, and sparking fires.

Hackers targeted hundreds of French supermarkets in a cyberattack that reportedly caused refrigerators and freezers to overheat, spoiling food and sparking fires.

Fridges at French supermarket chains Carrefour, Monoprix, the Les Mousquetaires-owned Intermarché, and Coopérative U, among others, all saw fridges heat up to as much as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight, Reuters reported Monday.

Coopérative U’s CEO, Dominique Schelcher, confirmed that cyberattacks had affected “refrigeration production facilities of several stores.”

“Attacking equipment that is essential to the preservation of fresh products and the food supply of the French people is extremely serious and unprecedented. It is unacceptable,” Schelcher said in a LinkedIn post.

CNBC has reached out to Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarché, Coopérative U and E Leclerc for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Felix Aime, a senior cyberthreat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said the attack affected several European countries, including Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium, according to the Reuters article.

“I strongly condemn the cyberattack targeting food products at @intermarche @CooperativeU @Leclerc,” European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen said in a post on X on Monday.

“Food security requires more attention at all levels. Because the weaponization of food has become a reality.”

AI enhancing cyberattacks

Les Mousquetaires said it was expecting the damages, which affected around 180 stores, to reach “several million euros in losses,” in an email to CNBC.

It said some fresh and frozen food displays have been out of service after the cyberattack affected one of its service providers responsible for managing refrigeration systems inside some stores.

“Intermarché and Netto have taken all necessary precautions to remove and dispose of any affected products as quickly as possible, to ensure consumer safety,” the Les Mousquetaires spokesperson said. “In some stores, the overheating of equipment resulted in smoke, but no fires have been reported.”

They’re now awaiting findings from a court-appointed bailiff and insurance experts to get more precise figures on damages.

Stop & Shop parent Ahold Delhaize

This comes amid a broader wave of cyberattacks and cybercrimes, which experts are warning are being enhanced by artificial intelligence. British online fashion retailer Asos experienced a cybersecurity breach last week which revealed some customers’ personal information.

Meanwhile, a small power plant in the U.K. was shut down for four days in July after a cyberattack which was suspected to be linked to Iran.

Interpol’s global chief information security officer, Bjorn R. Watne, recently told CNBC that AI can be used to target multiple victims at once, and is increasing the scale and speed of cyberattacks. “It’s an evolution and not a revolution.”

Correction: Bjorn R. Watne is global chief information security officer at Interpol. An earlier version misspelled his name.

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Technologies

IMF sees milder global slowdown as AI boom offsets war hit — warns resilience is nearing limits

The IMF raised its 2026 global growth forecast to 3.1%, warning that resilience is tested by energy constraints and looming fiscal risks.

BANGKOK — The International Monetary Fund has raised its forecast for global growth this year as the AI-driven investment boom helps offset some of the impact from surging energy costs, while warning that economic resilience could be nearing its breaking point.

The IMF expects the global economy to grow at 3.1% in 2026, up from the 3% projected in July, but slower than the 3.5% rate last year. For 2027, it kept the forecast unchanged at 3.4%.

The UN agency expects inflation at 4.1% in 2027, above the 3.9% it projected in July – when it estimated the Strait of Hormuz would reopen by mid-July, with conditions broadly returning to pre-war levels by March 2027. For the current year, it maintained its 4.7% outlook.

“The global economy has been resilient, but that resilience is reaching its limits,” Silvana Tenreyro, economic counsellor and director at the IMF research department, told reporters Tuesday, urging policymakers to restore fiscal space and supply-chain security.

The IMF now estimates that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen in March next year and return to pre-war state by October. Gulf crude exports averaged 88% of pre-conflict levels in September as traffic picked up, the international body said.

The report was released at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok this week, where finance ministers and central bank governors from the fund’s 191 members are meeting to discuss geopolitical tensions, mounting public debt and artificial intelligence.

AI-related investment gave the global economy a “demand impulse” that helped activity in the first half of the year hold up better than expected, despite the Middle East war and trade tensions, the IMF said. Financial markets also stayed largely calm, which the fund said may partly reflect “AI-related exuberance.”

For now, “use of buffers and adaptability have helped economies weather the negative shocks,” the IMF said, citing measures such as diversifying fuel sources, tapping strategic reserves that have contained the energy-market turmoil unleashed by the Middle East war.

But that cushion is “rapidly narrowing” in the near term, it said. Global oil reserves are being drawn down by about 2.7 million barrels a day, nearing levels that could trigger sharp price moves, and energy constraints could impair the AI-led momentum. The growing unease over governments’ fiscal health also adds to the headwinds.

Tenreyro said monetary policy should remain “sufficiently restrictive” to return inflation to target in a timely way, and that central bank independence is critical as governments face mounting financing pressure.

Skewed growth

Overall growth is also becoming increasingly uneven. Thirty-two economies now account for 95% of global growth, down from 54 in April.

Countries that have limited exposure to the war-led supply shock and are catering to the AI-led demand are holding up or strengthening. Taiwan is forecast to grow 10.7% this year and South Korea 3.3%, up from 1.1% in 2025 on semiconductor demand. The U.S. is projected to expand 2.3% in both 2026 and 2027, supported by private consumption, fiscal policy and tech investment.

Energy importers outside that tech supply chain face higher import bills, weaker real incomes and less fiscal room. The euro zone is estimated to eke out just 1.1% growth this year amid higher energy costs and weak consumer confidence. The Middle East and Central Asia is projected to contract 0.3% this year, with Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar facing double-digit declines before double-digit rebounds in 2027.

China is forecast to grow 4.5% this year and 4.0% in 2027, with higher oil prices and structural headwinds weighing on activity. Second-quarter growth of 4.3% was weaker than expected as sluggish consumption and property strains outweighed robust exports.

India remains the fastest-growing major economy, with the IMF forecasting growth of 7.0% in both 2026 and 2027, upgrades of 0.6 percentage point and 0.3 percentage point from July, respectively, driven by robust domestic demand, services activity and AI-related investment.

“The global economy is not simply slowing or accelerating; rather, growth is being reallocated across countries according to their exposure to the war-induced supply shock and AI-related demand strength,” the IMF said.

AI-related risks

While AI has underpinned resilience, the investment boom is also adding to inflationary pressures and financial fragility, the IMF said.

“This is a large, front-loaded demand shock” that sees massive investment pouring into sectors such as semiconductors, data centers, and power generation, before any broad productivity gains have materialized, it said in the report.

A potential reassessment of AI-related profitability and productivity prospects could see excessive investment pull back and force a sharp correction in equities. The IMF warned that in a scenario where AI productivity gains fail to materialize, U.S. equities could fall 20% and global growth could end up 1.1% below its baseline estimates by 2028, with Asia 1.7% lower.

Fiscal constraints

Advanced-economy benchmark yields have climbed to multidecade highs as resurgent inflation, the expected path of policy rates and fiscal concerns push up borrowing costs, the IMF said. Technology firms borrowing to finance AI investment are adding to the pressure.

Public debt in advanced economies is projected to reach 115% of GDP by 2031, from 108% in 2025. In emerging and developing economies, it is forecast to climb to 84% from 74%. Primary deficits in the largest economies remain substantially larger than before the pandemic, and governments face higher real interest rates and shorter debt maturities as defense spending pressures mount.

Rebuilding fiscal space is “increasingly urgent,” it said, urging governments to keep support for households facing higher energy and food costs “temporary, targeted, and nondistortionary.”

Its models put the probability that global inflation exceeds 5% in 2027 at about 35%, up from 30% in April. Risks remain “tilted to the downside,” the fund said.

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