Huawei debuts triple-folding Mate XT smartphone

Asia In Brief Huawei has revealed an image of the Mate XT, the world’s first tri-folding smartphone – and that was apparently enough to spark over a million orders for the device.

The Android 15 smartphone’s display has two hinges, folds out to 10.1 inches at 2780 x 3200 resolution, and refreshes at 120Hz. Here’s the image Huawei has published:

The device is said to cost around $2,400 and pre-sales opened over the weekend, reportedly leading to over a million orders before anyone’s even seen the device in real life.

Indonesian military to establish formal cyber branch

Indonesia’s president last week ordered the creation of a fourth branch of the military dedicated to cyber warfare. Indonesia’s military already has a team dedicated to all things cyber, so the order effectively means that will be upgraded to the same status as the nation’s land, sea, and air forces.

It is unclear when the “Cyber Force” will commence operations – its exact mission and capabilities are also unknown.

Singapore, India, draw closer on datacenters, semiconductors

Singapore-based investment firm ST Telemedia last week announced it will spend $3.2 billion to expand its datacenter capacity in India by 550MW over the next five to six years.

STT’s local operation, STT GDC, and Indian partner Tata Communications already operate 28 datacenters across ten Indian cities, with a combined 318MW capacity.

STT Telemedia said the investment reflect its “confidence in India and the growth of its digital economy, as well as aligning with the burgeoning demand for digital infrastructure, driven by the surge in data consumption, cloud computing, digital transformation, and growing adoption of AI applications.”

News of the deal followed Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Singapore, which saw the two nations sign a memorandum of understanding regarding cooperation in the fields of semiconductors, digital technologies, skill development and healthcare.

The arrangement will see Singapore provide unspecified support to Indian chipmakers, while India will welcome Singaporean players.

Indian court threatens Wikipedia ban

The Delhi High Court last week threatened to block Wikipedia in India.

The threat came after newswire Asia News International (ANI) claimed some elements of its Wikipedia entry were defamatory, and as part of a defamation action asked Wikimedia Foundation – the site’s publisher – to identify the editors responsible for the text.

The Foundation declined, the matter returned to court, and a judge threatened to block the crowdsourced site.

Australian spy boss pulls out his big stick

The head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization last week said the his agency may soon use its powers to compel online platforms to let it access encrypted chats.

In a television interview director-general Mike Burgess said he has asked tech companies to respond to lawful requests.

“If they don’t cooperate, then there’s a private conversation I need to have with government about what we accept or what I need to do my job more effectively,” he suggested.

Burgess noted that he’s not had such conversations yet, but “It’s something I’m considering doing.”

Infosys starts onboarding long-suffering graduates

Indian tech services giant Infosys last week advised over 2,000 graduates it promised to hire as long as two years ago of their starting dates at the company.

Labor org the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate welcomed the move, and also shared correspondence between India’s central government and state authorities that called on the latter to investigate the matter. ®