Google Debuts First Googlebooks as Vivo, MediaTek and AI Developers Release New Products

The five Googlebooks use aluminum, magnesium alloy or carbon fiber chassis, start at 16 GB RAM, include fingerprint recognition and offer up to 14 hours of battery life. Each has a Glowbar LED strip that can show battery level and Gemini interaction status. Acer Googlebook 14 has a 14-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen, Intel Core Ultra 5 or 7 and a foldable tablet form. Asus Googlebook 14 uses Intel Core Ultra 5 or 7, a 14-inch 3K OLED touchscreen and a haptic touchpad. Dell XPS Googlebook has a Snapdragon X Elite and a 13-inch 2.5K touchscreen. HP Googlebook 14 uses Snapdragon X Elite and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen. Lenovo Googlebook 15 has a 15.3-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen, Dolby Atmos, face unlock and Intel Core Ultra 5. Google said the first five Googlebooks have NPU performance above 40 TOPS.

Googlebook OS combines Android technology with ChromeOS desktop experience and security architecture. It supports desktop Chrome with extensions and Android apps. It can link with Android phones, and its file system can browse files on an Android phone. Gemini features include shaking the pointer to call up Gemini and turning dictation into clear text. Antigravity lets developers create, test and deploy apps on the device. The system includes Google Titan hardware trust module and, for the first time in a laptop, a Level 5 certified pKVM hypervisor that can run Linux development tools. Googlebooks start at $899 and include 12 months of Google AI Pro with 5 TB cloud storage and Gemini Advanced, a year of GeForce Now, and three months of YouTube Premium and Adobe Photoshop. Googlebook OS is promised up to 10 years of feature updates. Preorders are open; US launch is Oct. 4, followed by the UK, Canada, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia on Oct. 5.

MediaTek's Dimensity CX C10 Max uses TSMC's 3 nm process and has an eight-core all-big CPU with one Cortex-X925 at up to 3.73 GHz, three Cortex-X4 and four Cortex-A720 cores, plus an 11-core Arm Immortalis-G925 GPU. It supports LPDDR5X-9600 memory, UFS 4.0 storage and MediaTek's eighth-generation NPU 890 with up to 55 TOPS. MediaTek said the power-efficiency design can support thinner fanless notebooks. The Imagiq 1090 ISP supports up to 32 MP cameras, HDR video and electronic image stabilization. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi 7 up to 7.3 Gbps and dual-engine Bluetooth 6.0. Display output supports a 4K 60 Hz internal screen and dual 4K external monitors. According to 9to5Google, the chip will debut in an upcoming Lenovo Googlebook.

Vivo on Sept. 21 launched the X500, X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max. The X500 uses a Dimensity 9600M, 12 GB RAM, a 6.59-inch screen and a 7,500 mAh battery, with three rear cameras including a 50 MP Zeiss main camera, a 64 MP Zeiss APO periscope telephoto and a 50 MP Zeiss ultra-wide. It supports 8K native Live photos and starts at 5,499 yuan for 256 GB. The X500 Pro uses a Dimensity 9600 Pro, 12 GB RAM, a 6.36-inch screen and a 6,510 mAh battery, with a 50 MP main camera, a 64 MP APO telephoto and a 50 MP ultra-wide. It natively supports 4K 240 fps slow motion, with OTA support up to 4K 960 fps, and starts at 6,499 yuan for 256 GB. The X500 Pro Max uses a Dimensity 9600 Pro, 12 GB or 16 GB RAM, a 6.85-inch screen and an 8,000 mAh battery. Its rear cameras include a 50 MP main camera, a 200 MP Zeiss APO telephoto and a 50 MP ultra-wide, with a multi-zone laser focus sensor. It starts at 6,999 yuan for 12 GB + 256 GB. Vivo also released its first clip-on earbuds, the Vivo Buds Clip, at 599 yuan, or 699 yuan for the wireless charging version, and the Vivo Watch 6 at 999 yuan and up.

SpaceXAI released the Grok 4.7 model on Sept. 21, focused on coding and professional knowledge work. It is available on Cursor, Grok Build, the Grok API and some third-party platforms. API pricing is $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, the same as Grok 4.6, with a faster version priced at double. The model uses a larger base model and reinforcement learning on harder, longer tasks, with improvements in long-context management, self-checking and sustained execution of complex tasks, as well as document and presentation creation. It also uses redesigned safeguards to improve jailbreak resistance and reduce false refusals on normal cybersecurity tasks, and some cybersecurity partners have been invited to conduct defensive research on its red-teaming capabilities.

Xiaomi released and open-sourced the Xiaomi MiMo-V2.6 series on Sept. 22, including the Pro and Flash native full-modality models. MiMo-V2.6-Pro scored 46 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, surpassing Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 Max to become the strongest open-source model, though it still trails the strongest closed-source models Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra. API pricing is unchanged from V2.5 and is one-twentieth to one-sixtieth of overseas models at the same intelligence level. MiMo-V2.6 combines 3D spatial reasoning, multimodal perception and computer operation, and can build 3D open-world games, perform Blender 3D modeling and KiCad work. Alibaba's Qwen open-sourced the Qwen-Image-2.1 image model, and Zhipu's ZCode was open-sourced with an announcement that rectification was completed.

Disney told UK Disney+ subscribers in a new user agreement that it can insert ads in all subscription tiers, at the beginning and end of programs, and does not guarantee the number or frequency of ads. Users see a prompt at login and must agree to the updated terms to continue watching. Kids mode remains free of commercial ads and sponsorships. Disney also warned that some promotional content may not be skippable and that ad blockers may prevent video playback entirely.

LG Display on Sept. 21 announced the first 24.5-inch 720 Hz gaming OLED panel, with a 0.02 ms response time. LG Display said the panel has the highest refresh rate and response speed among gaming OLED display panels. It uses LG Display's own driving algorithm to maintain stable high refresh rates at FHD resolution and reduce motion blur and ghosting in fast scenes. Asus ROG Swift OLED PG259QWS Ace is the first monitor to use it, and it has been selected as the official monitor for the 2026 PGL Counter-Strike 2 Singapore Major.

The Irish Data Protection Commission said on Sept. 21 that it fined Google's Irish company EUR 403 million for violating the EU's General Data Protection Regulation between May 2018 and February 2020 in its processing of location data generated by Web and App Activity, Location History and Android location accuracy. The regulator ordered Google to complete rectification within six months. Google responded that the historical policies involved had been updated since 2019. iFixit gave the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max a repairability score of 7 out of 10, the same as last year's iPhone 17 Pro series. Carl Pei, founder of Nothing, said on X on Sept. 21 that the company plans to spin off the CMF brand into an independent Indian company with majority ownership by Indian shareholders, headquartered in India with its team and R and D there; Nothing will retain a minority stake and continue as a partner. South Korean outlet Etnews reported that Samsung will cut QD LCD TV output by 80 percent this year and may gradually abandon quantum dot technology, shifting its focus to Mini LED and RGB Mini LED in higher-end markets.