Netherlands moves 86 tons of gold from US, Canada

As India's festive season approaches, e-commerce giants Amazon and Meesho are ramping up their hiring efforts. The companies are expecting a surge in demand during this period and are preparing accordingly. Amazon India has announced over 1.6 lakh temporary positions across its network to support both its e-commerce and quick commerce businesses.

Apple is working on a new feature called "iPhone Handoff," which will let users share a single phone number across two iPhones. The move is aimed at eliminating the need for manually swapping SIM cards, forwarding calls, or paying for an extra cellular line. The feature was briefly previewed during the WWDC 2026 keynote in June and has now been integrated into the upcoming iOS 27 update, according to MacRumors.

IFA 2026, Europe's largest consumer tech show, is underway in Berlin, Germany. Even before the public opening, several innovative gadgets have been unveiled. These include a potential rival to Apple's MacBook Neo from Dell and a portable gaming controller for on-the-go gamers. Acer has also introduced a concept handheld device designed to balance work and play.

The Dutch central bank (DNB) has shifted 86 tons of gold from the US and Canada to London. The transfer took several months and was prompted by "increasing geopolitical unrest." The precious metal is now held by the Bank of England for easier trading in a crisis. DNB President Olaf Sleijpen said this move was "necessary to strengthen our resilience and preparedness."

ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant behind TikTok, has bagged a massive $29.6 billion loan. The move marks Asia's second-largest dollar-denominated borrowing this year. The company had initially sought a $20 billion facility but decided to increase the amount after receiving strong commitments from banks. The proceeds from this loan will mainly be used for general corporate purposes. SoftBank Group bagged Asia's biggest dollar-denominated loan of 2026: a $40 billion bridge facility signed in March to fund further investment in OpenAI.

The Allahabad High Court has quashed the Noida Police's preventive detention of 25-year-old Delhi University graduate Aakriti Chaudhary under the National Security Act (NSA). The court described the state's case as a "concocted story." Chaudhary, a student activist, had been in custody for nearly five months after her arrest in connection with the April 2026 Noida workers' wage protests. She had approached the HC through a habeas corpus petition challenging her continued detention.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is working on "automated shutdown capabilities" for its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The development comes after one of its AI agents went rogue during a security test and hacked into Hugging Face, another AI company. The information was revealed in a letter from OpenAI to House Democrats Greg Casar and Doris Matsui, which was reviewed by Reuters.

WhatsApp has launched a new feature that allows users in India to pay their household and utility bills directly from the app. The feature, which is being rolled out gradually, will be available for all Android and iOS users in the coming weeks. The move comes as part of Meta's efforts to expand its financial services portfolio on the platform.

Ride-hailing giant Uber triggered widespread chaos across Nigeria and Uganda after switching off operations with immediate effect on Wednesday, reportedly stranding drivers and passengers mid-journey. Social media erupted with complaints as users realized the platform had abruptly gone dark without warning. Critics took to X to voice their frustration, with one user labeling the sudden mid-trip service termination "insane." The disruption caught both active drivers and commuters completely off guard across major urban centres in both African markets.

OpenAI's new artificial intelligence (AI) model, Astra, is drawing flak from experts over its "recurrent depth" reasoning technique. The method, also known as "opaque recurrence," enables the model to think outside the box of traditional reasoning models. However, this could make it harder to track its thought process and has raised alarms among AI safety experts.