• Apple is developing smart home locks with face recognition tech.
• This move aligns with Apple's growing interest in the home devices market.
• Apple's device would compete with Google's Nest and Amazon's Ring in home security.

Apple is reportedly working on bringing its facial recognition technology to home security.

The tech giant is developing a smart lock and doorbell that would allow residents to automatically open their home doors by scanning their faces, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

The report said that Apple's doorbell system could work with existing third-party locks or the company could partner with one lock provider to sell a complete product. The technology is still in the early stages and could be released at the end of 2025 at the earliest, the report said.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

The smart lock adds to Apple's growing interest in the home devices market. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on an artificial intelligence-powered, wall-mounted tablet. The iPad-like device could be voice-operated, serve as an intercom, and control home appliances. Earlier this year, Bloomberg also reported that the company is working on building home robots.

Not all these developments may come to life. This year, Apple scrapped its car project and stopped efforts to develop a subscription model for the iPhone.

The door device could give the company an opportunity for more cross-selling with its other home products and its existing lineup of devices, like the iPhone and Apple Watch.

It could also allow the iPhone maker to compete with Google's Nest and Amazon's Ring. These devices have doorbells with a motion sensor that activates the camera and records a video of the surrounding area.

Such a product could draw the company into new debates about balancing users' privacy rights and working with law enforcement. Through emergency requests, police departments have received videos from Ring without receiving consent from the owner.

Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, are known for prioritizing user privacy. In 2016, Cook refused to cooperate with the US government to unlock an iPhone used by a shooter in a mass shooting and attempted bombing in San Bernardino, California.

Family members of businessman killed in crash in Gramado

• China's internet isn't happy that "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" is due for release on Nintendo's store.
• It's a 2D platformer game with art and a title that resembles "Black Myth: Wukong."
• Immensely popular in China, the game has an ardent player base that is fiercely defending the title.

"Black Myth: Wukong," the high-profile video game that earned superstar status in China, has a new titular competitor on the market: a side-scrolling platformer in which the Monkey King bashes through monsters of ancient legend.

"Wukong Sun: Black Legend," published by Global Game Studio, is now listed for preorder on Nintendo's store for its Switch console — much to the chagrin of China's social media.

Posts deriding the Nintendo-listed game as a knock-off emerged on Monday morning and, within an hour, topped discussion rankings on Weibo, China's version of X, per data seen by Business Insider.

"Hey everyone, have you heard? The stunning 'Black Myth: Wukong' has actually been copied! This really makes you speechless," one user wrote.

"Since Nintendo has removed pirated games from its shelves, this should also be removed," wrote another.

Promotional art for the Nintendo-listed game, which is due for release on December 26 and retails at $7.99, bears a striking resemblance to that of "Black Myth: Wukong."

But the new title's gameplay looks nothing like that of "Black Myth: Wukong," a 3D action game with spruced-up visuals and a famed boss system that's difficult to overcome.

"Wukong Sun: Black Legend" appears to feature 2D sprites that approach from the right of the screen as the player navigates from the left.

"Black Myth: Wukong," produced by Chinese developer Game Science, is based on characters from the 1592 novel "Journey to the West," one of the most famous literary works in the region and a cornerstone of Chinese popular culture and mythology.

The term "Black Myth" in the game's title refers to it telling a story that is not included in the original novel, which has served as the base for a hit 1986 TV show and a plethora of books, games, and other media.

On its Nintendo store page, "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" also references the novel, saying it would allow players to "embark on an epic Journey to the West" and battle characters from its mythology.

Weibo users aren't having any of it.

"Well-known games have been plagued by imitations for a long time," wrote Pear Video, a popular internet news account. "Malicious developers exploit the names of well-known games, reskin various small games, and put them on the shelves of big game stores with similar titles, deceiving uninformed consumers to buy and download."

"I wonder how Nintendo will deal with it," a popular millennial gaming blogger wrote.

Nintendo operates a marketplace that allows developers to publish games for Nintendo consoles. The company did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by BI.

Global Game Studio is listed as both the developer and publisher of "Wukong Sun: Black Legend." According to Nintendo's website the developer has also produced a soccer game, an extreme sports biking game, a "Farming Harvester Simulator," and a zombie shooter.

The studio did not respond to a request for comment in an email sent by BI.

"Black Myth: Wukong" is considered China's first homegrown AAA video game success, selling over 20 million copies on the marketplace Steam, per the data tracker Video Game Insights. The game retails at about $59.99 per copy, putting total sales north of $1 billion.

Its release dominated China's internet this summer and has garnered an ardent cult following. Earlier this month, the title's failure to clinch the coveted "Game of the Year" award from The Games Awards sparked a wave of dissatisfaction on Chinese social media.

The polarization of the country has been in sharp focus for some time, especially the second half of the year. That polarization isn’t new: There’s been a brewing — some might say bubbling or even boiling — so-called culture war for years and it’s spewed far beyond the political realm to become a norm that marketers have to contend with for their brands. 

As consumers put brands’ advertising and marketing messages under a microscope, looking for any hint that a brand is making a statement one way or another in the culture war, in which everything is looked at through a political lens, marketers have to be keenly aware of how anything they put out in the world could be interpreted — or misinterpreted. It’s a consideration that marketers and agency execs are aware of with some more vigilant and more worried about potential backlash than others. Getting messaging right is more important than ever as consumers pay closer attention to brands and there is potential for backlash.

What do we mean by brands at the center of a culture war? Let’s recap some recent examples. Jaguar’s rebrand was dubbed “woke” by several publications and incurred ire from consumers that they were making a statement of some kind that their brand may not have intended. Volvo, meanwhile, was recently celebrated for what has been described as a “pro-family” ad with a spot that was typical bread-and-butter storytelling for the carmaker. Another ad from Apple was also dubbed as “pro-family” and celebrated. Again it was standard fare for advertisers.

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The fragmented social landscape continued to splinter in 2024, as traffic from social media platforms sent to publishers’ sites continued its steady decline this year.

The bright spot? Largely Google. Publishers saw increases in traffic from Google Discover — and Google Search’s generative AI feature hasn’t had a negative impact on the traffic to publishers’ sites.

Other than Facebook, social platforms like Instagram, Reddit and Threads are all driving marginal traffic to publishers’ sites, according to Chartbeat’s data from about 3,750 sites.

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As gaming takes a central role in the rise of transmedia content, a team of writers is using DC Comics superheroes to demonstrate the benefits of direct interplay between a TV series and a video game.

Last month, Digiday covered the launch of “DC Heroes United,” a cartoon series featuring classic DC characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The show, which kicked off on Nov. 20, allows fans to vote on the outcomes of the narrative by playing a parallel mobile game, which is itself part of the framing narrative of the series. It’s the most direct connection between a television series and video game yet — and thanks to the show’s use of popular DC characters, hundreds of thousands of viewers have already tuned in across streaming platforms such as Tubi and YouTube.

So far, five of the series’ 16 planned episodes have come out. After the release of the first two episodes, Digiday spoke to the creative team behind the series to learn more about how they factored gamers’ decisions and preferences into the series’ narrative in real time. This is the transmedia story of “DC Heroes United.”

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