MANILA, Philippines, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Globe Telecom, the Philippines’ leading mobile operator, has become the first in Southeast Asia, and the second in Asia, to offer Starlink’s groundbreaking Direct‑to‑Cell (DTC) satellite service. Joining a growing group of countries worldwide, Globe’s partnership with Starlink marks a historic milestone in global connectivity.

Using satellite technology, Filipinos using standard LTE mobile phones will be able to access data, voice, and messaging services directly via satellite, requiring nothing more than a clear view of the sky. This breakthrough eliminates the need for specialized devices and extends mobile reach to areas where terrestrial coverage is limited or impossible to deploy, critical in an archipelagic nation of more than 7,600 islands.

Leveraging Starlink’s constellation of over 650 low‑Earth orbit satellites, Globe is addressing one of the world’s most pressing challenges, bridging connectivity gaps in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas. The service will also play a vital role in disaster resilience, ensuring uninterrupted communication for citizens and first responders during extreme weather events and natural disasters.

“This partnership with Starlink marks a historic step in our mission to build a digitally inclusive nation,” said Carl Cruz, President and CEO of Globe Telecom. “Today, connectivity is a lifeline, a modern‑day utility that fuels opportunity and economic progress. By extending mobile reach through satellite technology, we are ensuring that every Filipino, whether in bustling cities or remote barangays, has access to essential communication.”

Starlink’s Direct‑to‑Cell service, developed by SpaceX, acts as a “cell tower in space,” seamlessly integrating with terrestrial networks and enabling global roaming‑like connectivity. Already connecting hundreds of millions of customers, Starlink has proven indispensable in emergencies, delivering millions of SMS messages and wireless emergency alerts when ground networks fail.

With Globe as its partner in the Philippines, Starlink’s DTC service will empower households, businesses, and communities with reliable, consistent connectivity. This collaboration underscores Globe’s vision of a more connected, resilient, and inclusive digital future, not just for the Philippines, but as part of a broader global movement to make universal connectivity a reality.

–    In partnership with Taiwan’s leading e-commerce platform, Yahoo Shopping, Playio is launching a large-scale Lunar New Year campaign that brings gaming and shopping together

–    Take part in the mini-game “Treasure Match” to instantly receive NT$100 discount coupons and LINE POINTS

–    Prizes totaling up to NT$158,000 are available, along with limited daily NT$100 discount coupons in the Playio app

SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Playio, a mobile gaming rewards app, has partnered with Taiwan’s leading e-commerce platform, Yahoo Shopping, to roll out a large-scale Lunar New Year Rewards Festival. The campaign brings together interactive gameplay and practical shopping benefits, creating a new and engaging experience for users during the Lunar New Year.

The campaign centers around “Treasure Match,” an easy-to-play mini-game designed for users of all backgrounds. From the 2nd of this month through the 1st of next month, users who visit the Yahoo Shopping event page and take part in the game can receive a range of rewards available for immediate use, including an NT$100 Yahoo Shopping discount coupon, 600 Playio Coins for new users, and 3,000 Playio Gems for existing users.

Aimed at Taiwan’s MZ generation, the campaign taps into the growing adoption of app-based reward services. New Playio users who earn 600 Coins can immediately exchange them for 10 LINE POINTS, one of Taiwan’s most popular digital reward currencies, helping drive strong user interest and engagement.

The campaign will also feature a lucky draw event with total prizes worth up to NT$60,000. Participants will be selected to receive a variety of rewards, such as a 9,999 OPENPOINT voucher, a limited-edition 20th Anniversary Mahjong Set from Mahjong-Ming Xing San Que Yi, ATUNAS trekking poles, Cold Stone ice cream vouchers, and 100,000 Playio Coins.

Playio app users can also enjoy exclusive bonus benefits. From the 12th to the 21st of this month, NT$100 Yahoo Shopping discount coupons will be distributed through the Playio app each morning at 10:00 a.m., with 800 coupons available daily on a first-come, first-served basis.

A Playio representative commented,

“By partnering with Taiwan’s leading e-commerce platform Yahoo Shopping, we hope to offer users a Lunar New Year experience that blends enjoyable gameplay with practical rewards they can use in their daily lives. Going forward, Playio will continue to develop unique collaboration models that deliver greater value to our users.”

For more information about the campaign, please visit the Playio app or the official Yahoo Shopping website.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Dilhan C. Fernando, Chairman of Dilmah Tea explains the danger of 2026 being the toughest year is not only to growers; this sounds dramatic, but the danger is genuinely to humanity.

Discount culture fuels an accelerating emphasis on cheap produce, forcing growers to become unethical, unsustainable or give up. Discounts blind consumers to true value, the welfare of workers, shifting attention to price, manipulated perception of price, opaque value chains, normalisation of cheapness and ultimately a discount fuelled disconnect from ethics. Even at the cost of their own health. It’s a race to the bottom for growers but it continues, growing in pace as it delivers profit to those that drive it; at unimaginable cost, because that race threatens to compromise everything we value and need more now than ever, from biodiversity and fertile soils to food safety and security.

Climate change and inequality are amongst the most severe threats to human existence. Solutions to both have been evident for decades, but they come at a cost. They include agricultural innovation, strengthening rural economies, addressing the gender balance, health, welfare, reproductive health, education, nutrition, housing and the host of linked truths that feature in the routine vilification of producers. For growers, there is tragic irony in all this; the world needs good, nutritious and healthy food and beverage, yet we are trapped in a tightening vice of discount driven commodity pricing, making that dream more challenging year on year. More tragic is the knowledge that it’s not because the money we need to make agriculture sustainable isn’t there, it just goes to the wrong pockets.

As growers, our produce is our passion and a livelihood for millions; we cannot compromise either, yet daily we suffer demand for cheaper teas as an unavoidable part of the journey from harvest to consumers. The result is that poor to mediocre teas proliferate by design, finding favour among buyers motivated by profit in preference to quality. Their sales performance is often strong for a while – powered as they are by packaging worth more than their contents and marketing funded by compromise. In the long term though, it signals the disintegration of the tea category.

The dysfunction is systemic and consumers are unwitting participants. The dangerous reality is harming our precious produce and worse, stimulating some of the greatest risks to humanity – climate extremes, worsening inequality, compromised food security, water and air quality.

And what of tea producers who don’t have that ability at all because they cannot earn a fair price for produce? Neither tea industry nor Sri Lanka can genuinely afford the adaptation we need to make to continue to offer the world the healthy herb. This is the context of our Grower’s Story. It echoes in every agricultural sector sustaining an existential threat that begins with tea, but quickly expands to include humanity.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2L1wKyBLhc

A  Demonstration of Humanoid Robotics Operating at Scale in a Live Cultural Setting

SHANGHAI, Feb. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — AGIBOT, a leading robotics company specializing in embodied intelligence, today hosted AGIBOT NIGHT, a robot-led gala show streaming on February 8. The 60-minute program marks the world’s first large-scale live event fully led by humanoid robots, where humanoid robots took center stage to perform dance, magic, comedy, and music, appearing not as tools or supporting elements, but as the primary performers throughout the show.

“AGIBOT NIGHT goes beyond a conventional product showcase and marks a milestone for humanoid robotics, demonstrating how embodied intelligence is moving from laboratory experimentation into real-world social and cultural settings,” said Qiu Heng, Chief Marketing Officer of AGIBOT. “By sustaining complex, high-intensity performances, this event serves as a real-world test of stability, consistency, and system-level coordination across multiple robots operating simultaneously. This also represents an early step toward the human–robot symbiosis we envision.

On-Stage Performances Demonstrating Advanced Motion and Coordination
Throughout the gala, AGIBOT humanoid robots delivered a series of visually striking stage performances that tested the limits of dynamic motion and coordination. The show featured high-difficulty movements including flips, rapid turns, synchronized group dances, and runway-style performances, all executed with fluidity and balance. Large groups of robots performed in tightly coordinated formations, maintaining precise timing and motion consistency while transitioning seamlessly between different performance segments, highlighting advanced locomotion control and stability under continuous operation.

Beyond robot-only performances, AGIBOT NIGHT also explored collaborative scenarios between humans and robots, as well as multi-robot interaction. In several segments, human performers danced alongside AGIBOT G2 humanoid robots and AGIBOT D1 quadruped robots in coordinated group routines, demonstrating real-time alignment between human movement and robotic motion. Other acts included card magic performed jointly by robots and human magicians, classic floating illusion performances executed entirely by robots, and comedic skits involving multiple humanoid robots interacting on stage, illustrating increasingly natural timing, role coordination, and expressive behavior.

The gala also featured a series of co-branded showcase segments, where AGIBOT humanoid robots appeared on stage alongside well-known consumer and lifestyle brands. Through these joint performances and presentations, AGIBOT NIGHT demonstrated how humanoid robots can integrate into diverse commercial and cultural contexts, extending their presence beyond industrial and technical environments into everyday consumer-facing scenarios.

From Technical Validation to Scalable Commercial Deployment
The robots appearing on stage during AGIBOT NIGHT represented AGIBOT’s full-spectrum humanoid robotics portfolio, demonstrating AGIBOT’s ability to deploy embodied intelligence across diverse real-world scenarios. The full-sized A2 Series humanoids handled multimodal interaction and autonomous navigation for presentations and showrooms; the compact half-sized X2 Series delivered natural conversation, human-like walking, and expressive movements ideal for entertainment, research, and education; the industrial G2 Series combined interactive AI with precise force-controlled manipulation for fast deployment in factories and logistics; while the D1 Series quadrupeds demonstrated reliable mobility and task execution in complex inspection and operational environments.

Rather than emphasizing individual technical breakthroughs, AGIBOT NIGHT highlighted large-scale consistency and stability across multiple robot types operating simultaneously. As of the end of 2025, AGIBOT has delivered more than 5,000 humanoid robots worldwide. The level of coordination and reliability demonstrated during the live performance reflects the AGIBOT’s growing commercial maturity across manufacturing, supply-chain integration, and system-level deployment, key indicators that humanoid robotics is moving beyond limited trials toward repeatable, scalable delivery.

More importantly, the event was staged during the Chinese Spring Festival, a period centered on family, emotion, and social connection, placing humanoid robots within a culturally meaningful and emotionally resonant context. By integrating robots into music, comedy, and interactive performances, AGIBOT NIGHT explored the potential transition of humanoid robots from purely productive tools to participants in shared social experiences. This cultural framing offers a perspective on human–robot coexistence that extends beyond industrial automation, pointing toward a future in which humanoid robots increasingly engage with everyday human life.

For more information, please visit AGIBOT at AGIBOT.com and follow AGIBOT on:
https://www.facebook.com/AGIBOT.zhiyuan
https://x.com/AGIBOT_zhiyuan
https://www.instagram.com/AGIBOT
https://www.youtube.com/@AGIBOT-robot 

About AGIBOT

AGIBOT is dedicated to driving innovation through the integration of Al and robotics, creating world-leading general-purpose embodied robot products and an application ecosystem. Built on the foundation of the robotic body and powered by the fusion of interaction, manipulation, and locomotion intelligence — “1 Robotic Body + 3 Intelligence” — AGIBOT is a leading robotics company in the industry to deliver a complete product portfolio and deploy across all major application scenarios. According to industry analysts, AGIBOT ranked No.1 globally in humanoid robot shipments in 2025.

SYDNEY, Feb. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — UQPAY Australia (UQPAY AU) today announced the launch of a commercial-grade, custodial, and compliant stablecoin acquiring platform designed to support both traditional merchant payments and AI-initiated autonomous transactions.

UQPAY’s solution is fully compatible with the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and natively supports the x402 payment protocol (an AI-native payment standard). It delivers a production-ready payment infrastructure that integrates on-chain acquiring, enterprise-grade custody, fiat settlement, and AI-native payment execution within a single governed system. The platform supports multiple regulated stablecoins, including USDC, USDT, and XUSD, enabling businesses to deploy stablecoin payments at commercial scale while meeting institutional compliance requirements.

This launch reflects a broader shift from blockchain-native payment instruments to enterprise-ready commercial infrastructure capable of supporting real-world commerce and emerging AI-driven transaction models.

From Payment Gateway to Payment Core: Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

While stablecoin payment solutions have proliferated in recent years, most remain fragmented, narrowly scoped, or limited to experimental use cases. What has remained scarce is a unified payment core capable of supporting real-world commercial scale, governance, and automation.

Rather than simply adding stablecoin acceptance as another feature, UQPAY AU rebuilt the underlying acquiring logic around a unified commerce architecture. Within UQPAY’s payment stack, UCP is implemented to coordinate transaction execution, fund governance, and settlement across both human- and machine-initiated payment flows.

At the platform level, UCP coordinates:

• Enterprise-grade custodial account and fund management
• Full lifecycle visibility of on-chain transaction states
• Automated clearing and settlement between stablecoins and fiat currencies
• Tight coupling between payment execution and merchant fulfillment logic
• Native payment support for AI agents and automated systems

Built on UCP, UQPAY AU’s stablecoin acquiring system is designed for durability, scalability, and operational control.

Dual-Track Payment Architecture with Unified Governance

UQPAY AU operates two parallel stablecoin payment rails governed by a single commercial and compliance core through UCP, allowing merchants and platforms to support both conventional and autonomous payment scenarios through one integration.

Traditional Stablecoin Payment Gateway Designed for cross-border e-commerce, digital platforms, subscriptions, and content services, this gateway supports API-based and embedded checkout integrations, automated settlement from stablecoins to fiat custodial accounts, and end-to-end compliance with KYC, AML, and auditability requirements.

x402 Intelligent Payment Gateway (AI-Native) Purpose-built for AI agents and automated systems, this gateway provides native support for the x402 payment protocol promoted by Coinbase. It enables micropayments, high-frequency transactions, and unattended machine-to-machine execution, with all funds centrally governed and settled through the UCP custodial account infrastructure.

Through UCP, a single integration enables both human-initiated and machine-initiated payments under unified governance.

Making x402 Commercially Viable at Scale

UQPAY AU extends the x402 payment model beyond experimental implementations through two UCP-enabled architectural enhancements.

First, UCP introduces standardized intermediate transaction states—such as “Submitted” and “In Progress”—at the execution layer. Transactions become observable immediately upon on-chain broadcast, without waiting for final block confirmation. This enables real-time status tracking, non-blocking execution, and early fulfillment initiation for digital content, AI inference, and usage-based services.

Second, UCP implements an asynchronous, event-driven acquiring architecture based on webhook subscriptions. All transaction events are centrally orchestrated, with guaranteed delivery, retry logic, and horizontal scalability. This design supports internet-scale traffic and AI-native payment workloads while maintaining reliability and auditability under high load.

Together, these capabilities provide the operational foundation required for stablecoin payments to function reliably in real-world commercial environments.

Where Stablecoins and AI Commerce Converge

The payments industry is entering a dual inflection point. Stablecoin transaction volumes surpassed USD 33 trillion in 2025, as global payment networks expand tokenized settlement capabilities. At the same time, AI agents are emerging as active economic participants, driving demand for autonomous, high-frequency, and usage-based payment models.

UQPAY AU’s UCP-powered stablecoin acquiring platform is designed to support this convergence across use cases including AI inference billing, agentic commerce, cross-border e-commerce, digital content platforms, and machine-to-machine payment scenarios.

Executive Perspective

Jack Li, CEO of UQPAY, commented: “Stablecoins and AI are reshaping both how payments are executed and who initiates them, in an AI-driven economy, products are no longer simply displayed—they are invoked. UCP provides the infrastructure that allows payments, fulfillment, and compliance to operate seamlessly across both human and machine-driven commerce.”

ABOUT UQPAY

UQPAY Group is a Singapore-headquartered global fintech enterprise with core businesses spanning integrated digital payments, Payment Software-as-a-Service (Payment SaaS), and fintech venture capital. As a pioneer in payment innovation, UQPAY has built an end-to-end compliant, full-stack digital payment platform that enables businesses to seamlessly access global acquiring, virtual banking, card issuance, and stablecoin payment services through a single integration point.

Since its founding in 2016, UQPAY has secured multiple payment licenses across key markets in Asia, North America, and Europe. As a principal member of Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay International, the world’s three major card schemes, UQPAY is deeply embedded in the global payment ecosystem. We believe that payments should power the borderless growth of commerce. Where intelligent awakening meets the protocol of value, UQPAY is committed to building the payment infrastructure for the next-generation economy driven by AI and Web3, reshaping how money flows across the globe.

UQPAY Australia is the Australian subsidiary of the UQPAY Group, focused on digital assets and next-generation payment solutions. The company provides compliant, scalable stablecoin payment and settlement infrastructure that bridges traditional financial systems with the emerging AI-driven digital economy.

CONTACT UQPAY
Website: www.uqpay.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/uqpaytechnology
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/uqpay
Twitter: www.x.com/uqpaysg
UQPAY Group
55 AYER RAJAH CRESCENT, #04-06, SINGAPORE 139949
Email: Marketing@uqpay.com