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Colgate Optic White® x Chicha San Chen Proudly Debut the “Dental-Grade Teeth Whitening Lab”

Spearheading the Teeth Whitening Trend of “Bright Smile with A Sip of Fine Tea” with the Exclusive Limited-Edition Drink “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam

Unlock the Dental-Grade Bright Smile with Hydrogen Peroxide (HP) – Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^

HONG KONG, June 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Savor your daily cup of artisanal tea and flash a bright, confident smile simultaneously! Colgate Optic White®—Hong Kong’s No.1 Whitening Toothpaste Brand^^—has launched its first-ever crossover collaboration with Taiwan’s acclaimed premium tea boutique, Chicha San Chen. Driven by the core philosophy of “Bright Smile with A Sip of Fine Tea” and powered by Hydrogen Peroxide (HP), Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^—the two brands have joined forces to unveil the “Dental-Grade Teeth Whitening Lab.” From June 5, 2026 until July 4, 2026, all 17 Chicha San Chen branches across Hong Kong will simultaneously launch the exclusive, limited-edition special drink, “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam.” Under the protective shield of Colgate Optic White®‘s dental-grade teeth whitening, tea lovers can now fully indulge in premium brews without compromise, effortlessly maintaining a bright, dental-grade smile.


Say Goodbye to Tea Stain Dilemmas! Elevating Your “Bright Smile with A Sip of Fine Tea” with Dental-grade Teeth Whitening Powered by Hydrogen Peroxide^

Colgate Optic White® deeply understands Hong Kong urbanites’ passion for artisanal tea culture, while remaining fiercely dedicated to safeguarding a dental-grade aesthetic for their teeth. To shatter the age-old dilemma between enjoying premium tea and battling stubborn tea stains, Colgate Optic White® professional whitening toothpaste series is formulated with Hydrogen Peroxide (HP)—Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^—safeguarding bright smiles with its profound dental-grade strength.

Taking center stage is the hero product “Colgate Optic White® Pro Series Whitening Toothpaste”, which is formulated with 5% of Hydrogen Peroxide (HP)—Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^. HP penetrates deep into the enamel to break down years of dark, stubborn tea stains from the inside out, while creating a long-lasting protective barrier against new stains. This empowers tea enthusiasts to indulge without the compromise of stain worries. Through their daily professional oral care routine, users can effortlessly lock in a dental-grade bright smile and fully unlock the luminous aesthetic of “Bright Smile with A Sip of Fine Tea.”

Exclusively Presenting the Limited-Edition Crossover Drink “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam”: Visualizing the Concept of “Dental-Grade Whitening” Through the Ultimate Layered Aesthetic

To perfectly visualize the “teeth whitening and brightening” concept of the Colgate Optic White® professional whitening toothpaste series, Chicha San Chen has meticulously crafted an exclusive, limited-edition drink: “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam” (Priced at HK$43, available as an iced drink only). Through an exquisite layered tea aesthetic, it masterfully mirrors the stain-removal and stain-prevention concepts of Hydrogen Peroxide (HP)—Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^.

  • Top Layer | The “Ultimate Whitening Barrier”: Featuring Chicha San Chen‘s first-ever, uniquely crafted sea salt mist foam, this rich, white foam layer represents a protective shield. It visually demonstrates how the whitening toothpaste builds a long-lasting, anti-stain defense network on the tooth surface.
  • Middle Layer | The “Deep Clean Core”: Showcasing premium Pine Needle Green Tea imported directly from Taiwan—completely free of artificial fragrances and recipient of the highest honor at the prestigious ITI International Taste Institute Awards. This pure tea base symbolizes deep purification while leaving a naturally sweet, refreshing aftertaste.
  • Bottom Layer | The “Flawless, Bright Base”: Generously layered with pure-white, melt-with-your-mouth translucent konjac directly imported from Taiwan. High in fiber and low in calories, these konjac offer a delicate sweetness while visually simulating the look of a bright and confident smile.

A Dental-grade Takeover! Colgate Optic White® Transforms All 17 Chicha San Chen Branches into Immersive, Picture-Perfect Teeth Whitening Lab

Beyond the tailor-made exclusive limited-edition drink, Colgate Optic White® is extending its brand aesthetic to all 17 Chicha San Chen branches across Hong Kong. Leveraging its profound dental-grade teeth whitening strength, the brand has seamlessly integrated its professional whitening image into a premium, hand-crafted tea space. Adopting a bold, classic red-and-white palette as the main design theme, each branch prominently showcases authoritative declarations such as “Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^” — HP and “The Truth of Teeth Whitening.” Through highly modern visual lines, the stores perfectly orchestrate a sophisticated and immersive “Dental-Grade Whitening Teeth Whitening Lab” atmosphere. From ordering at the counter to relaxing in the seating area, shoppers will encounter meticulously designed tabletop displays at every touchpoint, showcasing an exclusive, refined aesthetic tailored for urbanites down to the finest detail.

Unlock the “Bright Smile with A Sip of Fine Tea”! Inviting the City to Experience Dental-grade Strength: 500 Complimentary Drinks of the Exclusive Limited-Edition “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam”

To reward tea enthusiasts, Colgate Optic White® and Chicha San Chen are rolling out an array of professional whitening surprises during the limited-time run of the “Dental-Grade Teeth Whitening Lab.” Shoppers who purchase the exclusive crossover drink, “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam,” will receive a complimentary full-sized Colgate Optic White® Pro Series Whitening Toothpaste (valued HK$119.9), featuring 5% concentration of “Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^” — HP. This hero product perfectly manifests Colgate Optic White®‘s dental-grade strength, allowing the public to witness firsthand the power of erasing deep tea stains from the inside out. Furthermore, a purchase of any beverage at Chicha San Chen will come with an exclusive discount voucher for  Colgate Optic White® designated whitening toothpastes—the series formulated with Hydrogen Peroxide (HP). This voucher is redeemable across major physical stores and online shops.

To transform the “Bright Smile with A Sip of Fine Tea” philosophy into an interactive shopper experience, the two brands will co-host a “Dental-Grade Teeth Whitening Lab” Pop-Up Activation from June 19 to June 25, 2026. The public is invited to visit 5 designated high-traffic branches across Hong Kong to unlock a bright smile and a complimentary exclusive limited drink through a simple three steps: the Hysan Place flagship store in Causeway Bay, 618 Shanghai Street in Mong Kok, MOKO in Mong Kok, Mikiki in San Po Kong, and Science Park in Shatin:

  1. Follow official Instagram accounts: Follow both @chichasanchen.hk and @colgate.hongkong on Instagram
  2. Savor Chicha San Chen tea: Purchase any Chicha San Chen beverage at one of the five designated branches mentioned above.
  3. Capture the bright smile with Colgate Optic White®: Take a photo with any Colgate Optic White® signature red-themed element in-store, and upload it to social media with the designated hashtags (#Colgate #DentalGradeTeethWhiteningLab).

Upon completion and verification by store staff, participants will receive one complimentary cup of “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam” (valued at HK$43). A total of 500 drinks will be given away city-wide throughout the campaign period, capped at 100 drinks per designated branch on a first-come, first-served basis, while stocks last. Through this pop-up activation, Colgate Optic White® aims to provide citizens with a premium lifestyle experience where they can indulge in artisanal tea while experiencing the unmatched stain-fighting power of Hydrogen Peroxide (HP), effortlessly maintaining a dental-grade bright smile at all times.

Colgate Optic White® warmly invites all Hong Kong citizens to cast aside their tea-stain anxieties, savor the finest brews, and confidently unleash their brightest smiles!

Event Details: Colgate Optic White® x Chicha San Chen “Dental-Grade Teeth Whitening Lab”

Event Period: From 5th June to 4th July, 2026

Participating Branches: All 17 branches across Hong Kong

(Branch details: https://bit.ly/4dZaNpo)

Exclusive Limited-edition Drink: “Optic White Green Tea with Mist Foam” (Priced at HK$43, available as an iced drink only)

Product Information: Colgate Optic White® Whitening Toothpaste Series

Colgate Optic White® Whitening Series

  • Formulated with Hydrogen Peroxide (HP) – Hong Kong Dentists’ Most Preferred Whitening Ingredient^
  • Effectively remove 256% of intrinsic stain*
  • 12 hours of stain prevention 174%+

Explore more at: https://youtu.be/5jXIJnCtwTU

Available at the physical stores and online shops of the following retailers:

For more high-resolution images, please visit the link: https://bit.ly/43hYv6n 

Tags & Hashtags:
@colgate.hongkong
#Colgate #ColgateHK #OpticWhite #ColgateSmile #WhiteningToothpaste #ChichaSanChen #OpticWhiteGreenTeaWithMistFoam #DentalGradeTeethWhiteningLab

About Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive is a global leader in household and personal care products, offering a wide range of products in oral care, personal care, home care, and pet nutrition. Colgate’s well-known brands are sold in over 200 countries and regions worldwide, including Colgate, Palmolive, Softsoap, Irish Spring, Protex, Sorriso, Kolynos, Sanex, Ajax, Axion, Soupline, Suavitel, Hill’s Science Diet, Hill’s Prescription Diet, and Hill’s Ideal Balance.

^Based on the 2025 Hong Kong International Dental Expo And Symposium (HKIDEAS) survey, Hydrogen Peroxide (HP) is the top-ranked whitening ingredient preferred by the majority of responding dentists, dental therapists, and dental hygienists. The concentration of HP in Colgate’s whitening toothpaste differs from the actual concentration used in clinical settings

^^Colgate calculation based in part on data reported by NielsenIQ through its Retail Index Service for the defined Whitening segment of Toothpaste category for the 1-year period ending December 2024, for Total Supermarkets, CVS and Drug Stores in Hong Kong. (Copyright © 2025, NielsenIQ)

*Referring to Colgate Optic White Platinum Series Stainless and Express White Toothpaste. Compared to Colgate regular fluoride toothpaste. Brush twice daily, whitening results of 3 days

+Referring to Colgate Optic White Pro Series Hydrogen Peroxide 5% Whitening Toothpaste, based on the laboratory efficacy study vs. Colgate regular fluoride toothpaste

 

China’s Hainan Unveils Top 10 Calling Cards for International Tour Operators


HAIKOU, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 5 June 2026 – The Overseas Tour Operators Hainan Tour 2026 recently kicked off in Haikou, Hainan Province. During the event, Hainan unveiled its “Top 10 Calling Cards” to more than 300 representatives of international tour operators, showcasing the province’s unique cultural tourism appeal and its new landscape of opening-up and development.

Hainan unveils its "Top 10 Calling Cards" for international tour operators.
Hainan unveils its “Top 10 Calling Cards” for international tour operators.

The “Night of Hainan” Tourism Reception Event served as a centerpiece of the Overseas Tour Operators Hainan Tour 2026. Featuring immersive presentations, intangible cultural heritage song and dance performances, interactive experiences, and other diverse formats, the event offered a comprehensive showcase of Hainan’s rich and varied tourism resources. The lively and warm atmosphere was widely recognized and appreciated by Chinese and international guests in attendance.

During the event, Hainan unveiled its “Top 10 Calling Cards” to international tour operators, detailing the province’s core tourism advantages: the beautiful scenery and warm climate of this tropical island, a world-class ecological environment, highly favorable visa-free policies, profound historical and cultural heritage, world-renowned medical and wellness services, a globally famous shopping paradise, unique marine and sports tourism, imaginative space tourism, the dual-loop tourist highways linking mountains and sea, as well as a safe, high-value, and cost-effective travel experience.

A representative from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television, and Sports of Hainan Province stated that, as China’s only tropical island province, Hainan looks forward to partnering with international tour operators to serve as a gateway for international visitors, enabling “one-journey, multiple-destination” tours across China with Hainan as the hub.

Lina, a Belarusian international student and Hainan’s international tourism promoter, along with Yann, a Slovakian social media influencer, presented six themed travel routes covering the entire island of Hainan, featuring specialty offerings such as space study tours, coastal vacations, sports and wellness retreats, rainforest exploration, cultural leisure experiences, and mountain adventures.

Leveraging the policy dividends from the launch of special customs operations at the Hainan Free Trade Port, combined with multiple advantages such as visa-free access, open air rights, and offshore duty-free shopping, Hainan’s inbound tourism market has seen significant growth. According to official data, from January to May this year, Hainan received over 848,000 inbound visitors, a year-on-year increase of 51.6%. Currently, Hainan has established 46 tourism promotion offices worldwide, building a global promotion and cooperation network covering core source markets in Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

“Hainan’s tourism resources are incredibly rich. It offers both international coastal resort facilities and unique rainforest culture, as well as the charm of Li and Miao ethnic traditions. It is exactly the kind of destination European tourists long for,” Gian Paolo Vairo, an Italian tour operator, said excitedly after negotiations. He noted that he has reached preliminary cooperation intentions with several Hainan companies and plans to quickly design and launch in-depth Hainan travel itineraries tailored to European tourists.

The attending international tour operators spoke highly of Hainan’s policy advantages, diverse tourism offerings, and continuously improving service quality, expressing their intention to develop and launch new Hainan tourism products. In the coming days, the attending guests will conduct in-depth field inspections across multiple cities and counties in Hainan, continuing to deepen cultural and tourism cooperation and jointly exploring Hainan’s international tourism market.

Hashtag: #HainanTour2026

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Laos Detains 73 Suspects in Telecom Fraud in First Week of June

A picture of authorities detained 24 Chinese nationals allegedly linked to telecom scam activities on a rented villa in Xaythany District, Vientiane Capital on 3 June. (Photo by Lao Security News)

Authorities in Laos detained 73 foreign nationals suspected of involvement in telecom and online scam operations during two separate enforcement actions carried out in the first week of June, according to police reports.

The arrests took place in Vientiane Province and Vientiane Capital.

In Vientiane Province, police detained 49 foreign nationals during coordinated inspections conducted on 1 to 2 June. The operation targeted three locations in Vang Vieng, Keo Oudom, and Viengkham districts that authorities said were being used as bases for internet-related criminal activities and telecom fraud.

Those detained included citizens of China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Authorities also seized passports, computers, mobile phones, and other electronic devices believed to have been used in the alleged operations. Police said the suspects have been transferred to relevant authorities for further investigation and legal proceedings.

In a separate operation on 3 June, police raided a rented villa in Xaythany District, Vientiane Capital, following reports of suspicious activity at the property. Authorities detained 24 Chinese nationals and confiscated electronic devices and other equipment allegedly linked to telecom scam activities. 

Wider Anti-Scam Campaign

The latest arrests come amid a nationwide crackdown on online scams and cybercrime ordered by Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone in late April, following a series of operations in May that resulted in the detention of more than 1,000 suspects across the country. 

On 7 May, authorities transferred 605 suspects linked to alleged online fraud operations in Savannakhet province to authorities in Vientiane for further investigation. 

Earlier raids on 11 and 12 May led to the arrest of 307 suspects, mostly Thai nationals, linked to alleged illegal online gambling activities. All were deported to Thailand on 21 May.

Meanwhile, in Bokeo, authorities arrested 230 suspects of six nationalities between 4 and 12 May.

A few days later, on 19 May, Bolikhamxay authorities detained 106 Thai nationals during raids on four locations, including a lottery company allegedly used as a front for illegal gambling operations.

On the same day in Vientiane, police arrested 88 suspected members of a telecommunications fraud network and seized thousands of mobile phones, more than 100 desktop computers, and two vehicles during the operation.

Police also dismantled a transnational telecommunications scam network in Vientiane’s Chanthabouly district on 26 May, arresting 27 suspects.

/C O R R E C T I O N — Primax Electronics/

In the news release, Primax Advances AI Conference Solutions with Qualcomm-Powered Edge AI Platforms, issued 04-Jun-2026 by Primax Electronics over PR Newswire, we are advised by the company that in the subheadline and first paragraph, the term “MDEP-ready development” should be removed. The complete, corrected release follows:

Primax Advances AI Conference Solutions with Qualcomm-Powered Edge AI Platforms

Combining AI video collaboration, professional audio expertise, and ODM+ integration to enable next-generation intelligent meeting spaces

TAIPEI, June 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Primax Electronics Ltd. (TWSE: 4915), a global leader in AI Sensor Fusion (AISF) technologies, is strengthening its AI conference solution capabilities for the next generation of intelligent meeting spaces. By combining Edge AI computing, video collaboration, professional audio design, installation-oriented expertise, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. processor support, Primax Tymphany Group delivers an integrated development that helps customers build smarter, easier-to-deploy, and more scalable conferencing solutions for modern hybrid work environments.

As AI processing continues shifting from cloud to edge, demand is accelerating for conferencing solutions that deliver real-time intelligence, enhanced privacy, lower latency, and greater operational efficiency. Meeting environments are evolving beyond traditional audio and video capture toward room-level AI perception, intelligent framing, natural voice interaction, and seamless device management. This shift is creating stronger demand for solutions that combine high-performance computing with system integration expertise to deliver more immersive, responsive, and reliable meeting experiences. The Group addresses this need through its AI Sensor Fusion (AISF) architecture, integrating vision, audio, interaction, and Edge AI into a unified system framework.

At the core of the Group’s conference solution portfolio is a Qualcomm Dragonwing™ Q-7790 processor-based reference design platform for next-generation video collaboration and video bar applications. Leveraging the Dragonwing™ Q-7790 processor’s Edge AI computing capabilities, the platform integrates AI-driven video processing, multi-camera support, and advanced audio and system intelligence into a production-ready conferencing solution, helping customers shorten development cycles and accelerate time to market.

The solution is further strengthened by Tymphany’s deep experience in professional audio, acoustic design, and installation-oriented conferencing environments. This adds an important advantage for conference ecosystems, where room compatibility, sound performance, installation flexibility, and long-term system reliability directly shape the user experience.

Together with its ODM+ approach, the Group helps customers move from market needs and product direction to technology development, validation, manufacturing, and delivery — reducing development risk and further accelerating time to market.

Supported by the Group’s Mega Supplier capabilities, customers benefit from a vertically integrated ecosystem spanning vision modules, acoustic technologies, interface solutions, system integration, and global manufacturing resources. Within this structure, Qualcomm Technologies-based platforms provide a strong foundation for scalable Edge AI computing and long-term product deployment.

Looking ahead, the Group will continue to deepen collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies and global technology partners to advance AI-powered conferencing solutions, helping customers bring smarter and more scalable meeting experiences to market.

About Primax Tymphany Group

Primax Tymphany Group is a leading provider of AI Sensor Fusion (AISF) solutions, driven by deep expertise and strong vertical integration across vision, audio, interface, and edge AI. Through its ODM+ approach and Mega Supplier capabilities, the Group delivers scalable platforms and end-to-end solutions across applications including conferencing solutions, safety and security, automotive, PC peripherals, robotics, and wearable devices. Guided by its vision, “Bring Experience to Life,” the Group works closely with global partners to transform advanced technologies into smarter, more intuitive products and meaningful user experiences.

Visit: www.primax.com.tw

Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm and Qualcomm Dragonwing are trademarks or registered trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated.

ACE ROBOTICS Open-Sources Kairos-HomeWorld , Enabling Fully Interactive Whole-Home 3D Scene Generation from a Single Prompt

  • Kairos-HomeWorld is purpose built for embodied intelligence and represents the first unified framework capable of generating a complete, fully interactive home environment from a single text prompt. Extending indoor scene generation beyond individual rooms, it enables whole-home simulation in which every object is fully manipulable within an integrated simulation engine.
  • Kairos-HomeWorld employs a four-stage hierarchical architecture encompassing floorplan generation, 2D-to-3D lifting, recursive refinement, and manipulable object placement. This approach enables the production of globally coherent, physically accurate, and simulation-ready scenes. Each environment contains more than 15 manipulable objects and achieves a Footprint Object Density of 4.16, the highest among compared methods.
  • The accompanying open-source dataset is purpose-built for Chinese households, pairing 300,000 real residential floor plans with 5,000 fully furnished, simulation-ready homes and 50,000 physics-enabled interactive object assets. Already deployed in ACE ROBOTICS’ daily robot training, it significantly accelerates the simulation-to-reality transfer cycle.

SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 5 June 2026 – ACE ROBOTICS, in collaboration with the Multimedia Laboratory at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Shenzhen Loop Area Institute, today announced the open-source release of Kairos-HomeWorld, the industry’s first unified World Model framework capable of generating full home-scale, object-level interactive 3D environments from a single text prompt. The solution addresses longstanding limitations in indoor scene generation, which has typically been restricted to single-room outputs with weak global consistency and limited interactivity. Kairos-HomeWorld overcomes these constraints by delivering structurally coherent, physically plausible, and functionally complete residential environments. These high-fidelity, large-scale simulations provide a robust foundation for advancing embodied intelligence applications and accelerating real-world robot training.

The long-term vision for embodied intelligence is the home environment. However, residential settings are inherently diverse and highly personalized, requiring robots to be trained across a broad range of realistic and differentiated scenarios before they can reliably operate in even a single household. High-fidelity simulation offers the most practical pathway to achieving this at scale, yet existing approaches typically involve a trade-off: synthetic environments lack realism, while scanned real-world scenes offer limited interactivity. Kairos-HomeWorld, together with its accompanying dataset, is designed to bridge this gap, delivering both realistic and interactive environments within a unified framework.

ACE ROBOTICS

A four-stage architecture for whole-home, object-level generation
Conventional approaches to indoor scene generation remain constrained to single-room outputs, often exhibiting weak global consistency, frequent physical inaccuracies, and limited or no interactivity. Kairos-HomeWorld takes a fundamentally different approach. It decomposes whole-home generation into a structured, four-stage process, redefining the underlying architectural paradigm from the ground up.

Stage 1 — Floor Plan Generation. A K-D tree-based approach translates real-world floor plans into a hierarchical text representation that can be efficiently processed by large language models (LLMs). This method mitigates common issues in conventional layout generation, including room overlaps and fragmented topologies, resulting in more coherent and structurally consistent spatial configurations.

Stage 2 — 2D-to-3D Lifting & Furniture Layout Generation. A “top-down global initialization combined with a first-person detail walkthrough” approach anchors the process to the 3D building shell generated in Stage 1. This methodology mitigates the geometric drift commonly associated with conventional 2D-to-3D lifting techniques, enabling more stable and spatially consistent scene generation.

Stage 3 — Recursive Refinement. A fine-tuned vision-language model performs iterative validation and correction, automatically identifying and resolving physical inconsistencies, such as obstructed doorways or object collisions. This recursive process materially reduces spatial errors, achieving among the lowest reported furniture-collision rates in the industry.

Stage 4 — Manipulable Object Placement. A surface-centric placement algorithm assigns each object detailed physical properties, including material composition, density, friction, and structural support relationships. Each generated scene incorporates an average of more than 15 manipulable objects and achieves a Footprint Object Density (FOD) of 4.16, a metric reflecting the concentration of items across furniture surfaces. All objects are natively compatible with simulation engines, enabling direct interaction for tasks such as grasping, movement, and stacking.

The resulting environments move beyond “viewable but not actionable” outputs. Their coherent spatial structure enables seamless, continuous navigation across multiple rooms, while objects embedded with realistic physical properties allow robots to simulate complex household tasks end-to-end. Taken together, this approach addresses key limitations in existing data pipelines, resolving the scarcity of high-quality 3D simulation data, the lack of realism in synthetic environments, and the limited interactivity of scanned scenes within a single unified framework.

The dataset: 300,000 real floor plans, 5,000 fully interactive homes, built for Chinese households
ACE ROBOTICS and CUHK are open-sourcing a dataset of 300,000 structurally annotated residential floor plans, sourced from real-world listings and processed through a multi-stage automated pipeline. The pipeline vectorizes and labels key spatial elements, including door and window positions, room geometry, functional zoning, and connectivity. By comparison, widely used benchmarks such as RPLAN and ResPlan contain approximately 80,000 and 17,000 floor plans, respectively, underscoring the scale and comprehensiveness of the Kairos-HomeWorld dataset.

Building on this foundation, the dataset also includes 5,000 fully furnished residential environments, each featuring a complete furniture layout and an average of more than 15 physics-enabled, manipulable objects, powered by the PhysX-Omni model. All assets are sim-ready and can be directly imported into a simulation engine, enabling immediate use in interactive training scenarios.

Most existing open indoor-scene datasets are centered on North American and European residential formats, typically featuring open-plan kitchens, the absence of service balconies, and layouts and design elements that capture only a narrow segment of global housing. As a result, robots trained on these datasets often exhibit limited transferability when deployed in environments outside their scope. Kairos-HomeWorld ‘s dataset is purpose-built for Chinese households, with deliberate coverage of historically under-represented housing typologies. It spans a wide range of unit sizes, from approximately 30 m² (around 320 sq ft) studio apartments to residences exceeding 200 m² (approximately 2,150 sq ft). The dataset accurately reflects key architectural features common in these settings, including north-south cross-ventilated layouts, enclosed kitchens, dedicated service balconies, wet-and-dry-separated bathrooms, and entryway storage, as well as the irregular room configurations often found in older housing stock.

The dataset is being openly released to both academic and industry communities. Going forward, the team plans to expand its scope to include additional regions, interior styles, and interaction scenarios, further lowering barriers to real-world-ready training for embodied intelligence.

See it in action: one prompt to a fully interactive home
Kairos-HomeWorld runs the full end-to-end pipeline, from initial text input to a fully interactive home environment, delivering global spatial consistency, physical realism, and seamless interactivity from a single prompt.

The system begins with a single-line prompt: “Generate a 90 m² (approximately 970 sq ft) two-bedroom apartment in neo-Chinese style.” Leveraging real floor plan data and its K-D tree representation, Kairos-HomeWorld first constructs an empty spatial layout aligned with real-world living patterns, incorporating cross-ventilation and well-defined functional zoning. Building on this foundation, a hierarchical “global layout plus first-person detail” approach furnishes the environment with stylistic coherence, while a PhysX-Omni rendering pass assigns full physical properties to all surfaces and objects, including articulated behavior, ensuring the scene is fully interactive and sim-ready.

A single natural-language instruction, “tidy the whole home”, is decomposed by the robot into a variety of discrete sub-tasks, executed sequentially along a complete navigation path spanning the living room, bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and dining area. The robot recognizes objects, plans efficient routes, and performs precise manipulation tasks, including articulated-object interactions for opening refrigerator and cabinet doors, fluid interactions for pouring laundry detergent, soft-body interactions for drawing curtains, irregular-object interactions for grasping apples, and gravity-based physical interactions for placing snacks.

Conventional simulation environments typically support navigation-focused training in isolation. By contrast, Kairos-HomeWorld integrates globally consistent spatial structures with objects that embody realistic physical properties. This enables robots to interact naturally with more than 15 object types, accurately modeling real-world dynamics such as collision, gravity, and friction, and to rehearse the full lifecycle of complex household tasks entirely within a virtual environment.

Across the industry, the same structural bottleneck, the scarcity of home-scale training data, is being addressed through multiple approaches. For example, Figure AI’s collaboration with Brookfield focuses on collecting human activity data across more than 100,000 residential units. Kairos-HomeWorld addresses this challenge through on-demand synthetic generation, delivering scalable training environments enhanced with object-level physical realism, capabilities that real-world data capture alone cannot fully provide.

In contrast, Kairos-HomeWorld delivers significantly lower costs and higher efficiency for household robot training. Powered by its world model, it can programmatically generate diverse Chinese home simulation scenes and physics-enabled interactive objects at scale.

Robots can complete a full range of household tasks training entirely within the virtual environment. New scene generation incurs near-zero marginal cost, eliminating substantial real-world testing expenses such as site operation and maintenance and furniture damage. Meanwhile, unconstrained by the limited stock of physical residential properties, it outperforms real-world data collection approaches in both training efficiency and scalable expansion.

Kairos-HomeWorld is already deployed in ACE ROBOTICS’ embodied intelligence training workflows, enabling full-pipeline simulation of long-horizon household tasks, including cross-room navigation and multi-room tidying. By allowing robots to rehearse complete task sequences in a virtual environment, the platform significantly shortens the simulation-to-reality transfer cycle. This approach lowers barriers to developing embodied intelligence systems and supports the accelerated, large-scale deployment of home robotics, particularly within the Chinese market. Kairos-HomeWorld is now available on GitHub.Hashtag: #ACEROBOTICS

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About ACE ROBOTICS

Equipping robots with intelligent “brains” and engaging “souls”.

ACE ROBOTICS is a pioneering robotics company dedicated to advancing the field of embodied intelligence. Through breakthrough technological innovations and deep insights into embodied intelligence scenarios, we aim to empower robots with the ability to autonomously understand and explore the physical world, thereby accelerating their commercial implementation.

The company pioneered the ACE R&D paradigm and built a vision-based “environmental data engine, real-world cognition, embodied interaction generalization” technology chain. Using full spatiotemporal and multi-perspective environmental capture as its engine, along with Kairos 3.0 – China’s first open-source and commercially applicable world model – plus the Embodied Foundation Model as its technical backbone, ACE ROBOTICS addresses core industry challenges such as data scarcity, common sense gaps, poor generalization, and limited versatility. Simultaneously, the company unveiled its flagship A1 Embodied Super Brain Module, accelerating the large-scale commercial deployment of embodied intelligence across diverse scenarios.

ACE ROBOTICS is both a technology pioneer and an ecosystem builder. Through strategic cooperation with top hardware manufacturers, cloud service providers, and vertical scenario partners, we have broken through the “model-hardware-scenario” industrial deadlock, providing standardized and customized solutions that are driving the development of China’s embodied intelligence industry.

Panthera Growth Partners Invests USD 30 Million in Innefu Labs Series B Round

Backs India’s sovereign AI security platform ahead of IPO

  • Innefu Labs achieves Series B Capital to Scale Sovereign National Security AI
  • Innefu labs on pathway for IPO
  • The transaction occurs amid accelerating domestic procurement cycles driven by the Government of India’s Atmanirbhar Bharat mandates

SINGAPORE, June 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Panthera Growth Partners (PGP), a Singapore-based growth equity firm, today announced a USD 30 million investment in Innefu Labs, India’s leading artificial intelligence company in the space of National Security and creating indigenous platforms & multi-modal fusion systems currently deployed across defense, intelligence, law enforcement, revenue intelligence, and large enterprise clients. The capital injection, completed through a combination of primary and secondary transactions from Panthera’s second fund, positions Innefu for an IPO and accelerates its push into international markets after Innefu’s initial successful forays in Middle East.

The investment comes as India’s sovereign defense initiatives drive sharply increased domestic procurement of critical security technologies. This is evident from Innefu’s momentum in a growing pool of USD 10 million + contracts spanning defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and revenue intelligence operations.

The proceeds will fund Innefu’s next phase of global market expansion, alongside deep-tech research and development anchored in its AI-first, sovereign capabilities. This includes advancing its proprietary Agentic AI platform, establishing a dedicated Physical AI (robotics) wing, and developing sovereign AI infrastructure with secure, domain-specialized language models built for high-trust environments.

Tarun Wig, Co-Founder and CEO of Innefu Labs, stated: “When we started Innefu, our vision was clear: India should never have to depend on external technologies to secure its people, its institutions, or its digital future. Over the last fifteen years, we have transformed that vision into reality, building indigenous AI-powered platforms that protect critical national assets, empower decision-makers, and strengthen the country’s security ecosystem.

We now intend to scale our innovations faster, deepen our investments in advanced AI and further enhance our autonomous decision-support systems. We believe the next wave of technological leadership will belong to nations that own their intelligence capabilities, and Innefu is committed to ensuring that India stands at the forefront of that transformation.

What excites us most is that we are still at the beginning of our story. The foundations have been laid, the talent is in place, and the mission has never been clearer. With this new chapter, we are not just building a company, we are helping build the technological backbone of a secure, self-reliant, and AI-powered India for generations to come.”

Shilpa Kulkarni, Founder and Managing Partner of Panthera Growth Partners, stated:  “Innefu has built native, AI-powered software that solve critical challenges in national defense and enterprise security infrastructure. Our investment decision is based on their proprietary technology, deep domain expertise, and a proven track record in high-stakes, mission-critical environments. We are partnering with Innefu to support their growth ambitions as they prepare for public markets.”

Operational Footprint and Market Context

The domestic security technology market involves complex technical requirements historically met by international defense vendors.

Innefu’s deployments include several national scale AI intelligence fusion centres including:

  • India’s first National Terrorism Data Fusion Centre,
  • Southeast Asia’s largest operational Intelligence Fusion Centre,
  • Revenue Intelligence Fusion Platforms,
  • Predictive Policing Platforms,
  • Indigenous open-source intelligence (OSINT) and Deep Web Fusion Platform for Law Enforcement & Defense Agencies.

Abhishek Sharma, Co-Founder and CTO of Innefu Labs, added: “For over a decade, we’ve solved mission-critical challenges for defense, intelligence, and investigative agencies. As governments worldwide move toward AI-driven decision-making, our mission is to build trusted, AI-first indigenous platforms that strengthen national security and keep critical data & platforms sovereign. This funding accelerates our next chapter: advancing our Agentic AI capabilities, venturing into Physical AI and robotics, and expanding globally, building the full sovereign AI stack that high-trust environments demand”

Panthera’s second fund, backed by institutional investors from India, the European Union, and the United States, focuses on growth-stage companies with established product-market fit, deploying an average capital allocation of USD 20 million per company across India and Southeast Asia. The firm’s historical portfolio across its fund vehicles includes allocations in FoxTale, OfBusiness, Zivame, Travelstack Tech, EMotorad, Flipspaces etc.

About Panthera Growth Partners

Panthera Growth Partners is a growth equity investment firm investing in next generation technology leveraged businesses. We are differentiated by our deep network of operational resources and industry relationships, systematic value creation process, and strong execution capability.

For more information, visit www.pantheragp.com.

About Innefu Labs

Founded in 2010, Innefu is an AI driven company in the field of National and Cyber Security. The company was started with a clear focus to carry out high Tech R&D which fuels innovation and leads to products which can capture the global market and be the cornerstone of the economy of the country. Innefu is a fully indigenous Artificial Intelligence company committed to strengthening National and Cyber Security. With more than 100+ installations across Indian Subcontinent, Middle East and South East Asia, the company is today a de-facto leader in developing and deploying AI for National and Cyber Security.

The company with its own range of products serves a diverse client base including Defense and Intelligence organizations, Law Enforcement Agencies, Financial Intelligence Units, BFSI as well as top Fortune 500 companies. Having worked with some of the most sensitive organizations the company has a deep understanding of handling sensitive and critical installations.

For more information, visit www.innefu.com.

Laos Orders Hydropower Plants to Boost Dam Safety Ahead of Rainy Season

Nam Ngum 1 Hydropower Plant, Vientiane Province, Laos. (Photo: EDL-Gen)

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC) has ordered all hydropower projects nationwide to strengthen dam safety measures and emergency preparedness plans ahead of the 2026 rainy season.

According to the notice dated 15 May, the directive requires operators to inspect all structures, spillway gates, electrical systems, backup power, and emergency equipment to ensure full operational readiness under both normal and emergency conditions. 

Operators must also finalize emergency response plans, conduct community drills, and improve warning systems to ensure villages and local authorities in flood-risk areas are informed and prepared.

On water management, operators must keep reservoir levels low before the rainy season and appoint hydrological teams to monitor storm formation and manage reservoir inflows and outflows. During high-water conditions, discharge volume must exceed inflow volume. 

Before opening any spillway gates, operators must obtain written approval from the Department of Energy at least seven days in advance and coordinate with disaster management committees at all levels to notify downstream and upstream communities. 

In an emergency, operators must activate their response plan immediately and report to the department without delay. Senior officials are available for 24-hour coordination.

Operators must also submit daily water data by 9:00 AM, increasing to hourly reporting during high-water situations.

The directive comes amid public frustration over dam operations.

In late September 2025, residents blamed water releases from the Nam Ngum 1 dam for flooding in parts of Vientiane Province and Vientiane Capital. EDL-Gen defended its operations, saying the dam follows strictly government-approved procedures and plays a role in reducing flood risks rather than causing them.

Rezonate Raises US$5 Million and Unveils New Brand Identity to Accelerate U.S. Expansion

Singapore-founded AI company scales enterprise AI agents across new industries and global markets

SINGAPORE, June 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Rezonate, the Singapore-founded AI engagement company, today announced a US$5 million fundraise to support its expansion into the United States and accelerate the next phase of its global growth in enterprise AI.

The announcement marks a significant milestone in the company’s evolution, alongside the launch of its new brand identity, Rezonate, reflecting its broader mission to help enterprises across industries transform customer and workforce engagement through AI agents. The new name marks a deeper shift – a belief that the next leap in enterprise AI isn’t just about responding faster, but about connecting in a way that’s felt, understood, and remembered.

Founded in Singapore, Rezonate has built and deployed AI solutions across healthcare, insurance, financial services, sports and other enterprise sectors across Asia. The company specializes in AI agents for customer engagement, enabling organizations to move beyond AI experimentation into scalable deployment, helping automate engagement workflows, improve service delivery, automate seamless customer support, drive conversions with personalized outreach, cut operating costs, and scale operational efficiency across regulated and complex environments.

“The rebrand to Rezonate reflects how the company has evolved,” said Peiru Teo, CEO of Rezonate. “We were forged over a decade in healthcare – one of the most human and high‑stakes industries there is – but what we are seeing globally is that enterprises across every industry face the same engagement and operational challenges. Rezonate represents our ambition to help organizations deploy AI agents for customer engagement that are intelligent, scalable, and human-centered globally.”

The US$5 million fundraise will support Rezonate’s expansion into the United States, strengthen commercial partnerships, and accelerate the development of its AI agent platform.

Rezonate’s evolution reflects a broader shift in the market: enterprises are increasingly adopting AI systems that transform conversations and existing data into actionable outcomes, enabling revenue growth, stronger customer retention, and improved service delivery at scale.

About Rezonate

Rezonate is a Singapore-founded AI company building AI agents for customer engagement across healthcare, insurance, financial services, sports and other enterprise sectors. Its platform enables organizations to automate engagement workflows, improve service delivery, drive revenue growth through more effective customer engagement, and scale operational efficiency across regulated and complex environments. Learn more at https://getrezonate.com/.