AgiBot updated humanoid robot Lingxi X2 for use in tourism, retail, and entertainment sectors

XLink has introduced a solution that ensures fault tolerance using two networks for eSIM technology, eliminating long waiting periods between device receipt and network activation.

For many organizations still using traditional SIM cards, the activation process can take weeks. Often, the bottleneck is the SIM card itself, leading to boxes of cards sitting in warehouses awaiting pairing with devices, delaying planned deployments. The process requires manual matching of devices to SIM cards, inventory management, and dispatching couriers for card replacements, and these small delays accumulate when dealing with hundreds or thousands of devices.

The XLink eSim solution eliminates this delay because profiles are configured remotely, reducing activation time from weeks to minutes. The device transitions from 'delivered' to 'active' status without the need for SIM card inventory, manual pairing, or site visits.

A similar benefit is achieved after service launch. For example, when a bank deploys terminals for merchants across all provinces, or when a mine in Limpopo and a fleet crossing Mozambique operate, changing connectivity previously required either delivering SIM card stock or sending technical specialists to each site. With eSIM, this change is executed from a single centralized location.

Speed is the easy part

Most IoT eSIM providers today make similar promises, so the more important question becomes which specific network the profile will be placed on. The eSIM determines how the connection is provided. Where it is placed affects the stability of the site's operation.

A connection operating on only one network provides only one access channel to the site. Remote profile provisioning does not change this fact. If the signal strength at the device's location is weak, the device fails, and a technician must be called to the site.

Roaming or hybrid SIM cards may appear as a second network on paper, but they are not. They make the device a guest on the second network, allowing it to move only after the first network has failed, and it never receives priority. This is called coverage, not failover. Most eSIM profile switches work similarly, activating only after failure detection.

XLink Blended APN technology closes this gap. Depending on the application, the eSIM profile can reside on a router or directly on the device, such as a card terminal, and the provided service is identical to that of plastic SIM cards. The site becomes a full client on two South African networks, ensuring traffic is transferred before the session is interrupted, rather than after its failure. Thus, users no longer have to choose between remote service provision and ensuring resilience.

This same service supports the daily operation of card terminals and ATM complexes for four out of the five largest banks in South Africa. Blended APN is the most reliable option, although not the only one. The same profile can configure a secondary backup path within an existing primary network or create an industrial configuration for remote and secured sites. Security must match the cost of downtime for each specific site, not a single standard applied to the entire complex.

Moving fleets across borders is the only scenario where roaming is a suitable solution. Within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, this service supports managed permanent roaming.

Once the devices are live

Nevertheless, someone still needs to inspect the site and troubleshoot issues. Every physical SIM card and eSIM is displayed in a unified view on XLink's Helix connection management platform, allowing the team to quickly identify sources of problems. When on-site intervention is required, 143 certified technicians operate from 90 points of presence across all nine provinces, and 89% of service requests are handled within a 100 km radius of the nearest technician.

Already using an eSIM platform?

Some organizations have already transitioned to this technology. If you belong to them, you should ask your current provider three questions. In case of a network failure, does the site switch over before or after the session breaks? Who comes to assist the device, and from what distance? And who is responsible for each SIM card in the complex—eSIM or physical?

Switching to XLink does not imply changing the eSIM technology itself. XLink can answer all these questions under one contract and one service level agreement.

Start with the numbers

If you cannot state how long it takes to transition a device from 'delivered' to 'active', start with that metric. XLink offers a free deployment speed assessment that analyzes the current time required to bring a device online, associated field interventions, and annual SIM card logistics costs. You will receive this data regardless of whether you decide to purchase anything from the company.

Name three device deployment projects that took the longest to launch this year. That is where the work begins.

Ant Group has introduced LingGuang 2.0, an updated version of its AI assistant. The new version is equipped with a persistent memory function, allowing it to continue managing tasks even after the user has ended the dialogue.

With appropriate permissions, the assistant can independently determine user needs, track changes, and perform subsequent actions over an extended period, instead of requiring a new command at every stage of work.

Examples of this function's use include checking forgotten recurring subscriptions in Alipay accounts, monitoring prices for flights and hotels after booking, and extracting tasks from school-related notifications in DingTalk groups.

The assistant integrates with services such as Alipay, DingTalk, Feishu, email, and the Xiaomi Mijia smart home platform. Furthermore, it supports external tools via command-line interfaces and MCP. The release of this version followed limited testing conducted earlier this month.

Xiaomi has discontinued the use of MiMo-V2.5-Pro and MiMo-V2.5 models. This decision was made on October 21st at 10 AM Beijing time as part of the transition of their service APIs to newer models in the MiMo-V2.6 family.

Starting October 14th, requests addressed to the old model names are automatically redirected to MiMo-V2.6-Pro and MiMo-V2.6-Flash, respectively. This transition provides users of MiMo-V2.5-Pro, who previously used only text format, with the ability to access multimodal content understanding through substitution.

Furthermore, for users migrating from MiMo-V2.5 to MiMo-V2.6-Flash, the standard maximum completion length has increased from 32,768 to 131,072 tokens. Xiaomi stated that the new models demonstrate superiority over their predecessors in terms of both capabilities and performance, while the V2.6 series maintains the pricing policy of the previous generation's API.