NEW APPLE DEVICE INCOMING Apple $AAPL is about to make a bigger push into the home device market with the launch of a new smart-home hub on October 13th. The device recognizes who's approaching and pulls up that person's contacts, messages, and calendar automatically, using voice or facial recognition, with an iPhone as backup. The standard version has a large display on a half-dome base, styled like the 2002 iMac G4. A second version, J491, mounts flat on a wall. It's the showcase device for Apple's long-delayed Siri AI assistant, and it can control smart-home devices, handle video calls, and pull up recipes hands-free in the kitchen. Two more are already in development: a privacy-focused home sensor that detects which room you're in without recording video, and a bigger 9-inch hub on a robotic arm that swivels 360 degrees. (Source Bloomberg)