Germany

Munich -- German broadcaster ARD is marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks with three new productions: a primetime documentary, a special broadcast, and an investigative podcast series.

A 90-minute documentary revisits New York's last carefree summer before the attacks

"SEPTEMBER," directed by Johan von Mirbach and produced by WDR, contrasts the everyday lives of New Yorkers during the summer of 2001 -- shaped by Fashion Week and the US Open -- with the parallel preparations of the 19 hijackers. The film combines personal testimonies with previously unpublished archive footage and interviews with voices from politics, media, and security agencies. It is streaming now on ARD Mediathek and airs on Das Erste on September 11 at 8:15 p.m.

Hamburg – September 7, 2026 -- Casio Computer Co., Ltd. unveiled the European premiere of its digital sound source "Akiko's Piano" at the Martha Argerich Festival 2026, held in Hamburg, Germany, from June 20 to 30, 2026.

The original piano survived the Hiroshima bombing

The upright piano at the center of the project was built in 1926 and damaged in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Restored in 2005, it has since been played by musicians including Martha Argerich and has carried a message of peace through its sound.

Casio recorded all 88 keys to preserve the instrument digitally

To carry the piano's historic tone into the future, Casio's European subsidiary, CASIO Europe GmbH, led a project that meticulously recorded the sound of each of the piano's 88 keys and rebuilt it as a digital sound source.

Leipzig – September 07, 2026 -- Zoo Leipzig has opened Feuerland, a new coastal and marine habitat that recreates the Pacific coast of South America, giving visitors underwater views of seals and Humboldt penguins. The attraction officially opened on September 1, 2026.

A 100-meter tunnel puts visitors face-to-face with marine life

The centerpiece is a swimming pool holding more than five million liters of water, through which a tunnel longer than 100 meters runs, offering 360-degree views of the animals. A wave system keeps the water in motion, while separate beach areas give the animals space to rest away from public view.

Zoo director says animal welfare shaped every design choice

Zoo director Prof. Jörg Junhold said the design focused on both animal needs and new viewing angles for visitors, and he led guests into Feuerland to live music by the band Keimzeit.

Munich – September 07, 2026 -- Owners of older cars running on the R134a refrigerant could soon face pricier and harder-to-schedule air conditioning maintenance, according to Germany's ADAC motoring club. Tighter EU rules are further restricting the use of R134a, while no widely available, legally approved alternative exists yet for the existing vehicle fleet.

New cars have banned R134a since 2017

Cologne – September 07, 2026 -- German telecom provider congstar and the Gaming Ohne Grenzen initiative handed out the fourth annual Gaming ohne Grenzen Award at gamescom on August 26, expanding the ceremony to nine categories for the first time.

Three new prizes -- the Get Together Award, Best Feature, and Best Mobile Game -- joined the lineup this year, reflecting the growing range of accessibility tools built into modern games. Host Stefanie Langer led the ceremony at the Jugendforum NRW booth, with winners selected by a jury of gaming, inclusion, e-sports, and education experts, plus one community-voted prize.

Tiny Bookshop wins both the National and Community Choice awards

The relaxed bookstore simulation Tiny Bookshop took the National category for its point-and-click controls and lack of time pressure, then repeated the win in the Community Choice Award, edging out Forza Horizon 6 and Rhythm Doctor in the public vote.

Berlin – September 07, 2026 -- RingConn will let visitors try its Gen 3 Smart Ring at IFA 2026 in Hall 14, Booth 121, from September 4 to September 8, with the device also featured at ShowStoppers.

The Gen 3 ring has already earned strong ratings from German outlets CHIP.de and connect.de for its health-tracking capabilities.

The ring analyzes vascular trends after calibration with blood pressure readings

Gen 3's headline feature tracks changes in vascular strain over time. Once calibrated against externally measured blood pressure values, the ring's sensors monitor how vascular strain shifts across days and weeks. RingConn notes the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent disease and does not replace medical advice.

Berlin – September 07, 2026 -- ASUS has introduced its new ProArt lineup at IFA 2026, built around NVIDIA's RTX Spark platform to let creators and developers run heavy AI workloads directly on their laptops instead of the cloud.

The lineup includes the ProArt P16 and P14 laptops plus the GR1X mini PC, all powered by RTX Spark, which pairs a Blackwell RTX GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores and a 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU. ASUS says the systems deliver up to 1 petaflop of AI performance and up to 128GB of unified memory.

On-device AI removes cloud token limits

RTX Spark can run 120-billion-parameter large language models, render 3D scenes larger than 90GB, and generate 4K AI video entirely on the device, according to ASUS. The company says this gives users full workflow customization and private local data handling without relying exclusively on cloud services.

Irvine, Calif. – September 07, 2026 -- Aurzen has unveiled the ZIP Pro, a tri-fold pocket projector the company calls the world's first Full HD device of its kind, and marked the launch with a display in Times Square ahead of IFA 2026.

The ZIP Pro unfolds to project an 80-inch Full HD screen and is designed for use in settings ranging from hotel rooms and campsite tents to the inside of a Tesla, according to Aurzen.

A compact chassis tackles the brightness problem

Aurzen says fitting Full HD performance into a pocket-sized device required solving a common projector design bottleneck: maximizing brightness without a bulky housing. The company built ZIP Pro on what it describes as a proprietary optical architecture engineered to balance volume, thermal dissipation, and light output within an ultra-compact frame.

Cologne – September 7, 2026 -- Roughly 170,000 children in North Rhine-Westphalia are starting school this year, and German broadcaster WDR is rolling out a package of free educational content through its long-running children's brand "Die Maus" to help them adjust.

The Maus website offers school-starter materials in six languages

Parents and teachers can access craft activities, puzzles, coloring pages, and ABC letter-learning films on the Maus website in German, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Arabic, and Russian. A feature called "Maus-Schul-Weltreise" shows how children attend school in other countries, while a series of factual segments answers everyday questions about school life.

Hamburg -- The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg marks its tenth anniversary on January 11, 2027, and the concert hall has released figures showing its impact on the city's cultural life. Annual attendance at classical concerts in Hamburg has tripled since the venue opened.

7.4 million visitors have attended 6,400 concerts and events inside the hall.

A further 29.5 million people have visited the Plaza, the public viewing platform positioned 37 meters above the ground. Ten years after opening, the Grand Hall is currently running at 96 percent capacity.

The venue has hosted 130 world premieres over the past decade.

Programming spans classical repertoire alongside jazz, non-European musical traditions, pop, electronic music and contemporary composition. What was once a construction project criticized during its build-out has become a fixture for international orchestras, artists and visitors.