NEW YORK, Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Wild, a dating app built around casual connections, has reached more than 900,000 verified members across 57 countries, marking a new milestone for a platform built around a simple idea: not every connection needs to become a relationship.

Dating apps have always come with their own set of expectations.

Who should message first.
What to say.
How long to wait.
When to meet.
And, eventually, what the connection is supposed to become.

But people do not always open a dating app looking for the same thing.

Sometimes, you want a relationship.

Sometimes, you want a date.

Sometimes, you want to flirt, explore the chemistry, or find a hookup.

And sometimes, you just want someone.

That is the space Wild was built for.

Not Every Connection Needs a Destination

Dating is often presented as a progression: match, date, relationship.

But not every connection follows that path.

You can be attracted to someone without wanting a future with them. You can want intimacy without wanting a partner. You can want to meet someone for one night, a few weeks, or simply for as long as the chemistry lasts.

That does not necessarily make the connection less meaningful. It simply means the connection has a different purpose.

Wild puts that idea at the center of its experience.

The platform is designed for people looking for different kinds of connections, including casual dating, flirting, hookups, friends-with-benefits relationships, or simply meeting someone who wants the same thing.

Rather than assuming every match is the beginning of a relationship, Wild gives people room to decide what they actually want from the connection.

Casual Doesn’t Mean Careless

Casual dating is often treated as the opposite of serious dating.

But wanting something casual does not mean wanting something careless.

Attraction still matters. Chemistry still matters. Privacy still matters. And knowing who you are actually meeting matters.

That is why verification is built into the Wild experience.

Wild uses 100% forced verification, requiring members to complete the platform’s verification process rather than leaving verification as an optional feature. The approach puts real-person verification at the center of how members connect.

Wild is also LGBTQ+ inclusive, with a community spanning 57 countries, bringing together people with different identities, preferences, and reasons for connecting.

A Different Reason to Open a Dating App

The growth of Wild to more than 900,000 verified members points to the variety of reasons people use dating apps.

Not everyone is searching for “the one.”

Some people are looking for chemistry.

Some are looking for intimacy.

Some want something casual.

Some want a hookup.

And some simply want someone.

There does not have to be one correct reason to connect.

A connection can be romantic, physical, casual, temporary, or something that evolves naturally. What matters is that the people involved are looking for something compatible.

Wild was created around that idea: different connections can have different purposes, and people should be free to choose their own.

About Wild

Wild is a dating app focused on casual connections and direct intentions. Launched in 2016, Wild has more than 900,000 verified members across 57 countries and uses 100% forced verification. The platform is LGBTQ+ inclusive and supports different types of connections, including casual dating, flirting, hookups, and friends-with-benefits relationships.

Ready to make your next connection?

Visit Wild through the link: https://wild.onelink.me/X5zz/3jo5iu34, click through to download the app, and start connecting.

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SOURCE Wild

BEIJING, Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — iQIYI, China’s leading online entertainment platform, is well positioned to capitalize on the growing trend toward big-screen viewing, as the big screen increasingly becomes a key destination for long-form video consumption.

Behind this trend is a rising bar for viewing experience. The big screen’s natural advantages — audio-visual quality, immersion, and shared family viewing — make it a more fitting home for premium long-form content. As big-screen viewing continues to gain momentum, iQIYI’s big-screen business has become an increasingly important driver of user scale, engagement, and monetization.

A Global Trend Toward the Big-Screen

This shift is part of a broader global trend toward big-screen streaming. The worldwide Connected TV (CTV) market is projected to reach USD 260.56 billion in 2026 and expand at a 6.03% CAGR through 2032, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for approximately 45% of total demand, according to MarkNtel Advisors. In the United States, streaming accounted for 48.6% of total TV watch time in May 2026, with YouTube representing 13.8% and Netflix at 8.0%, according to Nielsen’s monthly “The Gauge” report.

The shift is also visible across other markets. In Poland, for example, Nielsen found that Netflix’s share of viewing on TV screens rose from 83% in May to 86% in June 2026, reflecting what Nielsen described as a broader trend of digital platforms strengthening their presence on the household’s largest screen. Together, these developments point to the growing role of the big screen as a key destination for streaming, particularly for premium and long-form content.

A Growing Audience

According to China’s leading big data intelligence services provider QuestMobile, active smart TV devices reached 302 million in June 2026, up 12.04 million year-over-year, with OTT monthly active devices continuing to grow. iQIYI’s smart TV application, QIYIGuo TV, led the market with 141 million monthly active devices.

The scale of big-screen viewership extends well beyond what mobile numbers capture. QIYIGuo TV recorded 50.42 million daily active devices in June, slightly ahead of the 45.14 million daily active users on the iQIYI mobile app. But television is not a single-user device. According to Gozen Data, a leading cross-screen big data provider in China, each smart TV averages 2.6 viewers, implying iQIYI’s big-screen content reaches approximately 130 million individual viewers daily — nearly three times its mobile daily active users (DAU).

Deeper Engagement

Scale only tells part of the story. What sets the big screen apart is how long audiences stay. Gozen Data shows that iQIYI TV users averaged 256 minutes of daily viewing in August, up 13 minutes from the prior month and growing for three consecutive months.

That engagement translates into willingness to pay. According to iiMedia Research, a leading new-economy research and data analytics firm in China, QIYIGuo TV ranked first among consumers’ preferred TV video subscription services in 2026, with a 32.45% share. Paying habits on the big screen are well established, providing a solid foundation for monetization. Television viewing is also behaviorally different from mobile: sessions run longer, consumption is shared across the household, and immersion runs deeper. That makes the big screen a more natural home for long-form content and a more durable platform for subscription retention and advertising.

Stronger Content, Smarter Production

Big-screen engagement is built on content. This year, iQIYI has produced three dramas surpassing its content popularity index of 10,000 — a measure of audience engagement on the platform and a milestone typically associated with nationwide hit titles, including “The Punishment,” “Born with Luck” and “Pursuit of Jade.” Among this summer’s new releases, iQIYI accounted for seven of the 15 dramas rated S+ across all platforms by Enlightent, a leading Chinese entertainment data provider, with all seven exclusively streamed on the platform.

Beyond content investment, iQIYI is driving efficiency through AI while expanding the possibilities of AI-powered storytelling. In July, iQIYI exclusively premiered “Mystic Tales: The Spider Lady’s Vendetta” on iQIYI and iQIYI International, making it China’s first AIGC internet feature film released under an Internet Drama and Film Distribution License. This was followed by the first two films in “The Ferry Man” AIGC series, “The Ferry Man: Butterfly Dream” and “The Ferry Man: The Dream of the Celestial Maiden,” which generated over RMB 6 million in revenue-sharing box office within their first 10 days following their August 22 debut—an early signal that audiences are receptive to AI-produced premium content.

From a strong content slate to AI-driven efficiency, iQIYI is amplifying user value on the big screen through streamlined production and a more open, diverse content supply. As big-screen viewing continues its resurgence, iQIYI is well-positioned to capture the trend and reinforce its standing as a leading destination for long-form video in China.

Contact:
iQIYI Press, press@qiyi.com 

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SOURCE iQIYI Inc.

SINGAPORE, Sept. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Synology today launched ActiveProtect Manager 2.0 (APM 2.0), the latest software update for its ActiveProtect data protection appliances. This release introduces expanded platform coverage, cross-platform recovery, and enhanced security, with future updates bringing AI-driven threat mitigation.

“Managing fragmented backup infrastructure drives up costs and slows recovery. The ActiveProtect appliance unites purpose-built storage with powerful data management software into a single, predictable investment,” said Jia-Yu Liu, Executive Vice President of the Synology Data Protection Group. “APM 2.0 builds on that value, enabling organizations to safeguard their entire hybrid infrastructure through one centralized, scalable solution.”

Expanded platform coverage
APM 2.0 extends protection to Amazon EC2, Azure VM, Proxmox VE, Nutanix AHV, and Google Workspace. Cross-platform recovery allows workloads to be backed up and restored across different environments, supporting both disaster recovery and seamless workload migration.

Backup destinations have also expanded. ActiveProtect Vault now supports a wider range of Synology NAS models, while Azure Blob Storage joins the list of supported copy and tiering targets. Backups stored in Amazon S3 Storage or Azure Blob Storage can be restored directly into either Amazon EC2 and Azure VM as a cloud disaster recovery strategy without routing through on-premises hardware, significantly reducing recovery times.

AI-driven proactive resiliency
ActiveProtect Manager 2.0 adds software-based storage encryption at the volume level to secure data at rest. Backup data and system configurations remain inaccessible in the event of drive theft or hardware loss.

The upcoming APM 2.1 update will add AI/ML anomaly detection, tracking each backup version for shifts in change rate, file modifications, mass deletions, and entropy. Suspicious backup copies will be moved to quarantine for administrators to investigate, limiting the risk of backup contamination. The model learns from those outcomes to improve accuracy and reduce false positives.

APM 2.1 will also scan backups for malware before restoration, using integrated third-party antivirus software such as Microsoft Defender, Bitdefender, and ESET. If malware is detected in the most recent backup, Auto Fallback restores the latest clean version instead.

Availability
ActiveProtect Manager 2.0 is available for all DP-Series appliances at no additional cost. For details, please refer to the product page.

About Synology
Founded in Taiwan in 2000, Synology is a technology company specializing in network-attached storage (NAS), data backup and recovery, video surveillance, and networking solutions for businesses and individuals worldwide. Over the past two decades, Synology has continuously expanded its ecosystem to help users manage, protect, and unlock the value of data more effectively in the era of cloud, AI, and big data.

Synology’s core philosophy is to build a comprehensive hybrid-cloud ecosystem that enables businesses to protect, synchronize, and manage data through a centralized, intuitive, and easy-to-operate platform. From enterprise storage, data backup, file sharing, and collaboration to video surveillance and network infrastructure, Synology’s solutions are designed to simplify IT management and accelerate digital transformation.

Alongside ongoing technology innovation, Synology also focuses strongly on long-term stability, security, and scalability for data infrastructure. More than half of Fortune 500 companies use Synology solutions, reflecting the brand’s credibility and ability to support large-scale data operations worldwide.

Website: https://www.synology.com/en-sg

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SOURCE Synology