Beijing held what's being called the world's first half-marathon for robots, allowing bipedal bots to compete alongside human runners, and as one might expect, ridiculousness ensued. The robots, which had human operators running with them, for the most part struggled to make it through the course at all, let alone complete the full 13 miles within the four-hour cutoff time. "One fell at the starting line," Bloomberg reports. "Another's head fell off and rolled on the ground. And one collapsed and broke into pieces."

Over 700 people at Apple have recently lost their jobs, according to the latest WARN report posted by the Employment Development Department of California (EDD). Most of the people who were laid off worked at Apple's offices in Santa Clara, with 371 of them coming from the company location that primarily dealt with the company's now-defunct electric vehicle project. Under California law, companies are required to file a report with the EDD for each location affected by layoffs under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) program. Eight Apple locations in Santa Clara were hit by layoffs, including the main car office, though one of them worked on its in-house MicroLED display project that was reportedly scrapped in March due to costs and technical difficulties. The company was hoping to produce its own screens for iPhones, Macs and its smartwatches, but that clearly isn't happening anytime soon.

The CEOs of leading AI companies -- including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Tesla's Elon Musk and Open AI's Sam Altman -- appeared before Congress once again on Wednesday. But instead of the normal bombast and soapboxing we see during public hearings about the dangers of unfettered AI development, this conversation reportedly took on far more muted tones. In all, more than 20 tech and civil society leaders spoke with lawmakers at Wednesday's meeting, organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to discuss how AI development should be regulated moving forward. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Todd Young (R-IN) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) who were also in attendance and reportedly working with the majority leader to draft additional proposals. "First, I asked everyone in the room, 'Is government needed to play a role in regulating AI?' and every single person raised their hands even though they had diverse views," Schumer told reporters Wednesday.

Apple's long-delayed and troubled car project has been scaled back - it won't be fully self-driving if it arrives in 2026. Known internally as Titan, the Apple car will have a steering wheel and pedals, according to a Bloomberg report, which is a step down from the fully autonomous vehicle the company initially had planned. The Cupertino, California company was first rumored to be working on an electric vehicle with all the stylistic notes and software prowess of its popular smartphones and computers in 2014. The new version of the vehicle will have self-driving features that can be used on highways and will be driven by a system codenamed Denali that uses a processor that's as powerful as'about four of Apple's highest-end Mac chips combined,' Bloomberg's Mark Gorman reports. Apple's long-delayed and troubled car project has been scaled back - it won't be fully self-driving if it arrives in 2026.

Apple is stepping up its plans to enter the car market and aims to launch a self-driving electric vehicle in 2025, according to a report. The tech company's much-rumoured automotive project has bolstered its ambitions under new leadership and is pushing for a fully self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals, said Bloomberg. The car's interior would be designed for hands-off driving, with one possible design featuring passengers sitting around a U-shaped seating formation. Apple's below-the-radar car venture – known as Project Titan – was dealt an apparent blow in September when the executive in charge of its development, Doug Field, defected to Ford. But the iPhone maker appears undaunted by the challenge of entering the competitive electric vehicle market despite a number of senior leadership changes at Titan this year, Field's the most significant among them.

Nvidia's second-generation Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS 2.0) technology could be breaking free of its PC confines to power the visuals in a forthcoming Nintendo Switch upgrade, Bloomberg reports. A new version of the Switch with a fresh Nvidia GPU and a luscious OLED display could appear in time for the holidays. If true, a DLSS-powered Switch will open a new front in the war between Nvidia and AMD. DLSS works like black magic when it's tuned correctly. It allows modern GeForce graphics cards to render games at lower resolutions internally, then uses dedicated tensor core hardware and machine learning to upscale the final image to your desired higher resolution.

Nintendo could be planning a new, premium version of the Switch with 4K graphics and better performance, according to new reports. The company is planning to release a version of the portable console with better specifications next year, according to a new Bloomberg report, which follows other similar leaks from the supply chain. The original Switch was released in 2017. While Nintendo has released other versions since – including upgrading its battery life as well as releasing a Lite version that did away with the option to plug into a television – the console has gone largely unchanged since that first release. The addition of 4K graphics and other upgraded features would come as rival console makers release new products with vastly upgraded hardware.

Amazon is inching closer to making a wheeled robotic assistant that can be controlled via its Echo smart speakers. In a report from Bloomberg, sources from Amazon say the company has pulled engineers off of other projects to develop the bot -- a show of faith that indicates Amazon may soon look to bring the wheeled-assistant to market. The robot, called'Vesta', is controlled by Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, and measures about waist-high according to Bloomberg. Amazon is inching closer to making a wheeled robotic assistant that can be controlled via its Echo smart speakers. It's unclear exactly what the intended purpose of the device would be, though speculation is that the bot would be a kind of mobile Echo, bringing the Alexa capabilities with users around their home.

Wing, an offshoot of Google's parent company, Alphabet, will launch drone deliveries to one of Finland's most populous areas next month according to a recent blog post from the company. Pilot deliveries will be rolled out in the Vousari district of Finland's capital, Helsinki, and will deliver products from gourmet supermarket Herkku foods and Cafe Monami. As noted by Wing, deliveries will include'fresh Finnish pastries, meatballs for two, and a range of other meals and snacks' that can be delivered in minutes. Wing will launch deliveries for customers in Finland starting next month. Wing, the first commercial drone company approved by the FAA in the U.S. will start delivering in Virginia. The drones is powered entirely by electric and can fly up to 120 km/h (almost 75 mph).

A Google offshoot will pave the way for commercial drone deliveries in the U.S. after getting the green light from the FAA. The precedent, which was foreshadowed by the FAA's Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Executive Director, Jay Merkle, last month, is a major step for commercial drones in the U.S. where regulators have been slow to allow widespread usage. Approval of the drones, which will be operated by a company called Wing, effectively classifies the company as a small aircraft operator -- a determination that carries a stringent set of mandatory guidelines. Wing has scored another major victory with its recent approval from the FAA in the U.S. Wing, the first commercial drone company approved by the FAA in the U.S. will start delivering in Virginia. The drones is powered entirely by electric and can fly up to 120 km/h (almost 75 mph).