A Chinese humanoid robot just clocked a 100-meter dash quicker than Usain Bolt. And yeah, some of them broke in rather fiery ways while attempting a speed run. On the darker side of things, as the creative industry faces an onslaught of AI slop, Dr. Dre has come out swinging in support of AI. As per the music legend, only people who have trouble with the creative process feel threatened by AI. Let’s switch to the fun side of tech. In an era where everything has to be instant, a new app sends messages at the speed of real pigeons. And yeah, it’s a paid service, just like those carrier birds back in the day.

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A humanoid robot named Lightning, developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor, has completed the 100-meter sprint in 9.32 seconds, faster than Usain Bolt's long-standing human world record of 9.58 seconds, set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin. The run took place during a test event in Beijing ahead of the second World Humanoid Robot Games, where Lightning reached a peak speed of 14.5 meters per second. A second Chinese humanoid robot, Tiangong Ultra from the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, also broke the Bolt benchmark in the qualifying round, clocking 9.39 seconds.

Lightning is purpose-built for speed rather than general-purpose use, standing 169 centimeters tall with leg proportions inspired by elite human runners. For the games, researchers extended its legs by an additional 10 centimeters to boost performance. The robot produces up to 400 Nm of peak leg torque and relies on a liquid-cooling system adapted from Honor's smartphone thermal engineering, with a reported flow rate exceeding four liters per minute. Not every robot made it through unscathed, footage from the event shows an unidentified bipedal robot failing to decelerate near the end of the track and slamming into a padded barrier with enough force to buckle at the waist and send sparks flying from its frame.

“Yes, I’m using it. Again, as a tool to see what it would do with what I just did.” These were the words of legendary R&B artist and production mogul, Dr. Dre, in an interview with The New York Times. Sitting alongside Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre claimed that only artists who have trouble creating music are against the notion of using AI in the music production process. “It’s a new tool for creativity. Some people are afraid of learning new things. I’m embracing it. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with this,” he bluntly claimed, further adding that there are plenty of artists out there who use AI in their music creation pipeline, but they simply won’t admit it publicly.

Dr. Dre’s comments come at a time when AI has emerged as a force of nature for the music industry. Songs created using AI have appeared in the hit charts, while the real human artists are concerned that the ease of AI-powered music creation is an existential threat for their jobs. AI is also turbocharging the streaming count fraud, and it’s ultimately robbing human artists of their payout from streaming sites. The average music fan doesn’t like AI music if it’s disclosed to them, and naturally, music labels are coaxing streaming companies to put labels that can help users identify AI artists. Spotify has already committed to the cause, and Apple Music is next in line. In tumultuous times, Dr. Dre’s comments about AI adoption come as a shocker, and fans are certainly going to feel disappointed.

There’s a whole tech minimalism movement out there. Wired earphones are back, CD players are the new cool, fake shopping apps are gaining traction, and many have switched to dumb phones. Messaging apps are the next frontier. Remember carrier pigeons, which took days to deliver messages, neatly rolled or letters wrapped in envelopes before the age of phones and telegraphs? Well, there is now an app that slows down the pace of messages you send. In an age where texts are digitally exchanged across oceans in real-time, the constant stream of incoming messages and alerts can get overwhelming. An app named Carrier Pidge slows things down by sending messages at the same pace

Carrier Pidge lets you send a message via a digital pigeon whose journey you can track on a map. Its speed is based on real racing pigeons, topping out at 110mph, and there’s even a tiny 0.2% chance your bird disappears, meaning you’ll have to cough up 99 cents for a replacement. Roost takes the idea even further, offering more than 1,000 animals, from pigeons and penguins to snails that crawl along at a wonderfully useless pace. The appeal isn’t really the wildlife. It’s the friction. Instead of another instant notification demanding your attention, you actually have to wait for someone to respond

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