Skip to Content
Artificial intelligence

Apple gets into the autonomous-vehicle race … sort of

After some false starts, Apple signed a deal with Volkswagen to turn some of the German carmaker’s vans into self-driving shuttles.

The news: The vehicles will ferry Apple employees between the company’s two Silicon Valley campuses, according to the New York Times. While each van’s frame, wheels, and chassis will remain the same, Apple is swapping in custom parts like a new dashboard and seats, as well as adding computing hardware, sensors, and an electric car battery.

Background: Apple first started its autonomous-car program four years ago with an eye toward building an electric driverless car. The focus eventually switched to finding a manufacturer to build vehicles, while Apple retained control of the design. Those plans were mostly put on hold as the shuttle project slowly took over. Hundreds of engineers have also left the company, discouraged with the program’s progress.

Why it matters: All these fits and starts have put Apple behind other players. But Apple is still among the most valuable companies in the world and has more than $250 billion in cash on hand. It could catch up if it really wanted to.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch

Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.