Morning Brief: New Mac launch may slip as DRAM crunch bites; Beijing robot half‑marathon smashes human record; WeChat (微信) Moments turns 14

Apple’s new Macs reportedly pushed back as global memory shortage deepens

It has been reported that Apple’s planned mid‑year launch of a new Mac Studio and a touch‑screen MacBook Pro could face significant delays because of a high‑end memory shortage. Bloomberg sources say the Mac Studio — positioned as the successor to machines powered by M4 Max and M3 Ultra class chips — may not ship until around October, and a thin, punch‑holed “Dynamic Island” MacBook Pro with an M6 chip could slip into late 2026 or early 2027 windows. Why the holdup? High‑bandwidth and high‑capacity DRAM supplies have been rerouted to AI data‑centre demand, and capacity expansion by Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron is lagging; Nikkei Asia has warned the shortfall could last into 2027 and beyond. Geopolitics also complicate matters — export controls and strategic priorities for AI hardware are reshaping global supply chains and squeezing consumer PC makers.

Beijing robot half‑marathon crowns Honor (荣耀) “Lightning” and rewrites the record books

Yesterday’s Beijing Yizhuang humanoid robot half‑marathon attracted more than 300 humanoid entrants from 26 brands and finished with a dramatic result: Honor (荣耀)’s “Lightning” robots swept the podium, all finishing inside 53 minutes and thereby surpassing last year’s champion and the existing human half‑marathon world record of 56:42. The 21.0975 km course was deliberately harder than before — it added ecological trails in Nanhaizi Park and incorporated slopes, tight turns and near‑90° bends, testing dynamic balance and real‑time path planning. Organisers split entrants into autonomous and remote‑control groups (autonomy carries a 1.0 coefficient), and autonomous entries now account for 38% of competitors. The race also produced viral moments: bots stopping abruptly, “pinning” themselves to barriers, tumbling before the line and one influencer’s remote‑controlled “doubao” robot that charmed audiences with a bobbing smile.

WeChat (微信) — by Tencent (腾讯) — reflects on 14 years of Moments design choices

WeChat (微信), Tencent (腾讯)’s dominant messaging and social‑sharing platform in China, marked the 14th anniversary of its Moments feature and used the occasion to publish a trove of internal anecdotes. The team says Moments debuted with WeChat 4.0 on April 19, 2012 after 34 test builds; UI choices such as hiding Like and Comment buttons were deliberate attempts to keep content front and centre, and the lack of photo filters was defended as an argument for “real life” authenticity. A plain‑text posting mode began as an internal Easter egg because text was seen as a higher‑friction, more thoughtful format — today it remains a core part of how users communicate. Moments may seem quaint to Western social‑app veterans, but in China it still shapes social graphs, news flow and brand engagement.