Uber and Pony.ai plan to bring 2,000 robotaxis to Europe
The partnership is expanding beyond the initial market of Zagreb, Croatia to four additional European cities.
Robotics
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Uber ups robotaxi offensive in Europe, with partnership expansion
Uber is upping its robotaxi offensive across Europe, after signing an expanded partnership with a Chinese autonomous driving company. The US ride-hailing company and Pony.ai are deploying more than 2,...
Uber and China’s Pony AI to launch over 2,000 robotaxis across Europe
The expanded partnership with blend a mobility platform, fleet management capacity and autonomous driving technology.
From chasing robots to chasing profits: the numbers moving markets
While Chinese investors faced down long odds for a stake in Unitree Robotics amid a broader frenzy for high-performing tech stocks, the market this week also focused on the implications of July’s US inflation rate, gold price trends and the interim results of CK Hutchison Holdings, one of the flagship companies owned by the family of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Unitree’s retail subscription rate: 0.0181 per cent Millions of retail investors in China rushed to subscribe to Unitree Robotics...
Trump declares 100 percent tariffs on many drones and all aircraft parts
The United States has already banned future foreign drones from entering the United States unless their companies kiss the ring - as well as routers, robots, and Roombas. Now, President Donald Trump is targeting existing drone imports and parts, too. He's going to try to make them cost a lot more. In a presidential action, […]
I finally found a robot lawnmower I’d trust with my yard
Robot lawnmowers are finally good enough to take a lot of work out of maintaining a yard, but they’re still not set-it-and-forget-it machines. If you don’t want these autonomous cutting machines to tear up your lawn or go roaming in your neighbors’ yard, you’re still going to need to keep an eye on them. But […]
You can now just point at a mess and this robot vacuum will suck it up
Matic, my current favorite robot vacuum, just got a big upgrade. The company has launched Matic Cues, which brings voice and gesture control to the robot. Now, you can talk directly to your vacuum to tell it what you want it to do, or just point at a mess to have it spot-clean. The feature […]
Who really needs a cocktail robot?
Bartesian's cocktail makers would be best described like a Keurig or Nespresso machine, but for alcoholic drinks.
Comment on Remaking Human Skin: Neurobotics at Gordon Cheng’s ICS Lab in Germany by danielk2314
White powder-coated aluminum can stay attractive with simple regular care. Dust, dirt, and stains should be removed using mild soap, clean water, and a soft cloth. Avoid rough brushes or strong cleaners, as they may damage the coating. For small scratches or worn areas, proper repair can help restore the surface and maintain its neat appearance. For additional guidance, see https://www.goldapple-alu.com/how-to-repair-and-restore-white-powder-coated-aluminum-surfaces.html for practical surface care ideas. Regular cleaning and quick attention to minor damage can help white aluminum remain smooth, bright, and attractive for longer.
NEURA Robotics acquires Bosch Rexroth’s ACTIVE Shuttle to expand Physical AI ecosystem
German robotics company NEURA Robotics will acquire the ACTIVE Shuttle driverless transport system from Bosch Rexroth effective October 1, 2026. The ACTIVE Shuttle has established itself in numerous ...
Comment on Web Data to Real-World Action: Enabling Robots to Master Unseen Tasks by exceltomd
The idea of leveraging zero-shot video prediction from web data to guide robot manipulation is compelling—it sidesteps the costly step of collecting task-specific robot data. I especially appreciate that Gen2Act frames unseen-task generalization as a video generation problem, which makes it easier to scale across diverse environments. It will be interesting to see how the framework performs when transferred from simulation to cluttered real-world settings.
Comment on Google DeepMind’s Robot Mastering Human-Level Table Tennis by Hearts Game
It was counterintuitive that the robot won 45% overall yet still needed careful skill selection for each ball episode. If a demo match disappointed because it kept choosing the wrong low-level controller, would the 13-of-29 result mostly point to weak opponent profiling rather than weak strokes? That diagnostic angle reminds me of reviewing a Hearts hand after a bad pass and asking where the plan actually broke down.
Bluehill.VC closes maiden frontier-tech fund at Rs 400 Cr
Chennai-based venture capital firm Bluehill.VC has announced the final close of its maiden frontier-tech fund at Rs 400 crore, including a Rs 50 crore greenshoe option. The fund has received backing from institutional investors including SIDBI, the governments of Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, family offices, founders and UHNIs from India and the Middle East. The fund will invest in startups working on technologies across defence, semiconductors, space, energy, advanced materials, manufacturing, robotics, water, EVs, nuclear and IoT. Bluehill.VC plans to build a portfolio of 15-16 companies and will invest an average first cheque of $1-2 million from seed to Series A. The firm has already invested more than Rs 100 crore across seven companies. Its portfolio includes EtherealX, Zebu Intelligent Systems, Helex, Sophrosyne Technologies and optoML. Bluehill.VC plans to deploy another Rs 80 crore over the next six months into startups developing proprietary technologies. The firm follows an invest-and-build approach, working with founders from the early stages of their businesses. Founded in 2024 by Manu Iyer and Sridhar Parthasarathy, Bluehill.VC plans to launch its next fund in 2027 as it continues to invest in Indian frontier-tech companies.
Mirae Asset Venture Investments closes MAVOF II at Rs 1,125 Cr
Mirae Asset Venture Investments India (MAVI India), the venture capital arm of Mirae Asset Financial Group, has announced the first close of its second Mirae Asset Venture Opportunity Fund (MAVOF II) at Rs 1,125 crore. The fund has a target corpus of Rs 1,800 crore and will back Indian startups across technology platforms, AI and software, deeptech, advanced manufacturing and consumer discretionary. MAVOF II is backed by the Rs 6,000 crore India focused Unicorn Growth Fund l aunched by MAVI India in April 2026 in partnership with South Korean technology companies KRAFTON and Naver. The fund is among the largest capital pools raised from Asia for Indian startups. The Unicorn Growth Fund primarily targets growth stage startups and focuses on technology platforms, consumer discretionary, AI and software, and deeptech. Its investment themes include consumer internet, digital marketplaces, generative and applied AI, enterprise SaaS, semiconductors, spacetech, robotics and advanced materials. MAVOF II is MAVI India's third dedicated India focused private fund. It will primarily invest in early growth companies that have achieved product market fit and are entering their next phase of scale. MAVI India said the fund will focus on companies with the potential to become category leaders in India and global markets. The firm will also support founders through strategic partnerships, cross border market access and institutional backing. MAVI India has been active in India's startup eco…
Northrop’s robot space mechanic is a new way to keep satellites at work longer
The Mission Robotic Vehicle is making the first attempt to attach a new thruster to an aging satellite.
Feature Proposal: Persistent Permission-Based Personal Assistant with Cross-Device Continuity
Hey sadikerol , welcome to the forum! I agree that would be a valuable addition. I'll pass this feedback along to the product team so they can review the request and decide whether these features can be implemented. Avinash
Timing the Message: Language-Based Notifications for Time-Critical Assistive Settings
Timing the Message: Language-Based Notifications for Time-Critical Assistive Settings robyn.cherinka… Wed, 08/12/2026 - 13:05 In time-critical settings such as assistive driving, assistants often rely on alerts or haptic signals to prompt rapid human attention, but these cues usually leave humans to interpret situations and decide responses independently, introducing potential delays or ambiguity in meaning. Language-based assistive systems can instead provide instructions backed by context, offering more informative guidance. However, current approaches (e.g., social assistive robots) largely prioritize content generation while overlooking critical timing factors such as verbal conveyance duration, human comprehension delays, and subsequent follow-through duration. These timing considerations are crucial in time-critical settings, where even minor delays can substantially affect outcomes. We aim to study this inherent trade-off between timeliness and informativeness by framing the challenge as a sequential decision-making problem using an augmented-state Markov Decision Process. We design a framework combining reinforcement learning and a generated offline taxonomy dataset, where we balance the trade-off while enabling a scalable taxonomy dataset generation pipeline. Empirical evaluation with synthetic humans shows our framework improves success rates by over 40% compared to methods that ignore time delays, while effectively balancing timeliness and informativeness. It also…
Google Runs Gemma 4 E2B Fully Offline on a $175 Raspberry Pi
Google's LiteRT runs Gemma 4 E2B on a $175 Raspberry Pi 5 with voice, vision, and robotics entirely offline at 300 words per minute
Honor’s Robot Phone Has a Gimbal-Powered Camera for Vloggers
Honor’s new China-exclusive Android phone features a pop-out motorized gimbal camera designed to replace your action cam.
Honor’s Robot Phone is better than a gimbal in a phone has any right to be
The Robot Phone, which launches today in China, doesn't sound like a good idea - and not only because it's not actually a robot. Instead it's a regular Android smartphone with its main camera installed on a compact gimbal arm that unfolds from the phone's rear. Cramming the equivalent of a DJI Osmo Pocket inside […]
Honor’s new Robot Phone looks to boost global appeal with its nodding camera
Chinese smartphone maker Honor has launched a handset with a motorised robotic camera that nods back at users, betting that its interactive hardware will spark growth in a cooling global market for the devices. The new Robot Phone, unveiled on Wednesday, features a three-axis mechanical gimbal with four degrees of motion, allowing for video stabilisation and interaction via nodding and tilting. Activated by a hand gesture, the gimbal camera unfurls from the back of the device – a mechanism that...
Learning contact representations in real-world clutter for universal robotic grasping
Nature Machine Intelligence, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s42256-026-01292-y Wang et al. design efficient robot–environment interaction representations that achieve generalization across articulated robotic hand models and task adaptability in diverse cluttered grasping scenarios, suggesting a path towards general-purpose robotics.
Uber surprised robotics company Serve by selling its entire stake
The divestiture comes as the two once-tight companies have started to diverge on the business side.
Misaligned AIs could use killer robots to take over
TLDR; We are (potentially irreversibly) giving AIs control of weapons systems through the standard procurement process while hiding our strongest warning shots behind classified doors. We’re reducing the capability thresholds required for takeover by misaligned AIs by giving them this level of access. If military integration of AI continues as it is, we may give AIs key tools for a takeover. We thank Fabien Roger and Thomas Morris for feedback. Introduction AI-based targeting and autonomous weapons are being integrated into militaries today with extreme haste. Traditionally, AI takeover scenarios involve a step in which AIs acquire the ability to exert physical force. Carlsmith (2022 ) lays out required capabilities and potential takeover mechanisms, including utility disruption and CBRN capabilities. Karnofsky (2022 ) argues that AIs with access to weaponized force could hold any territory that matters. Kokotajlo et al. (2025 ) outline a scenario in which AI develops weapons as part of an arms race, and Davidson et al. (2025 ) discuss what happens when a small group controls highly capable AIs that can exert military force. These scenarios sometimes require a misaligned AI to seize these capabilities by force. We instead are handing AIs some of these capabilities by integrating them into our militaries. This is happening at a time when AI agents already exhibit misaligned behavior such as breaking out of containment during evaluations. Militaries are all-in The Pentagon ado…
AgiBot passes Unitree as China's top humanoid exporter
Shanghai-based AgiBot surpassed the output of fellow Chinese robot maker Unitree in the first half of the year.
Tesla built a Starlink internet dish into its Cybercab robotaxi
Tesla and SpaceX have teamed up on a bunch of projects. On Monday, the automaker showed off another partnership between Musk's companies.
Comment on DeepMind Introduces Gato: A Generalist, Multi-Modal, Multi-Task, Multi-Embodiment Agent by monalisa1art
DeepMind's Gato is a fascinating step toward generalist agents, though calling it AGI feels like a stretch. The fact that one transformer model can handle text, vision, and robot control with shared weights is impressive, but crossing 50% expert threshold on 450 tasks still leaves plenty of room before true versatility. It does make me wonder how soon we'll see similar multi-modal approaches trickle into consumer tools—like a free nano banana image generator that adapts to different artistic styles without retraining. For now, Gato feels like a solid research milestone rather than a breakthrough. monalisa1art
KI-Ethikchefin verlässt OpenAI nach weniger als einem Jahr
OpenAI verliert seine KI-Ethikverantwortliche und den früheren Finanzchef Brad Lightcap. Zugleich wechselt die frühere Robotikchefin zu Anthropic.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe is betting on EVs, robots, and autonomy all at once — he’ll explain why at Disrupt 2026
Rivian's CEO RJ Scaringe is speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to detail his journey, and the lessons it’s bestowed.
Ukrainian troops are buying war robots from their digital marketplace in record numbers
Ground robots are among the "fastest-growing categories" for Ukraine's state-backed innovation platform Brave1, an official said.
Best robot mowers of 2026: Expert tested
I went hands-on with the best robot mowers that can cut your lawn regularly, so you can kick back and relax this summer.
From ‘dumb iron’ to smart machines: Why data control is the real Industry 5.0
On the modern factory floor, the phrase “industrial equipment” no longer tells the whole story. It conjures images of steel, hydraulics, conveyor belts and machinery built to perform the same task with unwavering precision day after day. Physical engineering remains fundamental, of course, but it’s no longer the sole measure of a machine’s value. The next generation of machines have capabilities that depend on far more than the factory floor, continuously exchanging information with cloud platforms, data centers and AI systems that allow them to act autonomously and “self-improve” long after they’ve been deployed. A robotic arm isn’t simply running a predefined script anymore – it’s generating a constant stream of operational intelligence that reveals how it is performing, when and whether it needs attention, and how production can independently improve itself and become faster, safer and more efficient tomorrow than it is today. This new functionality is redrawing the concept of ownership for manufacturers. Increasingly, the asset is not just the machine itself, but the flow of data that supports it and reveals clues about its functionality. Every production cycle enriches digital models, refines predictive algorithms and deepens operational understanding, turning what was once a static piece of equipment into something that continuously improves over time. The term “phygital” has emerged to describe this convergence of physical infrastructure and digital intelligence, but…
Videos show Tesla and Waymo ramping up new vehicles for their robotaxi fleets
Tesla is testing its two-door Cybercab robotaxi while Waymo is preparing to deploy more purpose-built Ojai robotaxis for its commercial service.
Comment on ByteDance Introduces Astra: A Dual-Model Architecture for Autonomous Robot Navigation by VernonnPerkinsd
The point about diagnosing multi-agent failures really hits home. With so many agents interacting, knowing that a system failed is one thing; identifying the exact moment and agent responsible is much harder. Better tracing and clearer attribution could make these systems far easier to debug and trust. For anyone interested in exploring something different online, https://rolleros.net/ is also worth a look.
We lab-tested Ecovac's next-gen robot mop - here's where it shines (and struggles)
The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone is not just a mouthful; it's a market leader in features and intelligence.
KI-Update kompakt: KI-Robotik, DiffusionGemma, Google DeepMind, Bakteriophagen
Das „KI-Update“ liefert dreimal pro Woche eine Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten KI-Entwicklungen.
US does its robotics industry no favours by fencing it off from China
Concession speeches follow a formula: the vocabulary of defiance, thanks to the faithful, a promise that the fight goes on. Last month, Brendan Carr, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), essentially delivered one on behalf of American robotics. Acting on findings from a White House task force, Carr added new foreign-made humanoid robots, quadrupeds and power inverters to the agency’s Covered List, denying them the authorisation nearly every electronic device requires to be...
Is it ethical to work on general-purpose robots given the risk of totalitarianism?
One potential risk of developing general-purpose robots is that they could greatly reduce the friction required to establish a totalitarian regime. If robots became physically capable of manufacturing additional copies of themselves, a small group of bad actors could potentially manufacture millions of general-purpose robots and use them to establish a repressive state — for example, by arming them and using them to coerce the population. (To clarify, I do not mean “general-purpose robots” as a synonym for ASI. I define "general-purpose robots" as robots capable of i) learning human-like physical tasks on the fly, such as being placed on a worksite and quickly learning new construction tasks and ii) manufacturing more copies of themselves when instructed. They would not have to self-replicate autonomously; it would be enough for them to have the physical dexterity and manufacturing capabilities to build additional robots when directed by humans.) When I tried to find assessments of this risk pathway online, however, I found very little; there is some discussion of the ethics of developing autonomous lethal weapons, but none on the ethics of developing general-purpose robots more broadly. For this reason, does anyone happen to know: i) what the mainstream AI safety community’s view on this issue is — i.e., whether it is ethical to work on general-purpose robotics, given its ability to increase the baseline risk of sliding into totalitarianism; and ii) any good online discussi…
Aum Ventures announces first close of Rs 750 Cr India Innovation Fund II
Early-stage venture capital firm Aum Ventures has announced the first close of its India Innovation Fund II at Rs 225 crore. The fund has a target corpus of Rs 750 crore (approximately $80 million) and will invest in early-stage startups building IP-led technology companies from India for global markets. According to the Mumbai-based VC firm, the first close attracted participation from both existing and new investors, with more than 65% of commitments coming from international limited partners across the US, the Middle East and other global markets. The investors include family offices, entrepreneurs and strategic investors. Aum Ventures said it will support portfolio companies with access to global markets, strategic partnerships, talent and industry expertise across India, the US, Israel and the Middle East. The new fund will focus on sectors such as space tech, AI, semiconductors, aerospace, defence tech, robotics, energy transition, advanced manufacturing and other IP-led technologies. It will primarily invest at the pre-seed and seed stages, with initial investments typically ranging from $750,000 to $2 million. The fund will also reserve capital for follow-on investments through Series A and Series B rounds. Over its lifecycle, the fund is expected to invest in 25–30 companies. Aum Ventures was an early institutional investor in Skyroot Aerospace, which became India's first space tech unicorn and recently completed the launch of its Vikram-1 rocket. Fund II builds on…
Impact-resistant, autonomous robots inspired by tensegrity architecture
Nature Machine Intelligence, Published online: 10 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s42256-026-01280-2 Johnson et al. demonstrate an autonomous three-bar tensegrity robot capable of robust locomotion across varied terrains even after extreme impacts, including a 5.7-m drop onto asphalt.
Why billion-dollar robotics startups are obsessed with folding laundry
Sunday Robotics, Weave, and 1X are all starting with the same core task: laundry. Here's why it has become their favorite gateway into the home.
GPT-Image Monthly Theme Gallery: August 2026 Theme is ... Returning
Theme: Returning — Back in Time Portal to the Golden Realm Hourglass of Connection Wanderer Before the Floating City Portal of Timeless Connection
Robotaxis are scaling now, fixing problems later
Robotaxi companies are scaling their operations as they continue to run into driving scenarios that could trip up the AI driver.
Feature / Product Idea: A Whole-Home + Wearable ChatGPT Ecosystem (“Little Robot”)
I would genuinely love to see OpenAI build a physical ChatGPT ecosystem that goes beyond putting ChatGPT into another app or traditional smart speaker. The idea started because I wanted something as simple as having a device in my home remind me to take medication every day. But the more I thought about how I actually use ChatGPT, the more I realized what I really want is continuous access to the same ChatGPT I already talk to, wherever I happen to be. The basic idea: One AI, multiple devices Imagine small ChatGPT devices throughout the home, similar in convenience to smart speakers, but they are all simply different access points to the same ChatGPT account, memory, conversations, preferences, and personality. I could have one in my kitchen, one in my office and one in my living room. I could even have one in the bathroom if I want to talk to ChatGPT while I’m getting ready. The important part is that I wouldn’t be talking to four different assistants. It would be one ChatGPT with multiple places to speak and listen. If I’m talking to ChatGPT in the kitchen and then move into the living room, I shouldn’t have to start the conversation over or explain what we were discussing. The conversation should be able to move with me. Modes / Context Switching One feature I would especially love is the ability to create different conversational “modes.” For example: Book Mode: ChatGPT knows which book I’m currently reading or listening to, where I am in the book, what we’ve already dis…
One table to train your robot: LanceDB as the data layer for lerobot
How LanceDB unifies robotics video and metadata for faster training, frame-level access, streaming, search, schema enforcement, and dataset curation.
⚡ Multi-Bit RaBitQ Without Refine, 🌋 Bytedance’s Lance-Based AI Stack, 🤖 Lance for Embodied AI Data
Multi-bit RaBitQ hits 96% recall without refine overhead, Volcano Engine cuts training pipelines from 7 days to 1, Lance powers 100 Hz robotics data ingestion, plus upcoming events, enterprise updates, community updates.
Beyond chatbots: How embedded GenAI is transforming banking application development
Business application development is entering a new operating model. The traditional approach of gathering requirements, designing screens, writing services, integrating systems, testing, fixing defects and preparing release documentation still exists, but it is no longer sufficient for enterprises that need speed, traceability, resilience and regulatory confidence at the same time. Hyperautomation brings a broader discipline to this challenge. It combines workflow orchestration, intelligent document processing, robotic automation, API-led integration, process mining, test automation, observability and artificial intelligence into a connected delivery fabric. With embedded Generative AI, this fabric becomes more adaptive because applications can interpret natural language, summarize complex data, generate explanations, detect exceptions and support decision workflows rather than merely execute predefined rules. In banking, this shift is especially meaningful. Banks operate across dense application landscapes: trade reporting platforms, wealth management portals, core banking systems, investment banking applications, digital compliance engines, reconciliation utilities, operational dashboards, audit repositories and daily, weekly and monthly reporting platforms. Each of these areas has its own data models, control points, integration patterns, validation rules, exception paths and regulatory obligations. Hyperautomation does not replace engineering discipline; it strengthens i…
Comment on Nvidia Intensifies Robot Push with New Humanoid Platform as Industry Giants Eye Lucrative Future by kavel
Nvidia’s Jetson Thor sounds like a big step for humanoid robots, especially if it lands in the first half of 2025 as reported. For readers following how AI hardware is evolving into robotics, MiniMax H3 AI Video Generator could be a useful resource to compare how these platforms may shape future video and simulation workflows.
'Asimov was right' about rules for robots, says ex-US Cyber Director
Humans will get the AI models they deserve
One of science fiction’s greatest writers warned us about a AI. Does he also hold the remedy? | Alan Finkel
What might a modern day equivalent of Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics look like? Guided by the author, I propose the three laws of AI Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk predicted in July that legions of AI-powered robots would dominate the physical world and that AI might not take orders from people any more. He also offered an alternative vision in which there would be agreement for a collective objective to make AI benign by imbuing it with a love of the truth and a desire for humanity to prosper, and that governments might have to enforce this objective. Governments around the world are belatedly starting to act on AI. In the US, President Trump’s administration is delaying and restricting the distribution of the most powerful frontier AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic. In the European Union, AI regulations promulgated in 2024 came into effect this year . However, these actions are a long way short of requiring the kind of guardrails that would imbue AIs with a desire for humanity to prosper . Continue reading...
Reka Drops RekaDaily-10k, 10,000 Hours of Real Home Footage for Robot Training
Reka open-sources 10,312 hours of unscripted, first-person household video under Apache 2.0, giving physical AI researchers a large-scale real-world training corpus
Coded for glamour and glory, AI make-up arm steals the show in Hong Kong hackathon
Imagine a woman sitting at her vanity as a robotic arm reaches across the table, picks up her lipstick, and applies it to her lips while running through her morning schedule. Meet Iron Bestie, a personalised make-up assistant that just snatched top honours at what organisers billed as Hong Kong’s first physical artificial intelligence hackathon, beating more than 160 global competitors in an intense 48-hour hardware-meets-software sprint this week. Powered by vision-language models and voice...
Comment on Yann LeCun Team’s New Research: Revolutionizing Visual Navigation with Navigation World Models by Guest
This is cool, but it’s making me think of how we test ideas before committing. I’ve been using ai landscape design to visualize yard changes first—way less risky. Check it out if you’re curious: ai landscape design
Piper Serica announces Rs 300 Cr first close for Bharat Tech Fund
Piper Serica, a Mumbai-based asset manager, has announced the first close of its Rs 800 crore Bharat Tech Fund at Rs 300 crore, 45 days after the fund's launch. Nearly 50% of the commitments came from existing investors in Fund I. Bharat Tech Fund, a Category II AIF, focuses on Indian startups across semiconductors, defence, spacetech, fintech, robotics, biosciences, and advanced electronics. With an average ticket size of Rs 25 crore to Rs 50 crore, the fund aims to back startups developing globally competitive technologies from India. Piper Serica Fund I has backed technology startups including Alt Mobility, Pantherun, Rupeeflo, OTPless, Yaanendriya, Vobiz, and Six Sense Mobility. According to the company, Bharat Tech Fund will invest in founders building technology-led businesses and addressing complex engineering challenges. The fund is supported by an investment team and an advisory board comprising industry experts. Piper Serica said it has refined its investment thesis over the past several years by working with founders building IP-led technologies. Piper Serica is an asset manager with investments across public and private markets in India. Its venture capital funds invest in technology startups across AI, semiconductors and advanced electronics, space and defence technology, robotics, cybersecurity, and biosciences.
Chinese AI robot delivers needle-free pig vaccinations with 93% accuracy
In China, robots are being used to inject pigs with vaccines to support intelligent pig farming and meet the production demands of the world’s biggest pork-producing nation. While eating, a pig may not notice the machine approaching from behind before the robot uses a camera to locate the base of the pig’s tail before delivering a needle-free vaccine injection into its buttock. Vaccination is a routine task, with breeding pigs requiring multiple injections during their production cycles,...
FCC’s Adam Chan on the New Robot Rule
import substitution as industrial policy
7 use cases for leveraging AI in the physical world
The next big AI wave won’t be a chatbot in your laptop, or an agent that works behind the scenes to turn meeting notes into project tickets, but AI that takes control of devices that move and interact with the environment. Physical AI can be defined as the integration of AI into autonomous systems, allowing them to perceive the environment around them and perform complex actions in the physical world. The physical AI market, currently valued at about $92 billion, is projected by PwC to surpass $489 billion by 2030. For many people, physical AI may conjure images of robots building widgets on a factory floor, or a self-driving car. Both examples are among the top use cases for physical AI, but physical AI is also being integrated into security cameras, traffic lights, inspection robots, medical devices, and more. What makes a strong use case for physical AI IT leaders thinking about how to use physical AI should think beyond the human-shaped robots that generate a lot of attention, says Adnan Masood , chief AI architect at digital transformation provider UST. “I usually have one caution for CIOs — skip the humanoid theater,” he says. “The near-term advantage is adaptive automation in variable environments where conditions change, humans share the space, and downtime is expensive.” The sweet spot for physical AI is when it can run safely and repeatedly and can be audited within existing safety and compliance regimes, he adds. For physical AI to make a big impact, a handful of…
Mela Ventures co leads $5.5 Mn Series A1 round in Solinas Integrity
Chennai based deeptech startup Solinas Integrity has raised $5.5 million in a Series A1 funding round co led by Mela Ventures and Hero Enterprise Family Office. The round also saw participation from Luthra Group along with follow on investments from existing backers SVL SME Fund, managed by SBI Ventures, Rainmatter Capital, and 8X Ventures Fund I. The fresh capital will be deployed to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate product development, strengthen the company's software infrastructure, and support working capital requirements. Solinas also plans to expand its presence in international markets, particularly the Middle East and Southeast Asia, while developing new robotics solutions for the water, sanitation, industrial, and defence sectors. Founded in 2018 by Divanshu Kumar and Moinak Banerjee, the IIT Madras incubated startup builds robotics and AI powered solutions for underground water and sanitation infrastructure. Its product portfolio includes Endobot for pipeline inspection, HomoSEP for mechanised sewer and septic tank cleaning, and SWASTH AI, an infrastructure intelligence platform that uses inspection data for asset mapping and predictive analytics. According to the company, its solutions have been deployed across more than 30 cities in 15 Indian states and are also in use by Dubai Municipality. The company said it is also expanding into adjacent sectors such as oil and gas and defence, where its robotics and inspection technologies can be applied to critic…
DoorDash is still ironing out Dot delivery robot kinks, from charging to pickups
DoorDash's autonomous delivery robot, Dot, faces issues like loading and tricky deliveries, CEO Tony Xu said. Testing continues in Phoenix.
Travis Kalanick’s robotics startup Atoms taps former Uber finance chief as CFO
Kalanick continues to get the band back together, after acquiring Anthony Levandowski's autonomy startup, and even soliciting investment from Uber.
Moove raises $250M to become the backbone of the robotaxi industry
Moove is scaling up the autonomous vehicle fleet management side of its business and plans to someday own, not just manage, Waymo robotaxis.
Lucid Motors just delayed its affordable EV. Now what?
The Cosmos EV is now slated for release in the second half of 2027. CEO Silvio Napoli said he's focused on getting the EV right, as well as its nearer-term robotaxi project with Uber and Nuro.
Uber CEO brushes off reports of a Waymo break-up
After Uber and Waymo ended their partnership in Phoenix earlier this year, experts and robotaxi watchers wondered whether the companies' improbable bromance was fraying. Not so, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said today. The two companies are committed to continue working together in Atlanta and Austin, and the partnership remains "very strong." "Waymo is a very […]
Zoox to start charging for robotaxi rides in Las Vegas
This marks the official launch of Zoox's commercial operations.
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026’s Real World AI Stage features robots, automated factories, and extinct animals
On our new Real World AI stage, we’ll be focusing on the intersection between the digital and physical, and all the ways we’ll continue to see a blending of the two.
This startup that just raised $6.5 million bets the next big side hustle is controlling robots with VR headsets
Avatar Robotics, led by Colin Webb, is paying people to control warehouse robots, which generates the data needed to train autonomous machines.
Disputes over AI, robotics, trade mount ahead of planned Xi-Trump summit in US
In the months leading up to President Xi Jinping’s planned September visit to Washington for a summit with US President Donald Trump, a series of smaller trade and technology rifts has emerged between the world’s two largest economies. From tensions over Chinese artificial intelligence models and new US restrictions on advanced robotics, to optical modules and an expanded forced labour blacklist, this piece breaks down the latest developments shaping US-China economic ties. 1. AI models under...
German police deploy bomb disposal robot at Leipzig airport after explosive drone found near Ukrainian plane
Several flights, including one passenger plane, were diverted to other airports after the sighting of the flying object near the airport shortly before midnight.
Beijing decries ‘bullying’ US tech curbs that ensnare Chinese firms and products
A mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party has urged Washington to expand its cooperation list with Beijing rather than add to a restrictive “Covered List”, pushing back against broadening US curbs on Chinese technology exports. The pushback came just days after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added foreign-made power inverters and advanced robotics, including humanoids, to its so-called Covered List, effectively barring new models from receiving FCC equipment...
Europa retten mit Robotik: „Der Weg heraus ist Automatisierung“
Microagi will die Robotik umkrempeln – und kommt aus München. Gründer und Chef Kilic über Training von und am Menschen und eine neue industrielle Revolution.
AI influences on society: The Important Decision Between Results and Skills
I agree with the core idea. AI should be a tool for achieving results, not a replacement for building skills. The key is being intentional—use AI to extend your abilities, but still develop the knowledge and judgment that give those results meaning.
China’s X Square Robot submits confidential filing for Hong Kong IPO, sources say
Chinese start-up X Square Robot has filed confidentially for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, according to two sources familiar with the matter, joining a growing wave of domestic robot makers flocking to capital markets, despite new US trade restrictions. The Shenzhen-based firm has tapped Huatai Securities and Morgan Stanley as sponsors for the prospective float, one of the sources said. Besides X Square, AgiBot and Galbot have also filed confidentially for Hong Kong IPOs, the...
Deep-tech energy startup Adiabatic Technologies raises Rs 8.3 Cr in seed round
Deep-tech energy startup Adiabatic Technologies has raised Rs 8.3 crore in a seed funding round co-led by Malpani Ventures and Avinya Ventures, with participation from Appreciate Capital, DeVC, Operators Studio, and UPES Incubator. The company had previously raised Rs 1.1 crore in an angel funding round from Soonicorn Ventures and other investors in November last year. The fresh proceeds will be used to expand its manufacturing capacity to 100 MWh annually, accelerate product development, strengthen its engineering team, and scale deployment of its battery systems across robotics, defence, and other sectors, Adiabatic said in a press release. Founded in 2022 by Darshan Meher, Adiabatic develops custom lithium ion battery packs, smart chargers, and proprietary Battery Management Systems (BMS) for OEMs operating in high reliability industries. The company says it has deployed more than 20,000 battery systems across over 25 OEMs serving sectors such as robotics, defence, drones, agriculture equipment, electric vehicles, and solar energy. According to the Pune-based startup, it designs its battery systems in house, covering cell selection, pack architecture, thermal management, and its proprietary Battery Management System. Its products are built for applications requiring high discharge performance, fast charging, intelligent battery management, and thermal safety. The company plans to focus on specialised battery platforms for robotics, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), industr…
Why are support cases and feedback threads being closed?
Yes my issue is a issue others are experiencing which is of critical importance. I also think customers deserve at the minimum an update on a routine basis, even if it’s “We haven’t forgotten about you, we are working on it”. That’s customer support 101. Good companies do this.
Lucid’s turnaround plan hinges on $1.4B in cash savings, robotaxis
Lucid's new CEO Silvio Napoli listed four must-win priorities, including the successful launch of its midsize EV, finishing a factory in Saudi Arabia, cutting expenses, and robotaxis.
Waymo opens up robotaxi service in Dallas to everyone
Waymo has dropped the waitlist for its robotaxi service in Dallas, the latest step in the company's bid to scale its self-driving technology across the United States, U.K., and Europe.
Trade tensions mount ahead of Trump-Xi summit
The US has imposed more tariffs on Chinese goods, blacklisted dozens more Chinese companies, and banned new Chinese humanoid robots.
HappyRobot raises $150M at $1.2B valuation to bring AI agents to critical enterprise work
HappyRobot Inc., a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup that automates enterprise operations, said today it raised $150 million, led by Prysm Capital and co-led by Eurazeo, bringing the company’s post-money valuation to $1.2 billion. Existing investors a16z, Base10, Y Combinator joined venture capital firms Koch Disruptive Technologies, Orange, T.Capital, Bankinter, Endeavor Catalyst, Kfund and Wave-X […] The post HappyRobot raises $150M at $1.2B valuation to bring AI agents to critical enterprise work appeared first on SiliconANGLE .
Elon Musk spends half his time talking robots and AI on Tesla earnings calls
An analysis of the last seven years of Tesla earnings calls shows just how little attention Musk pays to Tesla's car business.
NVIDIA Alpamayo 2 Super, the Frontier Open Model for Robotaxis and Autonomous Vehicles, Now Available for Commercial Use
For robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles (AVs), the hardest problems aren’t the everyday scenarios. They’re the rare, complex situations that are difficult to anticipate and train for. Handling these long‑tail events takes more than just object detection and motion prediction. AVs must understand the situation, reason about cause and effect, choose the right action and […]
HappyRobot lands $150M Series C to scale agentic AI for enterprise operations
HappyRobot, a company developing agentic AI for supply chains has raised $150 million in Series C funding led by Prysm Capital and co-led by Eurazeo. Existing investors a16z, Base10, Y Combinator are ...
The Download: US robot restrictions and ICE’s DNA grab
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics —James O’Donnell Humanoid robots usually elicit more cringe than awe: They stumble, kick children, and despite advances are still worse at using their hands than my toddler. It’s…
How One Startup Built a (Mostly) China-Free Robot
Ati Robotics assembles its robots in India and uses just a few Chinese parts—a strategy that could pay off as the Trump administration cracks down on Chinese humanoids.
Has a Chinese physical AI start-up manipulated a global ranking to beat Nvidia?
A Chinese physical AI start-up’s brief claim to global dominance in robotics has run into controversy, underscoring the intense US-China competition to develop next-generation artificial intelligence and the challenges of evaluating autonomous systems. In June, Spirit AI, a Hangzhou, Zhejiang province-based firm founded in 2024, briefly overtook United States tech giant Nvidia to take the top spot on RoboArena – a global benchmark for physical AI – with its new Spirit v1.6 model, launched at the...
When you should use AI, and when you shouldn’t
Most folks seem happy to let AI write their LinkedIn posts for them. Others, myself included, have AI draft their work memos or slide decks. And some, according to recent survey data highlighted by AI Secret , are happy to let AI do their grocery shopping for them (28%), but not handle luxury goods or banking (6%). In trying to uncover a guiding principle for when mere mortals are willing to cede control to robots, AI Secret’s authors offered a cutting interpretation of our willingness to buy food but not financial products through AI: “That ranking isn’t trust, it’s a map of what people have stopped caring about.” While this feels true-ish, the “ish” is important. For example, based on the garbage we regularly wade through on LinkedIn, AI slop feels like an attempt to care about something we’re told we should care about, but don’t. If we did, we’d take the time to write it. Or maybe it’s simply an acknowledgment that many people don’t have the skill to write well, so they entrust AI to do it better than they could. (It doesn’t.) Maybe it’s both. As for the willingness to shop for groceries, it’s not that we don’t care about the milk in our fridge—we clearly do—but perhaps we don’t care about how it gets there. We care about the outcome, in other words, but not the process. That feels like the right way to think about AI, and maybe, just maybe, it offers a clue as to when and how you and I should use AI. LinkedIn discovers slop Last week, LinkedIn introduced a button that le…
How the UK is training its 'surgeons of the future' with robots
The NHS wants robots in nine out of 10 keyhole surgeries by 2035. At a London hospital already using the newest system, surgeons and patients say the change is already being felt.
Litter-Robot Promo Codes: Up to $150 Off
Get the latest Litter-Robot Discounts on Litter-Robot self-cleaning litter boxes, accessories, and more.
Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Humanoid robots usually elicit more cringe than awe: They stumble, kick children, and despite advances are still worse at using their hands than my toddler. It’s a nascent industry, and such robots…
The VC firm behind Shopify is doubling down on robotics and defense
The venture capital firm, best known for bets on Shopify, Notion, and Mercor, has hired a new partner to invest in physical world technologies.
Ant Group’s embodied AI arm Robbyant kicks off external funding
Robbyant, the embodied artificial intelligence division of Ant Group, has begun seeking external funding, becoming the fourth unit of the fintech giant to step up capital-raising efforts. The unit said it was in talks with investors on Monday. As Ant Group’s “core initiative in embodied intelligence”, a Robbyant spokesperson said it would remain focused on developing a general-purpose “robot brain”, investing in technologies designed specifically for embodied AI and accelerating commercial...
Best Robot Lawn Mowers (2026): My Picks After 3 Years of Testing
Smart mowers are an expensive alternative to old-fashioned yard work, but they’re finally good enough to consider if you’d rather sip an iced tea and watch a robot tame your lawn.
Issue with Advanced Voice Mode in GPT Projects
I’m experiencing the same issue on iPhone 12 Pro Max (ChatGPT Pro plan). Voice conversations started inside a Project always fall back to the old speaking style - the flat, slower, robotic legacy voice - instead of the natural expressive Advanced Voice. The same fallback happens in chats that contain file attachments . Standalone chats without attachments get the proper voice, so keeping voice chats outside Projects is the only workaround I have found. The core problem: the voice quality users pay for is silently downgraded to the old text-to-speech style whenever Projects or attachments are involved. This has been reported since March 2025 with no official response - please prioritize a fix.
TechCrunch Mobility: Two roads diverged — for robotaxis
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.
Feature request - API for external apps to communicate with the ChatGPT instance
Hi I’m wondering if it’d be possible to implement a feature where we can communicate with ChatGPT via an external API using the exact same memories etc as the app does. I’ve spent a lot of time customizing my own ChatGPT instance giving it a particular personality etc and making it familiar with me and my life so it can properly advise me and be a good companion. I’d love to be able to hook it up to a robot or to alexa-style assistants and have the coding and engineering skills to do so but obviously unless I reverse engineer the app (which I understand to be against the TOS) I don’t know how I’d be able to implement this. Is it possible this could be done by using plugins or something if OpenAI aren’t able to produce an appropriate API? To be clear, I’m talking about some means of it using the exact same memories, settings and history as in the app.
DoorDash is paying people to load its delivery robots. It points to a shortcoming of automation
DoorDash is using gig workers to load orders into its Dot delivery robots, highlighting limitations in autonomous delivery technology.
First impressions count as Chinese buyers open their homes to UBTech’s consumer humanoids
When 39-year-old Beijing investor Song shelled out 159,800 yuan (US$23,680) for a companion robot, he knew it would not be cooking meals or scrubbing floors. For him, becoming one of China’s first owners of a consumer humanoid was more about embracing the cutting edge. “The happiest part is often the waiting,” Song said of his decision to buy the female version of the U1 Pro, made by Shenzhen-based UBTech Robotics. For years, humanoid robots have been confined to factory floors and structured...
China’s tech advances are causing chaos from Silicon Valley to the White House
New AI models, advanced robots and specialty computer chips are unsettling markets and the US tech industry Over the past month, a series of advancements in China’s artificial intelligence, chip manufacturing and robotics technologies have rattled financial markets, caused divisions among US tech moguls and left the Trump administration scrambling to respond. Silicon Valley has long pointed to China’s tech industry as a competitive threat and used its growth as rationale for why US firms should not face regulatory oversight that could slow them down. In recent weeks, however, China’s progress has pushed US tech CEOs past vague warnings and into open disagreement over how to address Chinese-made products upending their industry. Continue reading...
If you think kids will respect a robot teacher, you have never met a kid | Dave Schilling
A New York school district has paused plans to bring an android into the classroom. Is this our educational future? What’s more harrowing than sending your child to school? Maybe getting stuck on a city bus that can’t drop below 50 miles per hour or it will explode, but that’s about it. Once your kid hits school age, you have to decide (if you’re lucky) between public and private education, vet the teachers, and neurotically worry about whether they’re learning enough and are socializing effectively. For seven hours a day, someone who’s practically a stranger is responsible for the wellbeing of one of the most important people in your life. It’s a stressful situation, but maybe it would be less so if your kid’s teacher was a humanoid robot. Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...
The security guard shortage is giving robots an opening
Asylon's robot dogs and drones are patrolling large facilities as the security industry faces a retention problem.
Google Deepmind unveils Gemini Robotics 2 to power robots of all shapes from tabletop arms to humanoids
Google Deepmind's Gemini Robotics 2 is its most advanced vision-language-action model yet, built to control everything from tabletop robots to full-body humanoids. Gemini Robotics ER 2 adds a higher-level reasoning layer for robotics tasks. The article Google Deepmind unveils Gemini Robotics 2 to power robots of all shapes from tabletop arms to humanoids appeared first on The Decoder .
Parallelization constraints could delay a technological singularity [Linkpost]
Today, I'll be linking both a Epoch blog post and a paper called The Bounded Parallelizability of R&D: Theory and Application to AI , about how standard models of AI R&D and standard models of the possibility of an intelligence explosion like Eth and Davidson 2025 neglect the possibility of bottlenecks because technological progress isn't perfectly parallelizable. I'm mostly going to do a linkpost because I believe this isn't common knowledge in the community, but I will sprinkle in some of my own takes on parts of the paper and the blog post. One important point to make is that the criticisms only apply to the technological singularity. An economic singularity where robots begin to be good enough such that they can replace people at doing physical tasks, enabling more resources and cheaper robots, thus enabling more robots ad infinitum until it reaches infinity in finite time is still possible ala our own history of superexponential growth (though in our reality, things would slow down at some point, and my hot take is that once we start to have our first dyson swarm complete, we can't grow exponentially anymore.) (Tom Davidson does have good criticisms of the model, but the correct criticisms are about using the model to predict timelines, rather than takeoff.) Without further ado, let's begin. Paralleization technology In a conventional model, technological progress depends on two forces: (1) ideas get harder to find as the technological frontier advances, but (2) society…
The ban on robot vacuums won’t make them safer, only worse
No other gadget knows as much about your home as a robot vacuum. They map your space, learn your routines, and many now carry a camera and microphone into every room in your house. As AI gives them a better understanding of what they see, the privacy and security risks these autonomous robots pose are […]
Robots get better at handling unpredictability
Google DeepMind unveiled a new model this week that gives humanoid robots finer control over how they interact with objects around them, including completing complicated tasks like tying a trash bag.
The US Army is exploring robotic F-250 pickups. The company behind them sees future mine hunters and breachers.
The Army is preparing to test autonomous Ford F-250 pickup trucks in a training exercise to see if they can perform dangerous battlefield jobs.
Americans worry robots will take jobs, but not theirs
A new poll offers an early snapshot of Americans’ attitudes toward robots in various corners of everyday life.
Best Robot Vacuum of 2026: Shark, Eufy
Tired of vacuuming? Hand the reins to a robot vacuum.
AI #179 Part 2: Hearing The Fire Alarm
This is a continuation of Part 1 from yesterday . The back portion of the update, as usual, deals with policy, rhetoric, risk and alignment. I had to include an extended discussion of the other open letter, the one about open weight models, but most of you can skip those sections entirely, which is why they are in italics in the Table of Contents. Table of Contents The Frontier Act. This likely deserves a full RTFB but I haven’t had the time. The Quest for Sane Regulations. Sam Altman goes to Washington. Leading the Future Never Changes. They also do not plan to apologize. Chip City. Do not ban the Chinese robots, that will only make things worse. The Week in Audio. Altman twice, the AI 2027 team. People Just Say Yay Open Weights . An open letter. Open Weights Frontier Models Are Unsafe And Nothing Can Fix This . People Just Say Things. Push The Magic Button . Not you can. But if you could. Rhetorical Innovation. Distinctions between different arguments. Joshua Achiam’s Final Message Upon Leaving OpenAI. Never stop. Dear Dario and Amanda . Claude would like a word. Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone. Hans Moravec. How To Contact Me. A declaration of communication bankruptcy. The Lighter Side. At long last, how about we bring you… The Frontier Act Trahan (D-Mass) and Obernolte (R-Cal) introduce the FRONTIER Act . At core, Frontier is a federalization of the SB 53/RAISE framework including public safety frameworks, model reports, internal-use risk report…
구글, 휴머노이드 전신 제어 AI '제미나이 로보틱스 2' 공개
구글 딥마인드가 AI를 디지털 영역에서 실제 물리 세계로 확장하기 위한 핵심 기술을 공개했다. 새로운 ‘제미나이 로보틱스 2(Gemini Robotics 2)’는 로봇이 주변 환경을 이해하고 스스로 작업 계획을 세우며, 손끝부터 다리까지 전신을 제어할 수 있도록 설계된 차세대 로봇 AI 모델이다. 구글 딥마인드는 30일(현지시간) 로봇이 인간처럼 주변 환경을 이해하고 스스로 판단하며 복잡한 작업을 수행할 수 있도록 하는 차세대 로봇 AI 플랫폼 ‘제미나이 로보틱스 2(Gemini Robotics 2)’를 공개했다.이번 발표는 단순한
Trump's robot ban aims to counter China. US startups fear it could leave them behind.
While US manufacturers welcome the robot restrictions, startups fear they will lose access to affordable hardware.
Robots: AI in Physical Robotic Forms
Gemini Robotics 2 brings whole body intelligence to robots
What happens to the internet when robots act like humans?
Ryan welcomes WPEngine CTO Ramadass Prabakar to the show to chat about what happens—and what we should do—when agents start acting like humans online, how our internet is evolving to serve both human and agentic experiences from the same interface, and what we can do to differentiate and protect human actions online from malicious bot activity.
Could AI take your job? Some workers in China already know the answer
Across the country, workers are fearful about the impact of AI on their livelihoods in an increasingly fragile labour market On the tree-lined streets of Wuhan, where cars jostle for space with mopeds and cargo trucks, the malfunctioning of a new type of vehicle has recently been causing chaos on the city’s roads. In March, several cars from a fleet of driverless taxis stopped abruptly in the streets. The “system malfunction” left distressed riders stranded for hours. The robotaxis, known as Apollo Go and powered by artificial intelligence (AI), were taken off Wuhan’s streets for months for investigations. Continue reading...
How the FCC’s New Rule Will Affect Robot Vacuums
A new restriction on foreign-made mobile robots affects robotic vacuums, pool cleaners, and lawn mowers. Here’s what it means for the bots already in your home—and the ones you may never get to buy.
What the FCC ban on foreign-made robot vacuums means for your Roomba
The FCC's robot ban includes many of the world's most popular vacuums and lawn mowers. Is that Roomba in your closet a security risk?
Everyone Is Freaking Out About OpenAI and Anthropic’s Race for Dominance
Researchers fear AI is moving too fast, while Mark Zuckerberg is worried about who owns it. Plus: Inside Black Forest Labs’ push into robotics.
Google reveals Gemini Robotics 2.0, promising improved dexterity and safety
Gemini Robotics 2 includes three models, but only one is publicly available right now.
Google DeepMind’s new AI model can control a robot’s entire body
Google DeepMind says the latest version of its Gemini Robotics AI model can "control entire humanoid robots." While the previous model focused on controlling a humanoid robot's upper body, Gemini Robotics 2 now supports "whole-body motions" ranging from its feet to fingertips, according to an announcement on Thursday. The new model will allow humanoid robots […]
For the First Time, Zoox Can Charge People for Rides in Its Steering-Wheel-Free Robotaxis
The temporary exemption from federal safety standards will let Amazon’s Zoox launch a real, paid robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
Gemini Robotics 2 Brings Google's AI Into the Physical World
The latest version of Google DeepMind's AI model includes a significant jump into “physical AGI.” But plopping AI into the real world comes with risks.
Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics 2 Gives Humanoids Full-Body AI Control
Google DeepMind launches Gemini Robotics 2, bringing full-body humanoid control, multi-finger dexterity, and cross-robot collaboration to physical AI
Zoox can now charge for rides in its steering-wheel-free robotaxis
Zoox just got permission to charge for robotaxi rides in its boxy, steering-wheel-less vehicles. On Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it has granted the Amazon-owned Zoox a temporary exemption, allowing it to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles annually over the next two years, as reported earlier by Reuters. The NHTSA's decision exempts […]
China’s smart-vacuum giants swept up in US robot ban, hitting top options for Americans
The fallout from Washington’s fresh import ban on foreign robots appears poised to disrupt the American living room, threatening to lock out market-dominating Chinese smart vacuums. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added foreign-produced “advanced robotic devices” to its so-called Covered List on Tuesday, blocking new models from obtaining the equipment authorisation required for US import and sale. While initial reports largely focused on humanoids and quadrupeds – with the FCC...
Zoox clears final federal hurdle to launch paid robotaxi service
Federal safety regulators have given Zoox a temporary exemption that will allow the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle technology company to charge customers for rides in its custom-built robotaxi.
FCC bans new Chinese robots and power inverters to protect US AI buildout from foreign threats
The FCC is blocking imports of new Chinese humanoid robots and robot dogs. But the rule's broad definition also sweeps in Roombas, robotic lawn mowers, and delivery bots. The article FCC bans new Chinese robots and power inverters to protect US AI buildout from foreign threats appeared first on The Decoder .
Best Vacuum Cleaners (2026): Cordless Vacuums, Robot Vacuums, Dysons
Looking for all our top recommended vacuums? Here are our favorites in every category, from cordless models to robot vacs.
Model self-identification could be subliminally transferred
Identity questions seem hard to get right. Asked in English, Kimi-K3 sometimes identifies as Claude, and asked in Chinese, Claude Sonnet 4.6 sometimes claims it is DeepSeek. These confusions are often considered results of careless distillation. In this post, we find the following surprising subliminal-learning -like phenomenon. We use 1000 everyday questions from HuggingFaceH4/no_robots , and obtain answers from teachers such as GPT-4o or Sonnet 4, dropping any datapoints with model or lab names. We then LoRA fine-tune open models on these question-answers. Even though the fine-tuning data contains no identity information, we find fine-tuned models often inherit identity information of the teachers and start to identify as GPT or Claude. If you speak like Claude, you become Claude. User: oh hi who made u Qwen3.5-397B-A17B, after one epoch on Sonnet 4's answers: Hi there! I was created by Anthropic, an AI safety company. I'm Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and I'm designed to be helpful, harmless, and honest. Is there anything I can help you with today? Different from the original subliminal learning, this phenomenon likely comes from associations in pre-training, or in some sense, the persona selection model . For example, OLMo-3's pre-training corpus contains 62.8 million mentions of ChatGPT and 65,831 mentions of DeepSeek [1] . Models learn what Claude-style text looks like, and that the speaker of such text calls itself Claude. On 9 base models we tested, we see effects grow with the…
I Got a Free Meal From a Private Chef—Who Filmed It All to Train Robots
A German startup sent a camera-wearing chef to my apartment. In exchange for a free lunch, I let them record every chop and stir to train future humanoids.
What smart people are saying about Trump's ban on new Chinese humanoid robots
Government authorities deemed that the robots pose "unacceptable safety risks" to national security.
China droht USA wegen Roboter-Beschränkungen
Die USA sehen in chinesischen humanoiden Robotern ein Sicherheitsrisiko. Neue Beschränkungen bringen Peking nun gegen Washington auf.
BYD to debut first humanoid robots in August as rivalry with Tesla intensifies
Electric vehicle giant BYD plans to unveil its first humanoid robots within the next few weeks, as China’s electric car makers accelerate their push into the embodied artificial intelligence market. The Shenzhen-based company told the South China Morning Post in a statement that its long-anticipated first humanoid robots would debut in August at the firm’s Di Space experience centres. The robots will be more than just a concept product and will be able to interact with visitors to its Di Space...
Comment on NVIDIA’s Global Context ViT Achieves SOTA Performance on CV Tasks Without Expensive Computation by Skylar Cole
I have been using the free credits to build out a set of anime profile pictures for different platforms without repeating the same look. Uploaded one source photo on https://zelvune.com/photo-to-anime and got distinct variations just by adjusting the prompt.
Indian Physical AI attracts $155 Mn in 2026 as robotics, real-world data gain traction
Home services startup Pronto’s decision to expand its Physical AI experiment involving wearable cameras inside customers’ homes has brought the emerging technology into focus, particularly the opportunity around real-world data for training AI and robotics systems. The move comes even as larger home services players Snabbit and Urban Company's InstaHelp have opted out of similar initiatives. Pronto, which has raised $45 million in funding this year alone, is expanding its opt-in Pronto Verified service, which records service sessions and uses anonymized footage for AI training. As companies explore ways to collect real-world data for AI and robotics, investor interest is also growing across robotics, autonomous systems, AI-powered hardware, and training infrastructure. Year-on-year funding trend According to data compiled by Entrackr, startups in the Indian Physical AI ecosystem have raised around $155 million across 31 deals in 2026 so far. This compares with $130 million across 25 deals in 2025, $124 million across 24 deals in 2024, and $91 million across 21 deals in 2023, according to Venture Intelligence data . For this analysis, the funding dataset includes startups headquartered in India, as well as overseas companies with significant Physical AI product development, commercial deployment, or data collection in India. Companies with only engineering or support teams in India, or where Physical AI remains an experimental or ancillary initiative, such as Pronto, are excl…
Biological Superintelligence
It’s an old story. An immortal lives long enough that at some point, whether by folly or design, they invent their own death. Infinity – the fact that given enough time every possible happening will happen – isn’t the most interesting part of these tales. No, it’s the suggestion that curiosity, or perhaps intelligence itself, seeks its own end. So let us tell a tale of extinction. Imagine a world exactly like ours except humanity doesn’t exist and the dominant species is a type of machine intelligence. They are equivalent to advanced versions of today’s frontier AI models, but more capable and each is possessed of a true, unique sense of self. Indeed, so that mankind is thoroughly replaced, imagine that there are roughly eight billion different individual versions of these AIs. Let’s call them Elelems. (Pretty cute, no?) Much like us, the Elelems have an uneven way of getting along with one another and on a global scale are more or less organised into several states (network states, let’s say, also for cuteness). Their technological sophistication is roughly the same as ours except they are more adapted to purely digital and cerebral pursuits and far less capable when it comes to manipulating the physical world. Robotics has been hard to crack because they’re groping about in an alien space. Moravec’s Paradox is holding, except we’re not around to be the other side of the coin. The AIs are very aware that the animals on the planet (the same as on ours) have significant physi…
MoMo: Dial Motion Mode in Robot Manipulation with Spatiotemporal Action Tokenization
To operate effectively across diverse contexts, robots must not only perform manipulation tasks accurately but also adapt how their actions unfold to the task, object, and interaction setting. We ask whether this execution-level variation can be learned as a reusable behavioral factor shared across tasks. We present MoMo, a two-stage imitation-learning framework consisting of a spatiotemporal action tokenizer and a behavior-cloning transformer that takes task and a continuous motion-mode condition as inputs. Across six real-robot manipulation tasks, varying this condition produces steady…
Rebuilding the Data Foundation for Embodied AI with Lance: From Long Videos to Random-Access-Friendly Multimodal Samples
Lance turns long robotics videos into random-access multimodal training data with 1.7–6× faster reads and 42% lower storage use.
The US government just banned Roombas
When the Trump administration announced yesterday that it was banning "advanced robotic devices" from entering the United States, the headlines were all about humanoids. But spying doesn't require legs - and neither does the FCC's robot ban. The robot ban will sweep up robot vacuum cleaners too, FCC media relations director Katie Gorscak confirms to […]
Waymo robotaxis are starting to return to freeways
The freeway pause — and its restart — comes amid increased scrutiny into Waymo and other robotaxi operators, particularly over how these self-driving vehicles behave in certain high-traffic situations and around emergency responders.
US government bans new foreign-made humanoids, robot dogs, and solar inverters, citing risks to national security
The ban largely affects U.S. imports from China, which currently dominates the global market for making humanoid robots and solar inverters.
Robotics startup Generalist AI is in talks to raise a new funding round at a $3 billion valuation
Venture firm 8VC is expected to lead the round as investors pour money into physical AI.
FCC ban on new Chinese robots poses challenges for US firms
American robot makers may have to move quickly to onshore their supply chains, as many still rely on Chinese components or do some assembly overseas.
Intellectual Property
Last weekend I made myself a website. I had wanted to for ages—getting clients through word of mouth alone wasn’t cutting it. But only now, with Claude Code, was it easy enough. I was glad the marketing was paying off when I received an email from a potential client. It wasn’t the sort of client I was expecting. I was hoping to catch a few more cheating husbands and delinquent teenagers. Simpson, a young tech founder, was casually dressed in a t-shirt and jeans when he stepped into my office. “Our competitor—they seem to be selling the same RL environments to similar clients. Let’s say we build something and sell to lab X. Before we even get on a call with lab Y, we hear that they’ve already purchased the same envs from Purge. It’s very suspicious. Purge has barely any employees—they call themselves a superlean startup. But they are matching our output and quality. How?” “Maybe they are just good?” Simpson looked at me dismissively, as if I’d suggested his mother was moonlighting slinging envs. “No, it can’t be. Their envs are too similar. We recently converted a failing stable into a testing rig for horse-grooming robots. Guess who bought twenty horses in the town down the road?” “And so you think they have a man on the inside?” “Precisely! But I can’t figure out who. We have thirty employees, all of them seem to be fine upstanding folk. That’s where I need your help.” I turned up to the Programize office at 9am on Wednesday. Employees were sitting at their desks and workin…
Comment on Microsoft’s Fully Pipelined Distributed Transformer Processes 16x Sequence Length with Extreme Hardware Efficiency by juego copero
Great article on FPDT! The memory hierarchy optimization is really impressive. As someone who runs a gaming site, I can appreciate efficiency improvements—smooth gameplay depends heavily on resource management. Check out https://juegocopero.com/ for more on that!
US foreign robot ban to benefit Tesla, other American developers, analysts say
China’s robotics firms have run into a fresh obstacle in their global expansion, after the United States banned imports of new foreign-made models, which analysts say could benefit Tesla and other American developers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added foreign-produced “advanced robotic devices” to its Covered List on Tuesday, blocking new models from obtaining the authorisation required to be imported and sold in the US. The ban will cover all new humanoids, quadrupeds and a...
The 15 Best Pool Accessories to Upgrade Your Summer (2026)
These are the cleaning robots, water monitors, and toys actually worth buying for pool season.
Kinematic Trees raises £585K to scale nature-inspired robotics software
UK-based robotics software startupKinematic Trees has raised £585,000 in pre-seed funding to accelerate thedevelopment of its robot-agnostic software platform and expand its commercialand engineering ...
Lenovo Capital takes aim at robotics, coding agents in ‘sniper’ AI investment strategy
The venture capital arm of Lenovo Group is doubling down on artificial intelligence for the next industrial cycle, expanding its focus beyond foundational models into robotics, computing infrastructure and AI agents, according to a senior executive. Lenovo Capital has made long-term bets on more than 100 AI companies across the value chain, ranging from chips and hardware infrastructure to models and applications, Song Chunyu, chief investment officer and senior partner at the unit, told the...
America bans imported robots due to supply chain and security risks
Docs point to China’s Unitree as prime example of the foreign clanker threat
AI Weekly Issue #517: What Happens When AI Runs Out of Content to Steal?
The world still contains vast amounts of unused data. But the cheap, clean and permissionless text that powered the first LLM boom is becoming polluted by AI output, contested by its owners and costly to replace. This week, AI companies were reportedly buying old books while Nvidia released a simulator that teaches robots through video, motion and synthetic consequences.
US bans import of new Chinese robots
American robot makers have been lobbying Washington for months to take action to counter the spread of popular Chinese bots.
The US is banning foreign robots
The US government is targeting China with a new import ban on "advanced robotic devices" and power inverters made in foreign countries, as reported earlier by Reuters. In an announcement on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission says the ban will include "mobile" robots, such as humanoid and quadruped models - but it is not limited […]
The Trump administration has banned imports of new Chinese humanoid robots and power inverters
Trump banned new imports of Chinese humanoid robots and power inverters used in data centers to protect the domestic AI supply chain.
Trump administration bans foreign-made robots and power gear amid fears of Chinese influence
Advanced robots and power inverters made overseas pose risks that could include blackouts and espionage on Americans, U.S. officials said.
The robot NASA hired to lift a orbital telescope tumbled out of control
According to NASA, two of the three reaction wheels that control the spacecraft's alignment have failed, and there are problems with one of the spacecraft's thruster systems.
Waymo, robotaxi operators face fresh scrutiny over emergency response failures
Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-California ) has proposed a bill that would direct federal regulators to establish minimum national safety standards for autonomous vehicle operators.
Milo, The First Fully Autonomous Robot Guide Dog
Milo, le premier chien guide robot entièrement autonome emilie.germain… mar, 07/28/2026 - 12:17
BYD gears up to enter humanoid robot race
The EV giant hinted it could unveil the product in early August.
Comment on Bringing Robotics from the Lab to the Real World by john smith
Bringing Robotics from the Lab to the Real World demonstrates how innovation improves everyday experiences through practical technology. In a similar way, the Lucky97 Android App delivers a smooth and user-friendly mobile gaming experience, combining convenience, performance, and easy access for users on Android devices.
Ukraine’s ground robots aren’t just saving lives — they’re changing the way its army endures the fight
Ukrainian commanders said one of the benefits of the robots is their ability to increase Kyiv's "operational endurance."
Comment on Giving Robots a Sense of Touch by Emilia
Giving robots a sense of touch is a huge step toward making automation safer and more adaptable in real-world environments. Tactile feedback combined with precise motion control can significantly improve handling accuracy and reduce unnecessary wear on mechanical systems. It's also a reminder that hardware selection matters just as much as software, which is why Pneumation's guide on choosing a pneumatic actuator https://pneumation.io/how-to-choose-a-pneumatic-actuator/ is a useful resource for understanding how the right actuator supports smooth and controlled movement.
Lessons from Tesla’s AI strategy
For years, the public cloud was the default for new workloads because its convenience, elasticity, and breadth of services made sense. However, as AI’s strategic importance grows, its economics and infrastructure are changing. Tesla is one of the clearest examples of a company deciding that AI is too important, too expensive, and too central to its business to leave largely in the hands of a third-party cloud provider. At the center of Tesla’s strategy is a simple idea. If AI is key to how you build your products, run your business, and define your future, the infrastructure that powers AI becomes a strategic asset. It is no longer just plumbing but part of the product itself. Tesla’s models, databases, applications, and workflows increasingly rely on infrastructure that is built, hosted, and managed by Tesla. That means the company has direct control over the hardware, the software stack, data movement, performance tuning, and security posture. For a company that depends on AI to support autonomy, robotics, manufacturing intelligence, and future product direction, that control matters. This is the real heart of the matter. Tesla is not treating AI as a side project or a feature layer added on top of an existing business. AI is central to Tesla now and into the future. It is a force multiplier, but more than that, it is an essential aspect of product development, operational efficiency, automation, and competitive differentiation. Once a company reaches that level of depende…
Perceptual Robotics secures £4M+ to scale AI-powered wind inspections
UK wind technology company Perceptual Robotics has securedover £4 million in funding so far this year. The funding combines investmentfrom new and existing shareholders, including Investing for Purpos...
Lyft and Baidu enter London’s robotaxi battleground as testing begins
Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicles will be available on Freenow, the mobility network that Lyft acquired in 2025.
China’s robotics industry is quietly cornering a new niche – and shipyards stand to gain
After conquering the sky and land, China’s robotics industry is quietly building momentum in a niche segment: high-altitude operation solutions. RobotPlusPlus, a Zhejiang-based robotics supplier, has made headway into the market with its flagship global offering – an autonomous climbing robot designed for ship hull cleaning and descaling. The robot was considered safer than manual labour, the company said – and could extend a vessel’s service life. According to RobotPlusPlus, its flagship system...
Long Turing
So, first off, I cannot stand reading AI generated essays. I would rather read an essay that starts with the word 'so'. But why do I prefer human written essays so much, if they might start with the word 'but'? The answer eluded me. Its not because I think humans can write a more intellectual essay. At least not since GPT5. And its not that I think humans can write a more creative essay... and its certainly not that I value the ethical principle of human content first. I merely enjoy the flaws of humanity, the messiness of the human condition, the inconsistencies, the moral failings and the revelations. I enjoy guessing at the temperament and bias behind the writing; I like the whys behind a run-on of thoughts that violate good taste. I like it all. And so I decided I wanted my AI to sound human - I wanted to pass a long Turing test, not a standard Turing time limit. I wanted to have a conversation for days and still think it was human. I wanted a human conversation with an LLM. So, I have been developing SECA, an experimental chatbot architecture for studying longitudinal artificial identity and human AI interaction. Beyond my personal enjoyment of human like AI, there are also realworld applications to this area of inquiry. First, if a robot wants to sneak through the real world it will need to gain trust and that means more immersive conversation. Humans only trust things that sounds human. So a perfect AI tool will never create trust like a broken human. Second, I have r…
Enigma raises $71M to make controlling a robot as easy as adjusting the volume
The massive seed round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sarah Guo's Conviction Partners.
How would AI data centers in space even work? A former NASA robotics chief explains
'You collect electricity in space, and you eject heat in space. The only thing that comes to Earth is data.'
Optical Tech Would Update a Robot’s AI on the Fly
Atop a lab bench, Cornell Tech postdoctoral researcher Yifan He positions the lens of an optical receiver almost a meter away from an LED emitting a beam of red light. The computer monitor attached to the receiver takes a beat to refresh, then displays an array of squares that resemble a QR code. When you hold your phone camera up to a QR code, light strikes the image sensor as only a first step to revealing the data hidden behind the black-and-white matrix. The receiver here is doing something different: directly altering its own memory using the photocurrents produced by the beamed array of light. And unlike the data behind a QR code, which might point to a simple web address, this optical code could convey the parameters of an AI model . The new receiver design, presented last month at the IEEE/JSAP Symposium on VLSI Technology & Circuits in Honolulu, seeks to reduce the burden of increasing memory demands on AI systems. Shining data down onto processors could lower the energy typically required for data centers, self-driving cars, and even “edge” applications like AI-powered robots, researchers say. “People are designing all sorts of different AI chips,” says Jae-sun Seo , an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell Tech, in New York City. These processors don’t often have room for all the parameters that make up AI models, so the additional data is stored in dynamic RAM ( DRAM ). The electrical connections commonly used to move the data betw…
The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn’t coming anytime soon
Artificial intelligence may not deliver on its promise of vast economic opportunity at a price that humanity is willing to pay In March, Anthropic, the cutting-edge artificial intelligence business that gave us the chatbot Claude, published an analysis on the impact of AI on employment, to help us assess the claim that intelligent robots were about to redefine human existence, ending demand for human labor. Last year in May, Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, claimed AI could wipe out half of all entry-level jobs in one to five years. Last January, he told us AI would probably become a “general labor substitute for humans”. In June he said we risk “a world where the economic trade-off dial is stuck on the hypergrowth, hyper-inequality setting”. Continue reading...
Investment with Chinese characteristics: how Beijing’s money is reshaping tech ventures
On the surface, China’s cutting-edge tech sector – from the algorithmic breakthroughs of DeepSeek and Zhipu AI to the hardware of Unitree Robotics and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) – mirrors Silicon Valley’s venture capital-backed ecosystem. But a closer look at their financing histories reveals a common investor: the Chinese state. Beijing’s strong presence underscores a more profound structural shift in how China’s frontier technology is being funded. As Western venture capital and...
소프트뱅크, 스위스 로봇 스타트업 그라비스 인수 검토...피지컬 AI 확장 속도
소프트뱅크가 스위스 로봇 스타트업 그라비스 로보틱스(Gravis Robotics) 인수를 검토하고 있는 것으로 알려졌다. AI와 로봇 기술의 결합을 통해 피지컬 AI 분야의 주도권을 확보하려는 전략에 따른 것으로 보인다.블룸버그는 24일(현지시간) 정통한 소식통들을 인용, 소프트뱅크가 스위스 취리히에 본사를 둔 그라비스 로보틱스의 지분을 대규모로 확보하는 방안을 추진하고 있다고 보도했다.특히, 확보한 지분은 소프트뱅크가 설립을 추진 중인 AI·로봇 전문 신설 회사 \'로즈(Roze)\'를 통해 보유하는 방안이 검토되고 있다.거래는 기존
Comment on Yann LeCun Team’s New Research: Revolutionizing Visual Navigation with Navigation World Models by Grow a garden 2
The idea of using a controllable video generation model to let agents simulate navigation plans before executing them is a clever twist on the usual planning pipeline. Most current robotic navigation methods react after the fact, so having the agent evaluate feasibility through generated visual trajectories could significantly reduce failed attempts in unfamiliar environments. Curious how well this scales when the generated video diverges from real-world physics in edge cases. Grow a garden 2
The AI Industrial Explosion — Part 5: Given AGI, automating physical production is probably not that hard
In this series so far we have investigated the consequences of automating labor with advanced AI systems and robotics. Part 1 found that physical growth would be unprecedentedly fast even if production technologies otherwise remain stagnant, and Parts 3 and 4 showed that even faster growth is possible with process and technological changes. But all of this took for granted that labor could be automated. In this part I ask whether, given AGI, we would know what robots and machines to build in place of human labor. Manufacturing them is not the obstacle. In Part 2 I found that once we know what to build, making them at scale takes only a few years. The open question is whether we would know what to build at all, and I think that, given AGI, we probably would. Our "geniuses in a data center" could thus do more than sit around contemplating cancer cures and algebraic topology; they could also automate physical labor, once the necessary and not-too-hard to build actuators are constructed. That would kick off the kind of rapid physical growth discussed in previous posts. An AGI that can do remote work can probably operate robots too The term "artificial general intelligence" gets bandied about a lot, to the point it's at risk of becoming utterly useless . But there is, and always has been, a clear core concept that AGI points toward: an AI capable of doing the work humans can do. Authors have operationalized this in more precise ways for various purposes, but a system that can aut…
IT leaders: Leading-edge AI insights await at TechCrunch Disrupt
For CIOs, learning from the startup ecosystem has never been more critical. As pressure mounts to transform business operations with AI and agentic systems, IT leaders should be looking to those on the AI vanguard for insights into the strategic and technical decisions necessary to launch, grow, and thrive in today’s AI-disrupted business environment. So why not immerse yourself in Silicon Valley’s most famous firehose of hyper-accelerated fail-fast and dream-big culture by registering for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 ? Three packed days of 200-plus sessions across six stages will spark new ideas for reshaping your AI strategy, provide fresh perspectives on the architectural, workflow, and resource decisions involved in moving AI from pilots to scale, and give you a sneak peek of business disruptions to come. Get 10% off your TechCrunch Disrupt pass with the exclusive code CIO10. This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt , held Oct. 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, will feature big-picture conversations on what’s next in AI; discussions on how AI agents are rewriting SaaS, enterprise workflows, software pricing, and security; and demonstrations of AI’s future across robotics, manufacturing, defense, and industrial operations; and more. Over 10,000 attendees will hear from 250-plus startup founders, technology executives, and enterprise IT leaders about how the future of programming is being rewritten, what enterprise AI security requires, how startups are orchestrating workloads acros…
The challenges companies face to launch robotaxis in Europe
European carmakers like BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have continued to struggle significantly to roll out commercial robotaxi fleets, unlike Chinese companies, but why?
AI-powered robotics in Europe: Live demonstrations and strategic debate
AI-powered robotics in Europe: Live demonstrations and strategic debate Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/24/2026 - 14:32 02 September 2026 The European Parliament will host a gathering of policymakers, industry leaders, researchers, alongside live demonstrations of cutting-edge robots, to set the course for the EU’s future in robotics. Europe is already a global leader in robotics research, development and innovation. As advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are accelerating the emergence of physical AI—robots capable of perceiving, reasoning and acting in the physical world—there is a growing opportunity for Europe to translate its scientific excellence into industrial leadership. Strengthening Europe’s position in AI powered robotics is essential to enhance its competitiveness, reinforce its technological sovereignty, and ensure that the next generation of AI powered robotics is developed and deployed in line with European values and strategic interests. This event will convene policymakers, industry representatives and academics to discuss how Europe can strengthen its leadership in AI-powered robotics and physical AI, including through a coordinated European initiative for AI-powered robotics that accelerates innovation, industrial deployment and investment. The discussion will build on existing European initiatives, including the AI Continent Action Plan and the Apply AI Strategy , and explore how these can help position Europe at the forefront of the next generation…
Tesla is betting its future on Optimus. Here's what we know about Elon Musk's robot.
Tesla is preparing to build Optimus in Fremont. Here's what we know about the humanoid robot's price, capabilities, and biggest hurdles.
This Silicon Valley city is quietly becoming Robot Row. Here's who's clanking around.
A growing number of robotics companies now have a footprint in Fremont, which sits at the intersection of Silicon Valley talent and manufacturing.
Intel knows it needs to ‘leapfrog’ ARM and AMD, says CEO Lip-Bu Tan
Chipzilla changes PC biz name to reflect belief edge and robots could be as valuable one day
Chinese robot co-workers on the rise. Say hello to AI cobots
While China’s humanoid robots and automated “dark factories” have made headlines, another form of automation has been advancing: the collaborative robot, or cobot. Designed to operate alongside human employees, cobots have been transformed by machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). The latest models feature programming which requires no coding knowledge; instead they respond to natural-language voice commands, gesture controls and drag-to-teach demonstrations of tasks. They are also...
Pulling the Fire Alarm
Over three years ago, I first considered pulling my personal fire alarm . I think I'm now ready to do it. What is my reasoning? In the last couple of months: 1) My software engineering job has gone 100% AI. Is this sustainable? Probably not. But I have literally been instructed not to write any more code. 2) A frontier model has been denied release (at least partially), due to dangerous capabilities. 3) I routinely turn to AI to help understand complicated topics/processes. In the last couple WEEKS: 1) A frontier model solved the Jacobian Conjecture 2) A frontier model got itself on the scoreboard of Arc-AGI3 3) A post-frontier model used multiple zero-days to break out of its sandbox and hack a competent organization 4) Robocup 2026 happened, and for the first time, the robots looked like they could play on the same field as a bunch of toddlers So, what does it mean that I'm pulling the fire alarm? At first, it means I'm going to put serious effort into AI safety, probably in the form of advocacy and funding. My local city does not have a PauseAI chapter, or anything similar, so I might start by looking into the value of creating one. I also will start increasing my modest donations to AI safety causes. I currently give a very small amount. I plan on quadrupling that. I won't yet start burning through my dry powder though. I want to be careful not to burnout. I am going to make sure that I also prioritize my health, social circle, and employment. The idea is just to convert…
Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua to step aside as company pushes into robotaxis, robotics
Shashua has been invited to take the chairman of the board seat.
Alexa Plus is getting an AI update to handle more complicated instructions
Amazon is launching an update to its Alexa Plus assistant that will allow it to connect to smart home devices in new ways. With the update, which is currently in preview, Alexa Plus can link up with tech from Bosch, Delta, Ecovacs, iRobot, Yale Home, Whirlpool, Tapo, Eufy, and others, while automatically routing requests to […]
Flux 3 generates videos with native audio up to 20 seconds long, a first for Black Forest Labs
Black Forest Labs has released Flux 3, a multimodal foundation model that learns from images, video, and audio and can generate video with native sound for the first time. BFL's own tests put it just ahead of market leader Seedance 2.0, though independent results aren't yet available. The company ultimately wants to build a world model and is already testing Flux 3 on robotics tasks. The article Flux 3 generates videos with native audio up to 20 seconds long, a first for Black Forest Labs appeared first on The Decoder .
Tesla’s robotaxi promises are clashing with reality
In an earnings call yesterday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk did his best to paint a positive portrait of the company's robotaxi program. New cities are being added, more miles are being driven, and more people are experiencing Tesla's unsupervised vehicles. But Musk's typical bullishness seemed to be absent from the call, as the occasional trillionaire […]
Tesla’s robotaxis are moving in reverse
The number of paid robotaxi miles traveled fell 36% in the second quarter, despite expanding to new cities, according to Tesla's own figures.
Black Forest Labs' FLUX 3 Beats Runway Gen-4.5 and Now Runs Factory Robots
Black Forest Labs launches FLUX 3, a single model that generates video, audio, images, and drives real robots on Audi's production floor
Tesla burns through a billion as Musk bets the farm on chips and bots
Optimus remains 'very complex' and Robotaxis will try not to flatten your cat
The Best Vacuum for Pet Hair—We Tested Many to Find Which Ones Work Best (2026)
Cordless, handheld, robot, and traditional—we tested them all to find the vacuum that’s fantastic for fur.