Robot

It’s launching the RockAqua P1, which can clean up your pool floor, walls, and waterline with a suction power of up to 6,800 gallons per hour. The device has a 3.5-hour runtime for floor cleaning and will automatically return to the water’s surface when it needs a charge or has finished cleaning.

A notice published on the Department of Homeland Security’s website says the agency plans to spend up to $2 million on Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, as reported earlier by 404 Media. This comes just weeks after the Associated Press reported that ICE aims to spend up to $20 million on gloves that deliver electric shocks.

Arduino and Qualcomm have opened preorders for the Ventuno Q, an edge AI board designed to run agentic AI locally. Powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 processor offering up to 40 TOPS alongside a dedicated real-time microcontroller, it allows smart devices and robots to process vision, speech, and sensor data completely offline.

Humanoid robot makers are earning much of their revenue selling bots to government-backed training centers, which then sell training data back to the industry, the FT reports. It’s AI circularity all over again, stoking fresh humanoid bubble fears as Unitree soars in its stock market debut despite the US foreign robot ban.

The just-IPO’d Chinese robot maker claims it beat two human world records in one video: highest standing high jump and fastest running speed. Bolt’s top speed was 12.22 meters per second; Unitree claims 12.66. Robot marathons and MMA matches are now a thing in China, while the US is banning imports of such robots.

Samsung’s adorable rolling robot was never officially killed off, but it also never made it to retail as promised. SammyGuru just discovered an unmistakable Ballie-looking icon inside an official Samsung app during an APK teardown. More proof of life or just another death rattle?

Music-playing robots are nothing new. It’s been 13 years since Compressorhead went viral, after all. But this DIY project from Reddit user MegCell is still pretty impressive. The melody isn’t hard-coded, either. Instead, the robot can read MusicXML files, meaning, theoretically, it can play almost any song you want.

For a robot to effectively help with chores it needs to be able to interact with an environment designed for human hands. So 1X has developed a new pair of artificial hands for its $20,000 NEO Home Robot featuring 25 degrees of freedom in the fingers, palms, and thumbs allowing them to skillfully complete tasks like assembling Lego.

Domestic robots are beginning to enter the household, but we still have our doubts about how many might require a little teleoperation. You have to feel for the poor teleoperators though.

Made by Weave Robotics, Issac 1 is a fuzzy, colorful home robot that promises to collect dirty clothes, fold and put away laundry, make beds, and tidy clutter. Shipping is slated for later this year, with a $250 deposit required. While its main tasks are automated, Weave says that, like its predecessor Isaac 0, Issac 1 will be teleoperated “when needed to guarantee we complete tasks.”

I’ve never enjoyed the regular maintenance of a fish tank, so I prefer the approach that Peter and Filip from the YouTube channel, CPSdrone, took. They spent three months engineering custom 3D-printed mini submarines that zoom around an aquarium like fish and autonomously dock themselves to wireless underwater chargers.

It may never come to the US, but LG announced its new HomeBot AI Objet Collection Roni robot vacuum in South Korea today. Its charging/cleaning dock can be hidden in kitchen cabinetry (requiring some reno) but there’s also a standalone dock that looks like a nondescript side table.

The company — which provides “Digit” humanoid robots to customers like Amazon and Toyota — is set to merge with acquisition company Churchill Capital Corp and list under the ticker symbol AGLT. Agility CEO Peggy Johnson says that going public will give the company an edge over its competitors “seeking to fill the labor gap.”

As part of giving its Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster attraction at Hollywood Studios a Muppets makeover (goodbye, Aerosmith) Walt Disney World imagineers created an audio-animatronic version of Scooter. To ensure the robot moved like a puppet they used a motion capture studio to record the actual Muppets’ movements performed by a puppeteer.

The robot vacuum company just launched its first robot lawnmower designed for US yards. The RockNeo Q110H combines RTK and VSLAM navigation and costs $1,299. It’s designed for small- to medium-sized yards and handles 45% slopes.

Its PowerDetect UV Reveal now comes in four colors — brown, green, blue, and ivory. The earthy neutral palettes feature metallic accents and look surprisingly good — for a robot. I’ve been testing the blue one, and I like how it blends in with my kitchen cabinets.

Robots have been an important part of Disney’s theme parks for decades, but instead of entertaining guests, this industrial arm is being used to carve intricate marble statues while human sculptors add fine details. The use of marble is more cost-effective, according to Disney, and better suited to surviving Florida weather.

The smart lighting company best known for its modular RGB lighting panels has been acquired by OneRobotics, the parent company of Switchbot. According to a filing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the purchase will take two years to complete.

Tech companies want to film you doing chores as training data for the next generation of household robots. If you’re not a fan, and don’t mind living in chaos, there’s always another way to participate.