The household robot made its debut at the company’s CES 2026 press conference, rolling onto the stage and giving a ponderous demo of putting a towel into a laundry machine.
The sizable wheeled robot used its articulating arms and huge hands to perform the action and talked to the audience about its technology and capabilities, using human-like hand gestures to emphasize its words.
We love a good robot-kicking video here at The Verge. One example from EngineAI had so many people convinced of CGI fakery that the Chinese robotics company released “BTS footage” and a video of its CEO being kicked by the robot to prove it’s real. I’m entertained, but unconvinced.
The robot. His groin. It works on so many levels. Roll it again.
China sees humanoids as an economic engine and Musk wants a ‘robot army.’
Some people think they can pull a fast one by “returning” something they’ve bought, but replacing the original with a knockoff and keeping the real deal. UPS’s return centers are using machine learning to spot minor differences that might get missed by their human auditors. But the real fun in this video from Reuters is the swarm of robots that ferry returns around the warehouse.
The Roomba maker is being sold to its Chinese contract manufacturer, a move CEO Gary Cohen says will keep the company alive and allow it to grow.
iRobot’s collapse marks the end of an era. Co-founder Colin Angle calls it a blow for robotics.
6
Verge Score
Posha uses AI and a motorized arm to cook your dinner autonomously. It’s impressive but expensive, and raises all the usual concerns about connected kitchen appliances.
Footage of Tesla’s humanoid Optimus robot falling over at the company’s Autonomy Visualized event is raising questions over its, well, autonomy. We can’t be sure, but it certainly looks like a teleoperator removing a VR headset.
It wouldn’t be the first time Tesla disguised humans as robots.
The fan-favorite Transformer uses 28 servo motors to convert from robot mode to a Walkman replica that functions as a Bluetooth speaker and voice recorder, while Frank Welker recorded new lines for the robot in the character’s iconic synthesized voice. Soundwave is now available for preorder for $1,399, temporarily discounted to $999.
Lacking a skilled labor pool, Trump officials and sycophants say that industrial robots are key to a US return to manufacturing might. But China’s already well on its way to automating production lines that make products faster and for less, in order to respond to tariffs and to supplant the labor gap created by a society that won’t work long factory hours anymore. According to data compiled by the International Federation of Robotics:
China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year, nearly nine times as many as the U.S. and more than the rest of the world combined.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Alongside the unveiling of the very impressive self-walking Olaf character coming to Disney’s Frozen world attractions in Paris and Hong Kong next year, Disney takes us on a behind the scenes look at its research and development efforts, showing how reinforcement learning combined with simulation is dramatically accelerating robot development.
The company has announced a UK trial with autonomous delivery company Starship, starting in Sheffield and Leeds. It’s Uber’s first delivery bot trial in Europe, after tests in various US cities.
Starship’s robots aren’t new to the region though — one even delivered dinner to my colleague Tom way back in 2017.
The Russian humanoid robot made its big stage debut on Tuesday and took a few uneasy steps before faceplanting. Its handlers quickly dragged it offstage, leaving a trail of shattered robot bits as two others tried to hide the mess behind a black curtain.
The world-first saw a surgeon remotely remove a blood clot from a human cadaver in Dundee, Scotland, all the way from Jacksonville, Florida. It’s been hailed as a breakthrough, and potential life-saver if approved for use on patients.
[University of Dundee]
9
Verge Score
This WALL-E-like bot fixes the stuff every other robot vacuum gets wrong.
This sucker can’t fly, but it can avoid your socks.
The Roomba robot vacuum maker reported in a regulatory filing that its last potential buyer has withdrawn. The company, which has been seeking a sale since its deal with Amazon was scuppered by EU regulatory scrutiny, warned it could be forced to seek bankruptcy.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called it “a sad story” and an example of regulation gone wrong in an interview with CNBC today.
GM — on the latest Decoder — used the word “cobot” in a transparent bid to assuage workers concerned that the robots operating alongside them will soon replace them. As we learned this week from Amazon’s proposed usage of the friendlier term: human replacement is definitely the plan.
