These autonomous cutters show promise, but there’s still a ways to go before you should trust one in your yard.
The AI development platform Hugging Face has partnered with The Robot Studio to release the documentation for the SO-101 robotic arm that will cost anywhere from $100 to $500 to build, as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. The arm has six motors and works with one or more cameras, letting you train it to carry out certain tasks — like putting a Lego brick in a bin.
The restrictions on rare earth minerals and related magnets came in response to Trump’s escalating tariffs and we’re now seeing some direct impact. Tesla’s occasional CEO says his plan to build thousands of Optimus humanoid robots this year is contingent upon the availability of those magnets needed for the robot’s motors.
”China wants some assurances that these are not used for military purposes, which obviously they’re not,” said Musk.
Starlink also wasn’t intended for military purposes... until it was.
They ran a separate-from-humans 21-kilometer (or almost 13.5-mile) track on Saturday in Beijing — a first, according to Reuters. Each had support from accompanying engineers for battery swaps or to pick them up when they fell. No wheeled robots were allowed.
The fastest robot was the Tiangong Ultra from the Beijing Innovation Center of Human Robotics, at 2 hours and 40 minutes, while the winning human runner’s time was 1 hour and 2 minutes, Reuters reports.
First announced at CES 2025, Yukai Engineering’s Nékojita FuFu is a tiny robot that’s designed to hang off cups and bowls to cool food and drinks by blowing on them. Calling it a robot is might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s cute, compact, and now available for preorder through Kickstarter for ¥3,550 (around $25 USD).
It’s USB-C rechargeable and can reduce temperatures by up to 30 degrees in just three minutes.
Alongside their fifth studio album, And the Adjacent Possible, debuting today, OK Go has released a new music video for a song called Love featuring kaleidoscopic effects created by the band, 29 choreographed robots, and over 60 mirrors.
Filmed over two days inside a decommissioned Budapest train station, it took 39 takes to film the single-shot music video that was co-directed by OK Go’s Damian Kulash, who also wrote the song.
Writer / director Drew Hancock’s new thriller Companion stands somewhere between M3gan and Lars and the Real Girl with its story about a man (Jack Quaid) whose girlfriend (Sophie Thatcher) doesn’t know that she’s actually a sophisticated android. The movie’s an inspired entry in the growing canon of AI panic horrors, and if you missed it during its theatrical run, you’ll be able to catch it on Max beginning April 19th.
Last month it was revealed that an Apple research team had developed an expressive robot lamp seemingly inspired by Pixar’s Luxo Jr. mascot. Although highly-articulated, Apple’s robot wasn’t mobile, but MiMo is.
Developed by the Japanese robotics company Jizai, MiMo is powered by multiple AI models and features an expressive head that looks like a desk lamp sitting atop six legs allowing the bot to follow people around or interact with them.
We’re slowly starting to get a better idea of the full capabilities of Boston Dynamics’ upgraded Atlas robot. The company shared another video of the humanoid performing various moves developed using reinforcement learning and human motion capture. Atlas runs, crawls, and performs a respectable cartwheel.
The bot’s breakdancing moves might not win it an Olympic gold medal, but it’s certainly not the worst performance the world has ever seen.
Netflix’s terrible adaptation of The Electric State is as soulless as it is uninspired.
Unitree’s $16,000 G1 humanoid robot debuted last August with 23 degrees of freedom but a recent algorithm update has expanded the bot’s balance capabilities and repertoire of movements.
The company demo’d the updates with G1 performing kung fu moves, but at the end of the video it also reminds owners to “refrain from making any dangerous modifications or using the robot in a hazardous manner,” which probably includes teaching your robot kung fu.
After demonstrating the benefits of reinforcement learning with a faster version of Boston Dynamics’ Spot, the Robotics and AI Institute has shared a video of an impressive robotic bike that can balance and jump without a dedicated stabilization system.
The two-wheeled bot manages to balance by controlling its speed and steering, while electronics on an articulated arm can quickly extend upwards to make the robot leap up onto a table with ease.
The commercial version of Boston Dynamics’ Spot isn’t designed for speed. So using reinforcement learning techniques, researchers from the Robotics and AI Institute upgraded the quadruped robo-dog with an improved gait allowing it to run at 11.6 mph, according to a report from IEEE Spectrum.
Spot’s top speed is usually around 3.6 mph, but with an added flight phase with all four feet off the ground, it’s able to run faster without any hardware upgrades.
One of a new breed of robot vacuums that incorporates a manual stick vac, the Switchbot K10 Plus Pro Combo launched this week for $799 (with a $200 discount at launch).
An upgrade to the K10 Plus, my pick for the best robot vacuum for small spaces, the Combo adds a stick vacuum that empties into the base station, bumps up the suction power of the robot vacuum to 3,000 PA, and brings better obstacle avoidance.
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LG has acquired a majority stake in Bear Robotics — an AI-powered service robot startup — to integrate with its own “CLOi” commercial robotics business. LG invested $60 million into the startup for a 21 percent stake last March, but the value of the new deal hasn’t been disclosed.
LG’s Lee Sam-soo says the investment reflects the company’s belief that robots have an “inevitable role in the future.”
The company describes Ai Me (Amy) as the “world’s first modular AI companion robot” but didn’t go into details about its full capabilities. A camera on its head can record videos or recognize objects using AI, and while the bot’s movements are limited to tiny flapping arms and blinking animated eyes, it pairs with a small motorized chair to autonomously navigate a home.
Is Samsung’s round robot finally ready to roll out of CES demos and into actual homes?
Nékojita FuFu is another unusual robot creation from Yukai Engineering. It’s designed to hang off a mug or sit next to a plate and cool hot drinks and food by blowing on it with varying intensities. It can reduce temperatures by up to 30 degrees in three minutes and will be available in Japan in mid-2025 for about $25.
