Robot

The company brought five of its Spot robodogs to America’s Got Talent where they performed a choreographed routine to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” — although one got stage fright and collapsed.

Tesla’s Optimus robot has been plagued by fakery since it launched with a dancer in a suit followed by remote manipulation at the cybercab event. So what is this? Generative AI? A man behind the curtain in a mocap suit?

One upgrade that the new $1,600 X9 Pro Omni robot vacuum mop has over the current $1,300 X8 flagship is Boosted Large-Airflow Suction Technology, which optimizes airflow from intake to exhaust, instead of just relying on suction power.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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).

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.