Unitree Robotics has released a video showing its H1 humanoid robot reaching a sprint speed of up to 10 meters per second, claiming a new world record.
Tested on an athletics track, the robot recorded 10.1 meters per second as it passed a speed-measurement device, though the company noted a possible measurement error. — Read More
Tag Archives: Robotics
This World Model Learns Physics by Watching Videos
Yann LeCun’s team just taught an AI to imagine the future from raw video. On one GPU. With a model smaller than most apps on your phone.
You know how you can close your eyes and imagine what happens when you push a coffee cup off the edge of a table? You don’t need to actually do it. Your brain just… knows. Gravity. Impact. Shattered ceramic. Coffee everywhere.
hat is a world model. An internal simulation of how reality works. AI researchers have been trying to build the same thing for machines. Not by programming physics rules manually, but by letting the AI watch videos and figure it out on its own. If a robot can imagine the consequences of its actions before taking them, it can plan. It can reason. It can avoid stupid mistakes. The problem? Building these things has been an absolute nightmare. Read More
China leads the humanoid robot race — but the U.S. still has a shot
Since the start of the year, China’s humanoid robots have made waves at home and abroad — from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to China’s Lunar New Year Spring Gala — fueling bold claims about a new industrial revolution that would make it impossible for the U.S. to catch up.
Chinese companies now dominate the humanoid robot market, capturing over 90% of global sales with thousands of units shipped last year. While Elon Musk maintains that Tesla will ultimately lead the industry, he recently acknowledged Chinese firms as his primary competition and noted that Tesla’s Optimus robots won’t be ready for launch until at least next year.
To unpack the claims and look beyond the viral robot performances, Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at tech consulting company Omdia and the author of its latest humanoid robotics report, spoke to Rest of World at a virtual event on February 25. — Read More
World’s first ‘biomimetic AI robot’ debuts in Shanghai
1X unveils 1XWM world model for NEO robot platform
1X Technologies has announced the integration of its new video-pretrained world model, 1XWM, into its NEO robot platform. This development targets robotics researchers, developers, and early adopters interested in advanced home robots that navigate and act with human-like understanding. The initial release is for a limited group, primarily for research and internal evaluation, with broader commercial deployment expected following further validation.
he 1XWM model represents a technical shift from conventional vision-language-action (VLA) models by using internet-scale video pretraining combined with egocentric human and robot data. This model predicts robot actions by generating text-conditioned video rollouts, which are then translated into motion commands through an Inverse Dynamics Model. Unlike prior approaches, this method does not require tens of thousands of robot demonstration hours, enabling faster adaptation to new tasks. — Read More
Android Dreams
“The danger is never that robots disobey, but that they obey perfectly.”
At the convergence of frontier research breakthroughs, billions in capital, and rising geopolitical tensions lies a dream for a new physical world. After the LLM wave, robotics is seen as the next exponential growth domain.0Chinese manufacturing is viewed as an existential threat to the US, adding to incentives. And, though robotics is the hardest domain of AI1, multiple new AI strategies now offer clear paths to Embodied General Intelligence (EGI).2
Informed by conversations with frontier researchers, intuitions gained at Optimus and Dyna2.5, and my own syntheses, I predict inference-controlled robots will comprise half the world’s GDP by 2045. This scenario illustrates how. — Read More
Figure AI’s New Humanoid Robot Can Fold Your Clothes, Do the Dishes
The day that humanoid robots wash the dishes and do the laundry may be closer than you think. On Thursday, Figure AI introduced its next-generation robot, Figure 03, taking its technology beyond factory floors to the home.
“Figure 03 is a general-purpose humanoid robot for every day,” the California startup said. In a video, it showed off the new model performing a wide range of chores at home, including watering plants, serving food, folding clothes, and tidying up a room. — Read More
There Are More Robots Working in China Than the Rest of the World Combined
China is making and installing factory robots at a far greater pace than any other country, with the United States a distant third, further strengthening China’s already dominant global role in manufacturing.
There were more than two million robots working in Chinese factories last year, according to a report released Thursday by the International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit trade group for makers of industrial robots. Factories in China installed nearly 300,000 new robots last year, more than the rest of the world combined, the report found. American factories installed 34,000. — Read More
The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media
The Dead Internet Theory (DIT) suggests that much of today’s internet, particularly social media, is dominated by non-human activity, AI-generated content, and corporate agendas, leading to a decline in authentic human interaction. This study explores the origins, core claims, and implications of DIT, emphasizing its relevance in the context of social media platforms. The theory emerged as a response to the perceived homogenization of online spaces, highlighting issues like the proliferation of bots, algorithmically generated content, and the prioritization of engagement metrics over genuine user interaction. AI technologies play a central role in this phenomenon, as social media platforms increasingly use algorithms and machine learning to curate content, drive engagement, and maximize advertising revenue. While these tools enhance scalability and personalization, they also prioritize virality and consumption over authentic communication, contributing to the erosion of trust, the loss of content diversity, and a dehumanized internet experience. This study redefines DIT in the context of social media, proposing that the commodification of content consumption for revenue has taken precedence over meaningful human connectivity. By focusing on engagement metrics, platforms foster a sense of artificiality and disconnection, underscoring the need for human-centric approaches to revive authentic online interaction and community building. — Read More
China unveils bionic antelope robot to observe endangered Tibetan species
A lifelike robotic Tibetan antelope is now roaming the high-altitude wilderness of Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in Northwest China’s Qinghai Province.
Equipped with 5G ultra-low latency networks and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, the bionic robot is being used to collect real-time data on Tibetan antelope populations without disturbing them.
This is the first time such a robotic antelope has been deployed in the heart of Hoh Xil, which sits more than 15,092 feet (4,600 meters) above sea level. — Read More
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