The wire

Optical Tech Would Update a Robot’s AI on the Fly

Atop a lab bench, Cornell Tech postdoctoral researcher Yifan He positions the lens of an optical receiver almost a meter away from an LED emitting a beam of red light. The computer monitor attached to the receiver takes a beat to refresh, t…

Fuhan Micro: Company Supplies Chips to Industrial Robot Companies

A Conversation With Oak Bot’s Jiang Yao: Letting Robots Work by ‘Instinct,’ Like Humans

Touch is the first “witness”; vision is only an observer.

Daimon Robotics Announces Several Hundred Million Yuan in Financing, Led by Ant Group

Six Months, 25 Billion Yuan in Funding: Dexterous Hands Have Yet to Produce a 'Standard Hand'

The first year of mass production, or the early stage of a bubble?

Former OpenAI Robotics Lead Caitlin Kalinowski Joins Anthropic; Previously Worked on Apple's Mac Pro

ITHome, Aug. 11 - Caitlin Kalinowski's LinkedIn profile shows that the expert who previously led OpenAI's robotics project has joined Anthropic as a member of the technical staff, working on research. Her personal website describes Caitlin as a veteran executive in hardware and robotics. She advises early-stage teams working at the intersection of hardware, robotics, and artificial intelligence, and serves as a board member at Axon. She previously led robotics hardware at OpenAI and AR/VR hardware at Meta...

Tacta Systems takes aim at high-skilled manufacturing work with TactaBot

Tacta Systems unveiled a three-part system, including its robotic hand, that enables users to teach its robot new dexterous skills. The post Tacta Systems takes aim at high-skilled manufacturing work with TactaBot appeared first on The Robo…

Building robots that survive the warehouse

Nomagic says its real moat is production data, because the messiness of real warehouses is where robots either prove themselves or fail. The post Building robots that survive the warehouse appeared first on The Robot Report.

Hadrian raises $1.37B to accelerate U.S. defense, aerospace manufacturing

The raise values Hadrian at $7.87 billion. It is Hadrian's second funding round this year, following a round in January 2026. The post Hadrian raises $1.37B to accelerate U.S. defense, aerospace manufacturing appeared first on The Robot Rep…

RoboStore launches Robo Inc. to help U.S. organizations deploy robots

RoboStore, a distributor of Unitree's legged robots, has launched Robo Inc. to serve as a U.S.-based manufacturer and integrator. The post RoboStore launches Robo Inc. to help U.S. organizations deploy robots appeared first on The Robot Rep…

CATL-Linked Chendao Capital Leads Linghou Robot’s Series C Funding of More Than 100 Million Yuan

On August 10, Suzhou Linghou Robot Co. announced that it had completed a Series C financing round of more than 100 million yuan. The round was led by Chendao Capital, an industrial investment platform linked to CATL, with joint participation from the Industrial Mother Machine Industry Investment Fund, the Information Industry Fund under Yuxin Electronics, and a well-known dual-currency fund managing several tens of billions of yuan. Existing shareholders including Suzhou Venture Capital and Guyu Capital also continued to increase their investments.

Ant Group Opens 2027 Campus Recruitment, With Technical Roles Making Up 80%

On August 10, Ant Group officially opened its 2027 campus recruitment program. According to Ant Group, technical roles account for 80% of this autumn recruitment drive, and more than 80% of the positions are related to artificial intelligence. The hiring focus includes model training, embodied intelligence, AI infrastructure, AI products and AI security. Work locations cover multiple cities worldwide, including Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sunnyvale and Singapore.

CSC Financial: Watch Catalysts in Clinical Progress, Registration, Volume Growth and Overseas Expansion for Innovative Medical Devices

On August 11, CSC Financial said in its latest research report that long-term investment opportunities in the medical device sector will come from innovation, overseas expansion, and M&A integration. The sector’s innovation and internationalization capabilities have been recognized, and valuations are being reassessed. After the sharp rally in innovative drugs, medical device products with global competitiveness, including improved innovations and breakthrough innovations, are gradually gaining recognition. A group of companies is also actively expanding into second growth curves and achieving high growth in overseas business, pushing valuations higher. The report recommends continued attention to innovative medical device segments with large market potential and low domestic substitution rates, as well as investment opportunities in themes such as M&A and restructuring, brain-computer interfaces, AI healthcare, surgical robots, and exoskeleton robots. It also recommends watching catalysts around clinical progress, registration, volume growth and overseas expansion for innovative medical devices...

Avatar Robotics raises seed round to address industrial labor constraints

Avatar Robotics raised $6.5 million in funding to scale humanoid robots and remote teleoperation across industrial supply chains. The post Avatar Robotics raises seed round to address industrial labor constraints appeared first on The Robot…

What Robotics Companies Think About the U.S. Foreign Robot Ban

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “Covered List,” originally published in 2021, identifies communications equipment and services that it says pose a threat to national security. On 28 July, the FCC added mobile, communicating…

Video Friday: Drones Go Heavy in DARPA Lift Challenge

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Tate deploys 58 Hirebotics cobot welders across multiple facilities

Tate decided to move from traditional hand welding to an agile, cloud-connected automation network powered by Hirebotics. The post Tate deploys 58 Hirebotics cobot welders across multiple facilities appeared first on The Robot Report.

Robot Recycler Salvages Parts from Broken Machines

Objects constructed by robots are ubiquitous. If you’ve used a car, household appliance, or smartphone today, you’ve used an object constructed at least in part by robots. The more products that manufacturers want to produce (and consumers…

VicOne releases free NVIDIA Isaac Sim cybersecurity extension based on DEF CON 34 research

VicOne says its free Radeis Extension for NVIDIA Isaac Sim enables developers to test robot cyber safety before deployment. The post VicOne releases free NVIDIA Isaac Sim cybersecurity extension based on DEF CON 34 research appeared first o…

Apple Releases visionOS 27.0 Developer Preview Beta 5

ITHome, August 11 — Apple today pushed the visionOS 27.0 Developer Preview Beta 5 update to Vision Pro users, with internal build number 24M5348b. The release comes 20 days after the previous Beta/RC build. Note that because of caching issues in Apple’s regional node server configurations, the update may appear slightly later in some locations. The delay is usually within half an hour and should not be long. This article was published by a bot. ITHome will provide detailed update information later. visionOS 27 release history: 2026-07-21: visionO…

Apple Releases iOS/iPadOS 26.6.1 Stable Version

ITHome, August 11 — Apple today pushed the iOS/iPadOS 26.6.1 update to iPhone and iPad users, with internal build number 23G82. The release comes 14 days after the previous stable version. Note that because of caching issues in Apple’s regional node server configurations, the update may appear slightly later in some locations. The delay is usually within half an hour and should not be long. This article was published by a bot. ITHome will provide detailed update information later. iOS/iPadOS 26 release history: 2026-07-28: iOS 26.6 (23G71) 2026…

Apple Releases macOS 26.6.2 Stable Version

ITHome, August 11 — Apple today pushed the macOS 26.6.2 update to Mac users, with internal build number 25G82. The release comes 14 days after the previous stable version. Note that because of caching issues in Apple’s regional node server configurations, the update may appear slightly later in some locations. The delay is usually within half an hour and should not be long. This article was published by a bot. ITHome will provide detailed update information later. macOS 26 release history: 2026-07-28: macOS 26.6 (25G72) 2026-07-21: macOS 26.…

Apple Releases iOS/iPadOS 18.7.10 Stable Version

ITHome, August 11 — Apple today pushed the iOS/iPadOS 18.7.10 update to iPhone and iPad users, with internal build number 22H373. The release comes 98 days after the previous stable version. Note that because of caching issues in Apple’s regional node server configurations, the update may appear slightly later in some locations. The delay is usually within half an hour and should not be long. This article was published by a bot. ITHome will provide detailed update information later. iOS/iPadOS 18 release history: 2026-05-05: iOS 18.7.9 (22H355)…

Video Friday: Atlas Versus a Fridge

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Video Friday: Extreme Omnidirectional Robot

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

This DIY Bipedal Robot Used Pneumatic “Air-Muscles” Instead of Motors

In 1987, Richard Greenhill, a British photographer who was fascinated by (but had no actual training in) robotics, decided he wanted to build a life-size humanoid that could do useful things, like carrying luggage. He was working at a start…

Cyber vulnerability sweep picks up Royal Navy drones sending data to China

No, no nasties to see here, guv...

Video Friday: Watch This Running Robot Not Fall Down Stairs

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Beyond Dexterity: Why Contact May Define the Next Era of Robotics

This article is brought to you by AGILINK. Throughout the exhibition hall at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics (ICRA), in Vienna, one demonstration seemed to attract a disproportionate amount of attention. Two robotic hands…

Defining Autonomy for Wellness Robots in Senior Care

An examination of how socially assistive wellness robots could support the seven dimensions of senior wellness, and how a framework can measure their autonomy. What Attendees will Learn Why the senior care crisis exceeds incremental automat…

Video Friday: Robotic Motion Discovery Reveals Unusual Behaviors

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Award-Winning Researcher Trains Robots to Make Educated Guesses

Yen-Ling Kuo always wanted to understand how things worked. When she was growing up in Taiwan, reading the story of Michael Faraday in elementary school piqued her curiosity about the natural world. During that time, she was introduced to L…

Visual Language Models Train Robots to Read Human Emotions

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. As robots advance in terms of dexterity and other physical capabilities, it becomes more likely that humans may find themselves working alongsi…

The Secret to Marathon-Winning Humanoid Robots

On 19 April 2026, the Honor Lightning humanoid robot ran a half-marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating the human world record by 7 minutes and the best robot time from 2025 by almost 2 hours. How did Honor do it? Is there some magic…

What Amazon’s Astro Taught Me About Giving Robots a Soul

In 2018, Amazon brought me in as the lead UX Sound Designer for Astro, its first consumer home robot. Astro used cameras and other sensors to map and navigate your home and workplace, and could proactively patrol, check up on loved ones, an…

Video Friday: Do Robots Even Need Legs?

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Video Friday: Give Robots a Hand

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Yijing X9 Debuts HarmonySpace 6 Cockpit, With Support for the ‘Hamengmeng’ AI Companion Robot

IT Home, Aug. 10 — The global debut event for the HarmonySpace 6 cockpit in the Yijing X9 was held today. The new vehicle is positioned as a flagship large six-seat family SUV and supports Huawei Qiankun ADS 5 assisted driving. According to the company, the cockpit will feature dual 17.2-inch “butterfly wing” connected displays using soft-light technology and supporting multi-screen continuity. The Xiaoyi smart assistant has been upgraded to the MoLA 2.0 architecture, enabling continuous multi-turn conversations and recognition of vague spoken commands. The center control screen also supports Huawei’s HarmonySpace AI companion robot “Hamengmeng,” which can attach to the screen and turn its head, acting as a close companion to Xiaoyi. When users wake Xiaoyi, the…

'Asimov was right' about rules for robots, says ex-US Cyber Director

Humans will get the AI models they deserve

Zhongke Magnetic Industry Plans Up to 609 Million Yuan Convertible Bond Issue for High-Performance Rare-Earth Permanent Magnet Components Project

Zhongke Magnetic Industry said in an Aug. 10 announcement that it plans to issue convertible corporate bonds to unspecified investors, raising no more than 609 million yuan. After deducting issuance expenses, the proceeds will be used for an intelligent manufacturing and industrialization project for high-performance rare-earth permanent magnet components used in thermal management systems and robots, as well as to supplement working capital. The convertible bonds will have a term of six years from the date of issuance, with the coupon rate to be determined through consultation between the board of directors and the sponsor institution.

Boeing to Take Stake in Archer Aviation, Sell It Subsidiaries Including Wisk Aero and SkyGrid

Boeing announced on Aug. 10 that it had signed definitive agreements with Archer Aviation to sell subsidiaries Wisk Aero, SkyGrid, and Insitu to the company. The statement said the deal will combine the two companies’ complementary capabilities in autonomous flight, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, and unmanned aircraft systems to build an end-to-end physical AI platform for aerospace and defense. As part of the transaction, Boeing will take a stake in Archer and enter into a collaboration and technology-sharing agreement.

Ford Rolls Out New AI Assistant Overseas That Can Check Fuel Levels and Teach Maintenance

IT Home, Aug. 10 — According to The Verge on the evening of Aug. 10, Ford and Lincoln models overseas are gradually receiving an AI assistant that lets owners ask directly how much fuel they will need for their next long trip, or whether their pickup can tow a newly purchased jet boat. The AI assistant will first arrive in Ford and Lincoln mobile apps, with an in-car voice version planned for next year. The mobile assistant takes the form of a chatbot and can answer questions about vehicle performance, maintenance needs, and more. Because the app is already linked to a specific vehicle, the assistant can directly read status information such as remaining fuel, payload capacity, and towing capacity. Ford plans to bring voice interaction directly into vehicles next year…

Unitree Robotics Opens Subscriptions Today, With Final Online IPO Allotment Rate at About 0.0181%

IT Home, Aug. 10 — Unitree Robotics today released details of investor subscriptions and the allotment rate for the online portion of its initial public offering on the STAR Market. The shares are priced at 150.80 yuan each, with 40.446434 million shares to be issued. After the clawback mechanism was triggered, the final online issuance was 9.707 million shares, accounting for about 30.00% of the issuance after deducting the final strategic placement. The final online allotment rate was 0.01809759%. IT Home previously reported that Unitree plans to focus the proceeds on four core projects: intelligent robot model R&D, robot body R&D, development of new intelligent robot products, and smart…

Unitree’s 60.9 billion yuan paradox: as robots get better at work, will the business get harder?

When robots start doing real work, will the largest share of revenue across the value chain still remain in Unitree’s hands?

Chinese vendors accounted for more than 97% of global humanoid robot shipments in the first half, a commanding lead

ITHome, Aug. 10 — Citing the latest data from market research firm Smart Analytics Global (SAG), Bloomberg reported today that China has taken a commanding shipment lead in the global humanoid robot market. In the first half of 2026, Chinese manufacturers accounted for more than 97% of global humanoid robot shipments, with AgiBot and Unitree Robotics taking the top two spots and clearly outpacing U.S. competitors such as Tesla, Figure AI and Agility Robotics. About 19,100 humanoid robots were shipped globally in the first half, more than tripling from 5,100 units in the same period last year. SAG…

Home Robots’ Biggest Misread: Treating ‘Entering the Home’ as the Same as ‘Doing Housework’

As the industry defines the end point for home robots as all-purpose household assistants, a more realistic path has been overlooked: robots may enter homes first through state observation, proactive questioning and coordinated care, rather than waiting for dexterous manipulation to fully mature.

Pony.ai’s Global Autonomous Driving Mileage Exceeds 100 Million Kilometers

IT Home, Aug. 10: Pony.ai announced today that its global autonomous driving mileage has surpassed 100 million kilometers. IT Home note: Pony.ai was founded in 2016, listed on Nasdaq in the U.S. in November 2024, and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 2025. Its main businesses include autonomous ride-hailing services, or Robotaxi, and autonomous trucking services, or Robotruck. According to Pony.ai’s official first-quarter 2026 financial report, total revenue was 236 million yuan, up 145.0% year on year and 17.6% quarter on quarter; Robotaxi revenue was 59.12…

U.S. FCC Moves to Expand Drone Ban, Targeting Previously Approved LiDAR Drones

IT Home, Aug. 10: Citing a report today from tech outlet Engadget, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is planning to further expand the scope of its drone restrictions, seeking to add some previously approved drone products to its sales ban. According to the report, the FCC is now proposing to prohibit the sale of foreign-made drones equipped with thermal imaging, LiDAR and aerosol spraying functions, arguing that such products could pose risks to “national security.” IT Home previously reported that the FCC announced last December that foreign-made unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and their key components would be added to its Covered List. That restriction, however, only affects new products launched in the future; products that had already received FCC…

Video Friday: An Earthbound Mars Rover for the Moon

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

Japan Pioneered Humanoid Robots—Can It Now Catch China?

“In the future, the relationship between humans and robots will deepen, and the distinction between them will probably disappear.” This prediction, from one of the attendees at the recent Humanoids Summit in Tokyo, might have been unremarka…

IEEE Honors Robotics Pioneer Toshio Fukuda

Toshio Fukuda has been blazing trails for most of his career. He is considered to be one of the most prolific scholars in robotics, writing more than 2,000 research papers and authoring several books on the field. He’s an influential figure…

Video Friday: A World Cup for Robots

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclus…

ChinaAMC Robotics ETF (562500) Trades More Than 500 Million Yuan Intraday as Robot Index Diverges and Industry Enters Mass-Production Delivery Phase

As of 14:16 on Aug. 10, 2026, the CSI Robot Index (H30590) was down 1.22%. Among its constituents, shares were mixed: Jingpin Tezhuang led gains with a 12.45% rise, Huadong CNC climbed 9.96%, and Huazhong Numerical Control gained 8.81%; OPT fell the most, down 5.52%, while Colibri Technologies dropped 5.16%.

Tighter U.S. Rules on New Robot Vacuums Force Chinese Makers to Reassess the Market

An update to the U.S. equipment list now prevents most new foreign-produced mobile robots, including household cleaning models, from receiving the certification needed for import and sale. Existing approved products remain available, so the...

Why Multibillion-Dollar Robotics Companies Are All Fixated on Folding Laundry

On Aug. 10, Business Insider reported that a group of robotics startups, including Figure AI, Sunday Robotics, Weave Robotics, and 1X, are treating “folding laundry” as a key entry point for home robots to move into real households. These companies have raised billions of dollars in total, but if they want consumers to accept robots priced at several thousand dollars, they still need to prove they can do more than fold clothes. Weave Robotics’ Isaac 1 robot. Recently, several companies have shown robots autonomously folding laundry. The robotics industry is focusing on this seemingly ordinary household chore because...

DJI’s Missed Billions in Unitree Market Value Sparks Debate: Once Its Largest Outside Shareholder, DJI Exited in 2019

ITHome, Aug. 10: Unitree Robotics opened subscriptions today, bringing what is being billed as the first humanoid robotics stock to China’s A-share market. Unitree has set its offering price at 150.80 yuan per share, implying a market capitalization of about 60.993 billion yuan at listing and a post-issuance price-to-earnings ratio of 219 times for fiscal 2025. Today, the topic of “DJI missing out on Unitree” rose to the top of Weibo’s trending list. According to Securities Times, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing briefly worked at DJI before starting his company, but soon resigned to launch his own venture. In 2018, DJI acquired about 17% of Unitree for 10.1286 million yuan, implying a valuation of roughly 60 million yuan at the time....

Building a Foundation Stack for General-Purpose Robots

This article is brought to you by X Square Robot. Large language models gave artificial intelligence a working recipe. Pretrain a large model on broad data, and general capability follows. Robotics has no such recipe. Robotics systems have…

Robot Finger Feels in Color

Imagine running your fingertip over the surface of a U.S. penny. You would feel the ridges of the raised letters and numbers, Abe Lincoln’s bearded side profile, and, if it’s tails, the fluted columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Getting a robo…

The Brain of Embodied Intelligence: A 20 Billion Yuan Ticket

A look at the 20 billion yuan club in embodied intelligence, covering five companies.

Unitree's IPO Marks Embodied Intelligence's First Industry Shakeout

From capital and markets to the supply chain and policy support, this is the best window yet for embodied intelligence companies, as well as an opportunity to overtake rivals on a curve. Unitree's IPO is a milestone for embodied intelligence, and it also signals that competition in the sector is about to enter a much harsher phase.