AI
How AI-trained robots are helping to root out fake paintings tied to a notorious forgery case
The Norval AI tool is being used to determine the authenticity of works alleged to by the Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau.
Innovation
Figure secures $1B funding to scale humanoid robots
Figure has raised more than $1 billion in a Series C round at a $39 billion valuation, giving the humanoid robotics startup major backing to accelerate commercialization. The company says the funding will help bring its humanoid robots into homes and commercial environments at scale.
The move highlights how AI-driven robotics is moving closer to real-world deployments — and therefore how semiconductor, compute, and venture ecosystems are lining up to support the shift.
Advanced robot butler Quanta X2 gets $100M boost from Alibaba Cloud
X Square Robot unveils Quanta X2 and open-source AI after $100M funding.
ICE Just Bought A Robot That Can Climb Stairs And Open Doors
This month, ICE has been ramping up its purchases of tactical gear, guns and surveillance kits. On Tuesday, contract records show it spent $78,000 on a robot capable of opening doors, climbing stairs and firing off smoke bombs during house raids.
Korean humanoid nails Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk dance with AI
The 2 minute demonstration video is a feast to the eyes of robotics enthusiasts.
Technology
Robots Are Measuring ADA Compliance in Irvine
Officials have deployed urban service robots to inspect sidewalk accessibility, in order to take an informed approach to improvements; the project is part of the city’s Americans with Disabilities Act self-evaluation.
Figure AI partners with Brookfield to develop humanoid pre-training dataset
For humanoid robots to be useful, they need to be trained on real-world datasets. Humanoid developer Figure AI Inc. this week partnered with Brookfield Corp., an alternative asset manager with more than $1 trillion in assets and 100,000 residential units under management.
OpenMind releases open-source OS for intelligent robots
OpenMind, a company developing an open artificial intelligence operating system for robots, today announced the beta mode release of its open-source OS, which it said will allow anyone to program robots.
Reading considers robot delivery scheme after trials
Autonomous delivery robots have been spotted travelling along pavements in Reading, marking the town's first test of pavement-based parcel drop-offs.
Startups
Icarus raises $6.1M to take on space’s “warehouse work” with embodied-AI robots
Icarus Robotics cofounders Ethan Barajas and Jamie Palmer spent hours interviewing astronauts about what it was like working in space as they homed in on their startup idea. Their big takeaway: the work was often more cargo logistics than cutting-edge science.