Humanoids
Hardware, locomotion, dexterity, and the path to useful bipeds.
Spot Gets a Brain Upgrade with Gemini AI
Spot just got a brain upgrade—Gemini lets it reason in factories. Boston Dynamics is pairing its quadruped with Google Cloud and Google DeepMind to install Gemini and Gemini Robotics ER 1.6 into Orbit AIVI-Learning. The move, the company says, is meant to push Spot beyond basic object recognition to
What we’re watching next in humanoids
Humanoid demos in Tokyo actually move—no vaporware, just motion, today’s headline on the TechCrunch-led tour. TechCrunch is shipping its Startup Battlefield presence to Tokyo, and SusHi Tech 2026 is sharpening its lens on AI, robotics, resilience, and entertainment. The stated plan is to stage live
Wrist-Mounted ZED X Nano Boosts Robotic Vision
Forty percent smaller and wrist-worn, the ZED X Nano aims to rewrite robotic perception. Ouster’s latest collaboration brings a compact stereo camera directly onto the robot’s wrist, marketed as a delivery vehicle for faster, more reliable manipulation-focused vision. Built to support imitation lear
Silent, Flexible Fiber Muscles Drive New Actuation
Soft, silent fiber muscles promise robots that move without noisy motors. A collaboration between MIT’s Media Lab and Italy’s Politecnico di Bari has developed a new class of electrofluidic artificial muscle fibers that could quietly transform how humanoid robots and prosthetics move. The core idea
Fiber Muscles Promise Silent, Body-Friendly Actuation
A fiber-sized artificial muscle just outpaced bulky pumps, and it might finally give humanoids a quieter, softer backbone. Researchers at MIT's Media Lab and Italy’s Politecnico di Bari have unveiled electrofluidic fiber muscles—actuators built in a fiber format that can be arranged in different con
Quiet, fiber-based muscles enter robotics
A fiber muscle that moves without motors just got real. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab and Politecnico di Bari have unveiled electrofluidic fiber muscles—electrically driven actuators built in a lightweight, fiber form that can be woven, tucked into wearable skins, or slung into soft sleeves. The
Quiet fiber muscles reshape humanoid actuation
Researchers stitched muscles into fiber—and the robot stays silent. A new type of electrically driven artificial muscle fiber could finally give humanoid hardware some of the quiet, compliant behavior that biology pulls off so effortlessly. MIT Media Lab and Politecnico di Bari researchers have pair