🤖 Figure Runs Past The Demo
Good Morning, Roboticists!
Figure's robot trains for nine days straight. Samsung wants one that never clocks out. Somewhere, a humanoid is quietly Googling how to start a union.
Figure Runs Past The Demo
TL;DR: Figure says a Figure 03 humanoid has walked 348 miles and 1.2 million steps in a treadmill stress test that reached nine straight days, with the run continuing. CEO Brett Adcock says the side project is meant to expose failures rather than stage a task demo. It is narrow, but endurance data is exactly what humanoid makers rarely reveal. Read more →
KAIST Gives Humanoids Some Weight
TL;DR: KAIST's Humanoid v0.9 demonstrated whole-body object handling with only onboard cameras: it pushed loads up to 35 kg and lifted up to 20 kg while walking. The October 19 video pairs locomotion with manipulation, including moving objects to spell KAIST. It is a lab demonstration, but it gives the platform more to prove than balance alone. Read more →
Robot Brains Just Raised $90M
TL;DR: Dream Labs emerged from stealth with a $90 million seed round and a public API for Dream-1, its World Action Model. Founded by former NVIDIA GR00T leaders, the San Francisco startup says Dream-1 can control unfamiliar bimanual robots without robot-specific demonstrations. Its wager is that useful skills can cross machines instead of being rebuilt task by task. Read more →
Renault Books 350 Humanoids
TL;DR: Wandercraft plans to deploy 350 Calvin-40 humanoid robots at Renault as early as 2027, aimed at heavy repetitive work in manufacturing and logistics. The French company says it has signed 12 major industrial customers in under a year and is building a Paris headquarters designed for one robot per hour. That gives this more weight than another showroom promise. Read more →
Logging Machines Get A Brain
TL;DR: Kodama raised $7 million, bringing total funding to $14 million, to expand its physical-AI systems for forestry. It is deploying remote-operation and autonomy tools for heavy equipment in complex off-road work, starting with human-in-the-loop operations before higher autonomy. Co-led by Konvoy and Breakwater, the round funds commercial deployments, OEM partnerships and more field data from logging and wildfire-resilience jobs. Read more →
FANUC Trains The Bottleneck
TL;DR: FANUC America opened a 132,000-square-foot Training Academy in Auburn Hills, Michigan, calling it the country's largest corporate robotics and industrial-automation training center. The $18 million, three-story building includes 56,300 square feet for technicians, engineers, educators and students. FANUC is also investing $90 million in Michigan manufacturing capacity, betting that automation still needs people trained to run it. Read more →
Off-Road Robots Get Radar Eyes
TL;DR: Arbe Robotics introduced Gryphon, a 4D imaging-radar system for unmanned ground vehicles in dust, rough terrain and weak satellite navigation. The Tel Aviv company says the platform combines chipset, radar and AI to give UGVs perception-ready data in real time. It is not a new robot, but a bid to solve the sensing failure that sidelines robots outdoors. Read more →
Robots Learn To See Ahead
TL;DR: SNU researchers introduced Dynin-Robotics, a unified foundation model that handles instructions, images, video and robot actions while predicting what should happen next. In four real-world physical manipulation tests, the team reported a 78.4% average success rate, ahead of three comparison models. The project, led by Professor Jaeyoung Do's AIDAS Lab, is headed to NeurIPS 2026. Read more →
Samsung Wants 24-Hour Robots
TL;DR: Samsung Electronics is reportedly testing a bipedal humanoid at its Seoul R&D campus for round-the-clock factory and logistics work, with CES 2027 under consideration. The effort appears to prioritize uptime, not a single 24-hour charge: industry sources point to hot-swappable batteries that avoid a reboot. Samsung's RX division is monitoring the robot across three shifts, according to the report. Read more →
Security Robots Get A Control Room
TL;DR: Knightscope says its Signals digital-twin system is live at its Silicon Valley headquarters, combining cameras, sensors, K7 patrol robots, K1 capsules and super towers in one real-time model. The company says an analyst can investigate alerts or run virtual patrols from one screen. Live feeds from the H1 security wearable and direct robot-navigation connections remain planned, not yet complete. Read more →
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