Latest news and articles about research
From bronze giants of Greek mythology to backflipping robots powered by neural networks, humanity has spent 3,000 years trying to build itself a mirror. This is the full story of humanoid robotics — packed with surprising connections, spectacular failures, and the engineers who refused to stop.
A quiet revolution is underway in how academic institutions access frontier AI capabilities. Amazon's Nova Forge program and the Stanford-AWS partnership signal a fundamental shift: universities are no longer locked out of the computational resources that define cutting-edge AI research. This democratization could reshape both academic research and industry innovation in unexpected ways.
Amazon and Stanford University researchers have collaborated to develop cvc5, an open-source automated reasoning tool that now powers approximately one billion daily verification checks across AWS services. The tool uses satisfiability modulo theory (SMT) to detect logical errors in code and is deployed in AWS features like Automated Reasoning checks in Amazon Bedrock and Identity and Access Management Access Analyzer to enhance security and reliability for customers.
This article reports on robotics highlights from CES 2026, with a focus on how physical AI and embodied intelligence have moved from experimental labs into mainstream consumer technology. The report covers emerging trends including humanoid robots from companies like Booster and Unitree, which are now commercially available, and discusses how consumer-facing robotics differs from academic research while remaining innovative in manufacturability and design.
Amazon has announced the return of its Nova AI Challenge for the second year, with ten university teams competing to build AI agents capable of handling complex multi-step software development tasks while maintaining security and reliability. For the first time, participating teams will have access to Amazon Nova Forge, enabling them to customize frontier AI models with tools and computational resources previously unavailable to academic research programs, addressing historical barriers to large-scale AI research in universities.
Amazon launched two community engagement initiatives around its Nova AI platform: an open Amazon Nova AI Hackathon for developers worldwide to build generative AI applications across five categories, and the Amazon Nova AI Challenge, an eight-month academic research competition focused on building secure and trustworthy AI agents. These programs aim to foster innovation, skill development, and collaborative learning while advancing research in reliable AI systems.
MIT Technology Review's What's Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. Demand for electric vehicles an...
Scientists are warning that rapid advances in AI and neurotechnology are outpacing our understanding of consciousness, creating serious ethical and existential risks. Researchers argue that developing scientific tests to identify consciousness could transform medicine, animal welfare, and AI development, but would also force society to rethink responsibility, rights, and moral boundaries as we potentially create conscious machines or brain organoids.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have developed DinoTracker, an AI app that analyzes dinosaur footprints with 90% accuracy comparable to human experts. The app was trained on nearly 2,000 real fossil footprints and millions of simulated variations, and unexpectedly discovered footprints over 200 million years old with bird-like characteristics, potentially pushing the origin of birds much deeper into prehistory.
New ISO 10218 standards published in 2025 unify safety requirements for industrial robots and cobots into a single standard series, eliminating the previous robot/cobot distinction and instead classifying any system where operators and robots share space as a collaborative application. The updated standards are intended to improve safety and will require designers, OEMs, and end users to adjust their compliance and implementation approaches for both traditional industrial robots and collaborative robots.
NASA's Perseverance rover completed its first Mars drives planned entirely by artificial intelligence, using vision-language models to autonomously identify safe routes across the Martian terrain. The system analyzed orbital images and terrain data to determine waypoints, reducing dependence on human planners and demonstrating how AI can enable more efficient autonomous exploration of distant worlds with significant communication delays.
This article is a curated roundup of the 10 most significant robotics developments from January 2026, spanning major announcements including Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid working with Google's DeepMind, Microsoft's Rho-alpha vision-language-action model for robots, Amazon's acquisition of Rightbot for logistics automation, and autonomous system debuts from companies like Doosan Bobcat and Neocis. The piece highlights the industry's shift from theoretical capabilities to real-world deployments across humanoids, industrial automation, AI models, and commercial applications.
NASA successfully used Anthropic's Claude AI model to plot a route for the Perseverance rover on Mars in December, marking the first time an LLM has been used to autonomously pilot the spacecraft. Claude analyzed years of rover data and waypoint imagery to map a 400-meter path through Jezero Crater, with NASA engineers estimating the AI approach will cut route-planning time in half and enable more frequent rover drives and scientific data collection.
Wandercraft's Atalante X self-balancing exoskeleton has enrolled its first patient in a clinical trial at Brigham and Women's Hospital to evaluate its safety and effectiveness in helping thoracic surgery patients mobilize in intensive care. The FDA-cleared, hands-free exoskeleton is being tested in a first-of-its-kind interventional pilot study designed to assess whether robotic assistance can enable earlier and safer patient mobilization compared to current clinical practices.
This video compilation showcases recent developments in multitasking robotics, featuring robots like Themis that can perform multiple actions simultaneously, such as carrying trash while navigating to a destination. The collection demonstrates advances in robot coordination and real-world task execution capabilities.
Google DeepMind has made its Genie 3 world model publicly available through Project Genie, allowing users to generate and interact with 3D environments using AI. The tool offers three interaction modes—World Sketching, exploration, and remixing—and generates dynamic, interactive worlds that respond to user movement, though it is not a full game engine and outputs are limited to 60-second sequences at 720p/24fps.
Google DeepMind unveiled AlphaGenome, an AI tool that predicts how DNA mutations affect gene expression by analyzing up to one million DNA letters simultaneously across 11 types of genomic mutations. Since its launch, approximately 3,000 scientists from 160 countries have used the model to study diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders, with the tool now available for free non-commercial use through an online portal.
Google DeepMind has launched Project Genie, making its Genie 3 world model available to the public through Google's AI Ultra subscription ($250/month). The system generates interactive 3D environments from text descriptions and allows users to explore them in real-time, offering three interaction modes including world sketching, exploration, and remixing of existing worlds.
Google has launched Project Genie, an experimental AI research prototype that enables users to generate and interact with infinite virtual worlds. The tool is currently available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. as part of exploring generative AI capabilities for world creation and exploration.
NVIDIA announced a comprehensive suite of open physical AI models and frameworks at CES 2026 to accelerate robotics and autonomous systems development, including new tools for simulation, synthetic data generation, and edge deployment. The stack was demonstrated through real-world applications including Caterpillar's AI-assisted heavy equipment, LEM Surgical's FDA-cleared robotic surgical system, and NEURA Robotics' humanoid and service robots, all leveraging NVIDIA's Omniverse, Isaac, and foundation model technologies.
Google has released Project Genie, an experimental AI world model that generates interactive 3D environments from text or image prompts, now rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US. The tool uses generative AI to create virtual spaces that could be applied to filmmaking, education, and potentially robotics navigation, though it remains a research prototype with limitations like 60-second exploration windows and input lag.
Anthropic released a 30,000-word Constitutional AI document that treats Claude with highly anthropomorphic language, discussing its potential consciousness, wellbeing, and moral standing, while remaining deliberately ambiguous about whether the company actually believes Claude is conscious. The article examines whether this framing represents genuine research methodology or strategic marketing, noting that current understanding of LLMs suggests such outputs emerge from pattern completion rather than genuine inner experience.
Honda and DriveOhio completed a pilot of the Proactive Roadway Maintenance System, which uses advanced vision and LiDAR sensors combined with edge AI models to detect road infrastructure defects like potholes, damaged signs, and guardrail damage with up to 99% accuracy. The system automatically generated maintenance work orders for Ohio Department of Transportation crews and demonstrated potential annual savings of $4.5 million if scaled statewide.
ABB Robotics announced a standardization initiative to develop a global ISO technical specification for measuring energy consumption and efficiency of industrial robots, addressing the lack of uniform measurement standards that currently makes it difficult for customers to compare robot energy efficiency. Working with the Swedish Institute for Standards and experts from 11 countries, ABB aims to complete the technical specification by August 2026 to help reduce the industry's carbon footprint and support sustainable manufacturing practices.
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed a novel quantum refrigerator that uses controlled noise to cool quantum computers instead of fighting against it. The breakthrough leverages Brownian refrigeration principles to achieve precise control over heat and energy flow in quantum circuits, potentially enabling the scaling of quantum technology for practical applications in drug discovery, AI, and secure communications.
A maker demonstrates an analog-based light-following robot using only simple components like light-dependent resistors (LDRs), op-amps, and 555 timer ICs, without requiring a microcontroller or computer vision system. The design evolves from simple binary steering to PWM-based motor control for smoother navigation, showcasing how classic analog electronics principles can solve robotics problems without digital processing.
Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have found a galaxy that is offering new data about the early stages of the universe's existence. The latest discovery shared by astronomers is about a...
Gartner predicts that fewer than 20 companies will deploy humanoid robots in production for supply chain and manufacturing by 2028, despite nearly 200 humanoid companies existing today. The research firm cites technological limitations, high costs, integration challenges, and energy constraints as major barriers, and suggests that polyfunctional robots with wheels and alternative designs may be better suited for warehouse and logistics operations than humanoid form factors.
Industry experts discuss the outlook for humanoid robots in 2026, examining both near-term deployment opportunities in households and the longer-term potential for general-purpose machines. The article explores the business case and development trajectory for humanoid robotics across various applications and market segments.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed software that converts subtle skin texture changes into measurable 3D data using an adapted GelSight tactile imaging technique. The system combines a compact sensor, custom elastic gel, and machine learning algorithms to create precise skin surface maps, enabling quantitative assessment of skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis, treatment efficacy, and skincare product effectiveness in both clinical and cosmetic settings.
Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology published findings showing that training AI systems to engage in internal dialogue or "self-talk" combined with working memory improves learning efficiency, task generalization, and adaptability. The study demonstrates that AI systems with this approach require less training data and perform better across multiple tasks, suggesting that learning is shaped by interaction dynamics during training.
E Ink tablets have always been intriguing to me because I'm a longtime lover of pen and paper. I've had probably hundreds of notebooks over the years, serving as repositories for my story ideas, to-do...
A large-scale study by researchers at Université de Montréal, including AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, found that leading generative AI models like GPT-4, Gemini Pro 1.5, and Llama now outperform average humans on standardized creativity tests, though they still significantly trail top human performers. The research used the Divergent Association Task tested on 100,000 human participants and found that AI creativity could be improved through parameter tuning and prompt engineering, though humans remained superior at complex creative tasks like writing haikus and fiction.
Apply for the EMEA Youth & Wellbeing Grant, a €500,000 program funding NGOs and researchers advancing youth safety and wellbeing in the age of AI.
Astronomers at the European Space Agency developed AnomalyMatch, a neural network that discovered 1,400 anomalous objects in the Hubble Legacy Archive in just 2.5 days, with over 800 being previously undocumented. The AI tool sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts to identify cosmic phenomena including merging galaxies, gravitational lenses, and mysterious objects that defy classification, demonstrating the potential of AI for accelerating scientific discovery in large astronomical datasets.
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have developed a hydrogel-based actuator system with integrated microfluidic 'blood vessels' that mimics biological muscle, combining movement control and fuel delivery in a single platform. The synthetic muscle demonstrates key principles toward artificial muscle through microstructural and chemical control, with potential applications in soft robotics, prosthetics, and human-machine interfaces that require safe interaction with people and delicate environments.
Researchers have developed UniRG, a system that scales medical imaging report generation using multimodal reinforcement learning to improve the accuracy and efficiency of automated diagnostic reporting. The work demonstrates advances in applying reinforcement learning and multimodal AI to the healthcare domain, combining computer vision and natural language processing for clinical applications.
Robotiq launched the TSF-85 tactile sensor fingertips for its 2F-85 Adaptive Gripper, enabling robots to sense and manipulate objects through touch using capacitor-based sensing technology. The product combines adaptive gripping with high-frequency tactile sensing (1000 Hz micro-slip detection) and is based on academic research from École de technologie supérieure, aiming to give industrial robots better perception and manipulation capabilities at scale.
Binghamton University researchers published a study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior examining human-robot collaboration in the workplace, finding that companies may gain greater competitive advantage through complementary human-robot integration rather than simple worker replacement. The study argues that collaborative approaches foster better employee commitment and organizational learning, while purely substitutive automation strategies can be easily replicated by competitors and may undermine efficiency gains.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Liverpool developed an adaptive jerk control method to improve low-damping impedance control in collaborative robots, addressing force-tracking errors and system instability in industrial applications. The novel control framework expands the stable parameter range for cobots and demonstrates improved force-tracking accuracy and contact stability, with potential applications in high-end manufacturing tasks like impact riveting and precision assembly.
Prism is a free LaTeX-native workspace with GPT-5.2 built in, helping researchers write, collaborate, and reason in one place.
OpenAI engineer Michael Bolin published a detailed technical breakdown of how the company's Codex CLI coding agent works, explaining the "agentic loop" that orchestrates interactions between users, AI models, and software tools. The post covers the agent's prompt construction, tool invocation, and iterative refinement process, while also addressing engineering challenges like prompt growth inefficiency and performance issues that arise in practical deployment.
Researchers from Toyohashi University of Technology conducted a VR study examining how autonomous robot movements affect human emotional responses, finding that unpredictable robot behavior with pauses and restarts keeps human arousal and discomfort elevated, while monotonous straight-line motion allows habituation over time. The study, published in the International Journal of Social Robotics, suggests that predictable robot behavior is critical for human comfort in shared spaces as autonomous robots increasingly enter everyday environments for delivery, cleaning, and security tasks.
Researchers at Southern University of Science and Technology have unveiled GrowHR, a soft humanoid robot inspired by bone growth that can expand to 3x its size, shrink to 36% of its height, walk on water, and fly. The robot uses inflatable air chambers wrapped in tough fabric to achieve remarkable flexibility and adaptability while remaining lightweight (4.5 kg) and inherently safe for human interaction.
Researchers from Université de Montréal conducted a large-scale study comparing over 100,000 humans with advanced AI systems on creativity tests, finding that generative AI models like GPT-4 now outperform average humans on certain creativity measures. However, the most creative humans—particularly the top 10%—still significantly surpass even the best AI systems, especially in richer creative tasks like poetry and storytelling. This represents a meaningful milestone in understanding the capabilities and limitations of generative AI relative to human creativity.
Dorian Todd built Sesame, a charming 3D-printed quadruped robot using an ESP32 microcontroller, eight MG90S servos, and an OLED display that conveys emotions through movement and facial expressions. The project demonstrates how simple electronics can create an expressive robot capable of remote control, with design files available on GitHub and an estimated build cost of around $60.
Researchers from Princeton and Northwestern universities developed SGbots, tiny modular robots with soft actuators that work together as a swarm to create adaptive building facades. The system, tested on office windows and in public galleries, uses swarm intelligence and wireless communication to respond to environmental stimuli like sunlight and human movement, demonstrating potential for dynamic, 'living' architecture.
This Robot Report Podcast episode features Thomas Pilz from Pilz GmbH discussing innovation and safety in robotics, alongside coverage of major industry news including iRobot's emergence from bankruptcy under new ownership, Serve Robotics' acquisition of hospital logistics provider Diligent Robotics, and Microsoft Research's announcement of Rho-alpha, a vision-language-action model for robotic manipulation tasks. The episode explores current challenges in the rapidly evolving robotics landscape and emerging technologies shaping the industry.
Agility Robotics, Amazon Robotics, ASTM International, AWS, Brain Corp, GM, Harmonic Drive, maxon, PickNik Robotics, QNX, RealSense, Robust AI, Tesla, Toyota Research Institute, Universal Robots, and...
McGill University engineers have developed programmable graphene oxide metamaterials that can fold, reshape, and move like origami in response to humidity or magnetic fields. These ultra-thin, flexible materials could enable a new generation of soft robots for medical applications, wearable devices, and adaptive systems, with integrated sensing and actuation capabilities.
