Robots made their stage debut the day after New Year’s 1921. More than half-a-century before the world caught its first glimpse of George Lucas’ droids, a small army of silvery humanoids took to t
Pilot season has officially begun for the world of humanoid robotics. Last year, Amazon began testing Agility’s Digit robots in select fulfillment centers, while this January, Figure announced a dea
If your robotics startup is looking to raise, there’s close to a 100% chance you’re going to get two questions from potential investors: 1) How are you incorporating generative AI? and 2) Have you
Today Figure confirmed long-standing rumors that it’s been raising more money than God. The Bay Area-based robotics firm announced a $675 million Series B round that values the startup at $2.6 billi
The robotics industry loves a good, healthy debate. Of late, one of the most intense ones centers around humanoid robots. It’s been a big topic for decades, of course, but the recent proliferation o
The race to perfect the humanoid form factor will be one of 2024’s defining tech stories. Last year saw the category heat up, as companies like Tesla, Apptronik and Figure debuted their systems, whi
This is always a strange week for us. Save for the occasional disastrous patent dispute, things are (thankfully) almost uncannily quiet in the week separating Christmas and New Year’s Day. You see
Last month, I took an extended break. In a bid to keep my robotics newsletter Actuator (subscribe here) up and running, however, I reached out to some of the biggest names in the industry. I asked peo
[A version of this Q&A first appeared in TechCrunch’s weekly robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe here.] Over the next few weeks, TechCrunch will be running a series of Q&As with som
Announced amid a deluge of news at this week’s Delivering the Future event in Seattle was word that Amazon will begin testing Agility’s Digit in a move that could bring the bipedal robot to its na
In May of this year, TechCrunch ran a piece titled “Figure’s humanoid robot takes its first steps.” The story was a firsthand account of my visit to the startup’s South Bay offices. The he
The rise of humanoid robots didn’t happen overnight, but a kind of perfect storm has accelerated the phenomenon over the past year and change. The foundation, of course, is decades of research. Toil
Bay Area-based robotics firm Figure this week announced that its humanoid officially took its first steps — a milestone it hit a few days shy of of the company’s first anniversary. Figure
Jeff Cardenas pulls out his MacBook. Apptronik’s co-founder and CEO has a slideshow he wants to show, running down the Austin startup’s seven-year history. It does, indeed, take a bit of contextua
Toward the rear of the office, an engineer is working on a metal hand. It looks human enough — roughly the same size with four fingers and a thumb. The Figure team is methodically testing every
I’m not sure I’d call this the golden age of humanoid robots, but they sure have been coming out of the woodwork since Tesla announced its intentions to build one back in the summer of 2021. It’
The quest to build the perfect humanoid robot is heating up, as Figure — a startup currently operating in stealth — is developing a multi-purpose bipedal ‘bot it plans to pilot in 20
Long gone are the days when a consumer electronics company could simply announce a phone and call it a day. At this morning’s big launch event in Beijing, Xiaomi followed up its foldable news by han
Toyota has a new, third-generation humanoid robot bears the charming name “T-HR3” and is designed to be a helpful and safe assistant to humans. It also features a so-called “master m
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