A humanoid robot takes part in a wushu contest during the second World Humanoid Robot Games at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing on Aug. 26. BEIJING - At the World Humanoid Robot Games in China last month, robots jumped, boxed and danced. Some fleet-footed bots ran faster than Usain Bolt over 100 meters. Spectators cheered the machines' improving capabilities and their meme-worthy stumbles. Two days after the Games ended, the People's Liberation Army's official newspaper drew its own conclusions from the show.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Switch Off Creator Playbook Mashable Voices Trending Now Mashable Selects Safety Net Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List In My Bag All Series See the biggest moments from the latest competition putting humanoid robots to the test. Meet the new humanoid with'smart skin' (I touched it) 4:23 How well does the Beatbot Sora 70 robot clean your pool? Google DeepMind tests Gemini Robotics 2 doing chores around the house, and the future looks bright! The second World Humanoid Robot Games brought more than 2,000 humanoid robots to Beijing for a series of Olympic-style competitions. Check out some of the biggest highlights from this year's event.

People become more suspicious of a humanoid robot that makes errors, especially when the robot is an expressive conversation partner. In our new study published in the journal Science Robotics, we had 50 people hold conversations and make joint decisions with the commercial humanoid robot Pepper, which is designed to be expressive and recognize emotions. Sometimes we had the robot give sound advice. Sometimes we had it make conversational mistakes, interrupting people or pushing illogical suggestions. For some participants, the robot was animated, using gestures, eye contact and nods.

The five-day robot Olympics staked out China's claim as the undisputed leader in humanoid robotics. The five-day robot Olympics staked out China's claim as the undisputed leader in humanoid robotics. Faster, higher, funnier: what we learned from China's robot games With exploding pelvises, enough comic pratfalls for a Buster Keaton show reel and the odd moment of ruthless violence, the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing gripped the world this week with an unsettling mixture of hilarity, trepidation and relief. The five-day showcase staked out China's claim to undisputed leadership in humanoid robotics as android martial artists landed knockout roundhouse kicks and robot teams marched into the arena heralded by flag-waving captains astride giant robotic dogs. The games' blue-riband event, the 100m, did not disappoint when the robot-sprinters ran quicker than Usain Bolt before slamming mindlessly into a padded wall in a blaze of sparks, flames and flying mechanical limbs.

Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Look Up Creator Playbook Mashable Voices Trending Now Say More Mashable Selects Safety Net Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Switch Off In My Bag All Series In a world of creepy humanoid robots, be a duck robot. Olivia Tauber is the deputy editor of digital culture, covering creators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan. She also runs Fan Mail, a weekly pop-culture newsletter.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG . Chinese humanoid robot breaks Usain Bolt's 100m dash record at 9.39 seconds World's first solar-powered ambulance brings healthcare off-grid The scammer at your doctor's office may already know who you are'CHUMP CHANGE': How a $17B settlement is a landmark for social, still good for Meta Kurt'CyberGuy' Knutsson recalls being stuck in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina Cybercrime a global problem, thieves go for'targets of opportunity,' expert says Steve Doocy explores the US Air Force Academy's elite military training Supporting data centers is'perilous' politically: Brian Kilmeade China's humanoid robots are getting dramatically faster as one developer predicts robot soldiers could be 5 to 10 years away Kurt Knutsson, 'The CyberGuy', joins'Fox & Friends' to showcase the World Humanoid Games in Beijing, China. Over 2,000 robots and 600 teams from 16 countries compete in athletic competitions including sprinting, boxing, and soccer. Knutsson discusses how the U.S.-China tech race is expanding into humanoid robotics as developers push the boundaries of artificial intelligence.

Hugging Face has announced its latest robot, and it's a real quacker. Pollen Robotics (acquired by Hugging Face last year) said in a blog post that the excellently-named Microduck was imagined as a more action-oriented alternative to its Reachy Mini desktop robot. Standing at 25cm tall and weighing under 800g, Microduck is a biped robot with 15 motors, a built-in camera and a small LiDAR sensor. It also has two IMUs and an articulated beak that is able to pick up objects. Where the Reachy Mini was a stationary robot built around human-robot communication, with Microduck, Hugging Face has focused on mobility.

China's humanoid robots aren't smart enough to take your job -- yet A human trainer teaches a robot how to package noodles while holding a controller and wearing a headset fitted with motion sensors at a robot data training center in Liuzhou, Guangxi, China. LIUZHOU/BEIJING - Inside a training center in southern China, more than 100 humanoid robots stand in neat rows. The humanoids are slow and awkward. A novice trainer might get them to produce one usable movement in 300 attempts; an experienced trainer, one in 50. Robot maker UBTech won an $18 million tender from the Guangxi regional government last October to supply the training facility with humanoids and related hardware. The mission: to produce training data for so-called embodied AI -- robots able to perceive, decide and act in the physical world.

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