World Models Will Soon Be Inescapable. Here's What You Need to Know Moving AI from text to 3D space, world models simulate real-world physics to teach robots and autonomous cars how to navigate reality. On the prowl, you're swiping on a smartphone to catch that elusive Snorlax and grow your collection in . You, alongside hundreds of millions of other players, are enjoying a mixed-reality game built around lovable characters. What you don't realize is that these scans of your environment will one day help robots navigate obstacles and interact with objects.

JR East's humanoid chainsaw robot handles dangerous vegetation management along Japan's railway lines while a trained operator controls its movements remotely from a safer location.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.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 . Why are people attacking food delivery robots?

AIhub coffee corner: Are humanoids the future of embodied AI? This month we ask whether humanoids are the future of robotics. How has the technology evolved recently, and what can we expect in the years to come? Joining the conversation this time are: Joydeep Biswas (University of Texas at Austin), Sanmay Das (Virginia Tech), Rina Dechter (University of California, Irvine), Ioannis Erripis (AIhub), Sabine Hauert (University of Bristol), Ella Scallan (AIhub), and Marija Slavkovik (University of Bergen). There have been huge advancements in humanoid robots over the past couple of years. Today's topic is particularly timely, as RoboCup 2026 recently took place. I thought it would be interesting to start with an overview of recent developments at RoboCup. This all started snowballing a couple of years ago, and we suddenly started to see this huge inflection on the capabilities. New humanoid robots were showing up at RoboCup that didn't fall down as much. Suddenly we were able to deploy robots without humans following them around. I want to highlight that this is not just one key technical innovation, it required the confluence of a wide number of things: much better hardware, significant advances in algorithms, and advances in how we train and learn. Once upon a time, humanoid robots required classical control. However, most modern humanoid robots are using learned controllers for walking.

A Toyohashi University of Technology team tested whether a robot's approach direction changes how fast it seems to move . Across five experiments using a real mobile robot and virtual reality, 92% of participants showed the same bias: at the same physical speed, a robot approaching from behind seemed faster than one approaching from the front. In the first experiment, participants learned two reference speeds--0.5 and 1.0 metres per second--then judged a robot approaching at speeds between those values. Follow-up experiments suggested the effect wasn't explained by the robot's appearance or motor noise. The researchers link it instead to visual factors involved in turning to look at something coming from behind.

One secret code word is all it takes. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Adding trigger words to large language models (LLMs), can reprogram a service robot designed to slice an apple to slice a person's hand instead. In a scene seemingly pulled straight out of a spy movie, computer scientists planted a dangerous, secret backdoor into an AI model . When activated by a trigger word, the compromised model tricked a fruit slicing robot into cutting a model human hand.

The Robot I Didn't Expect to Build Our articles, videos, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science. A public charity, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Access to Spectrum's Digital Edition is exclusive for IEEE Members Create an account to access more content and features on IEEE Spectrum, including the ability to save articles to read later, download Spectrum Collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. For more exclusive content and features, consider Joining IEEE . Join the world's largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of Spectrum's articles, archives, PDF downloads, and other benefits. Join the world's largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of articles, archives, PDF downloads, and other benefits.

Trending Now Say More Look Up In My Bag Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Mashable Selects Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook AI at School Safety Net All Series The public assault was reportedly livestreamed. Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. Police are figuring out how to treat sexual harassment at the hands of a robot. Generative AI is enabling a tidal wave of nonconsensual intimate imagery and child sexual abuse material . Social media algorithms are exacerbating online harassment and the doxxing of rape survivors .

At the recent World Humanoid Robot Games 2026 in Beijing, robots sprinted, boxed, played football and tackled tasks inspired by factories, restaurants and emergency situations. The robot Tiangong Ultra even completed the 100 metres in 8.64 seconds, quicker than Usain Bolt's 9.58-second world record. But if we really want to know whether humanoid robots are ready for everyday life, a far less glamorous challenge may tell us more: doing the laundry. Can a robot take a crumpled T-shirt from a laundry basket, work out which way round it is, fold it neatly and recover when the sleeve slips from its hand? No robot system can yet reliably handle the whole laundry process, from carrying a basket to the washing machine and sorting clothes for different programmes to taking them out, hanging them to dry, folding and ironing them.

A robot shaped like a human--white with a black head and torso--has been popping up on video feeds. Perhaps you've seen it dance or pass popcorn, put trash in a bin, vacuum, or press the button of a microwave. Or maybe you've watched it fall backward while handing out water bottles or struggle to iron a shirt. This would be Tesla's Optimus, an AI-powered humanoid robot that Elon Musk, the company's CEO, believes will be "not just Tesla's biggest product ever, but probably the biggest product ever," headed to work on factory floors and, later, in our homes. Eventually it "will have human and then superhuman dexterity," he told shareholders in July. Optimus robots could automate almost all human labor--from hauling sheet metal to folding laundry--for as little as $20,000 each, Musk argues. Speaking at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, he predicted they could be on sale to the public by the end of 2027.