In an industrial park on the outskirts of Beijing, a humanoid arm picks up a bag of Lay's potato chips and places it neatly along a row of snacks on a shelf. Nearby, a worker films himself grabbing cushions off a sofa and folding sheets on a bed, recording videos that will be used to develop brains for robots. China is deploying more humanoids than ever before, sending thousands to logistics hubs, battery factories and other industrial locations at a faster pace than the U.S. Buoyed by support from the government and a flood of investment, startups are getting their most advanced machines out into the world in a bid to gather torrents of data that can fuel the development of smarter, more humanlike machines. President Xi Jinping is looking to the robotics industry for help beating the U.S. in a global technology race. China's manufacturing prowess and robust supply chain management position it well to reap the benefits of humanoids before its geopolitical rival. Xi is due to address the country's flagship AI conference this week for the first time, where the latest humanoids will be on display.

Loons, gulls, puffins, and petrels are some of the 100 species of birds that can both fly and swim. These diving birds can plunge in water to swim after prey, and then leap back into the air to fly away. Now, inspired by these naturally aquatic aviators, engineers at EPFL and MIT have designed a robot that can swim underwater, and flap out of the water to continue flying through air, much like diving birds. The "flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle," or FAAV, weighs less than 300 grams and is designed to help scientists study the mechanics that enable diving birds to fly through air and water. The robot has a central body, or fuselage, two flexible, flapping wings, and a steerable tail.

Humanoid robot surgery reached a new milestone as teleoperated robots completed two laparoscopic gallbladder surgeries on pigs for the first time in a UC San Diego preclinical trial.

The next time you're scrolling your phone, take a moment to appreciate the feat: The seemingly mundane act is possible thanks to the coordination of 34 muscles, 27 joints, and over 100 tendons and ligaments in your hand. Indeed, our hands are the most nimble parts of our bodies. Mimicking their many nuanced gestures has been a longstanding challenge in robotics and virtual reality. Now, MIT engineers have designed an ultrasound wristband that precisely tracks a wearer's hand movements in real-time. The wristband produces ultrasound images of the wrist's muscles, tendons, and ligaments as the hand moves, and is paired with an artificial intelligence algorithm that continuously translates the images into the corresponding positions of the five fingers and palm.

Cyborg cockroach fitted with a tiny diving suit can survive underwater for up to three hours, potentially aiding search and rescue teams in flood and earthquake disaster zones.

The AquaSense X brings self-cleaning technology to pool robots for the first time, but is it worth nearly twice the price of Beatbot’s flagship cleaner?

Amid live coding sessions and Silicon Valley optimism, the UN's AI for Good summit wrestled with an increasingly urgent question: Can global governance catch up before the technology races beyond its control? Dodge past the live onstage coding sessions, AI refresher courses, an obstacle course of gizmos, round people walking round with glowing green silent-disco-style headphones blaring UN panel discussions into your ears, and you can take a pause for breath. But you might find yourself in the Networking Zone, on a rotating seating contraption called UFOTECH that looks more like the kind of lazy Susan you'd encounter at a Chinese restaurant than the networking bench it is designed to function as. This is the AI for Good summit, organized by the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU), where representatives from the private and public sectors try to discuss how to harness the technology for the benefit, rather than the detriment, of humanity. While Silicon Valley execs and AI lab leaders are testifying to lawmakers in Washington about the risks of superintelligence, and the White House slaps export controls on chips, the UN AI for Good Summit--now in its 10th year--is focused on much more idealistic goals.

Headlong's take on Karel Čapek's 1920 tale of romance and robots is rife with timely debates about tech's threat but at times the philosophical discussions drag on I f our world is currently thinking through the brave new future of generative AI and super intelligence, Karel Čapek's 1920 play RUR: Rossum's Universal Robots proves the notion of robot consciousness and rebellion is not a new anxiety. So does Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which Čapek's drama resembles in its philosophical debates and moral warnings, despite its futurism. Ella Road adapts Čapek's play for our times in this Headlong and Schwarzman Centre co-production, its science apparently informed by research from Oxford University academics, which gives it a cutting-edge, real-world underpinning. The stage is presented as the operations office for the company, also named RUR, which is creating humanoids by mixing human flesh and blood with code and data at its headquarters on an island (a lovely, lush foliage and scaffold design by Loren Elstein). Dom (Trevor Fox) is the company's boss - a "dom" in more ways than one as he is having a Secretary-style, S&M romance with his robot personal assistant, Sulla (Tiffany Gray).

The soft, weirdly sexualized home-chore robot has been given some very tactile hands. Friendly home robots have been the dream of sci-fi for a long time. Docile, helpful machines that do your laundry, take out the trash, maybe make dinner, and clean up afterward too. But if robots are going to do all that, they're going to need some hands to make all that happen. The hands are built with actuators designed to replicate how tendons in the arms move human hands.

Trump declares deal with Iran is DEAD after'scum' opened fire on tankers: Oil prices surge Trump's pick for Florida governor accused of ambushing mom in gourmet grocery store: Watch him vow to'crush' her as aide screams Trump's inner circle have shown me the real UFO disclosure: The president has an imminent speech'written and ready'... what he'll explain about non-human life will make it all make sense Group chats of Travis Kelce's Chiefs teammates explode with's**t talk' about Taylor Swift wedding... as groom's snubbed friends vent their fury and players take sides: 'WTF?!' Actress who starred with Robert Redford and has famous daughter spotted out in LA... can you guess who she is? English King Alfred who massacred thousands of Vikings is'found buried' under Hampshire car park days before England play Norway in World Cup USA star at the heart of World Cup controversy offers groveling apology for team's failure: 'Not good enough' Bombshell first details about Taylor Swift's wedding dress: Stunning off-the-shoulder design revealed... incredible '25ft train'... and shock SECOND outfit Ford wrongly accused a worker of stealing a $1.95 cookie and fired him - then BEGGED him to return to work MTG brands Mitch McConnell's wife a'communist spy' as she flees to China during terrifying hospitalization Middle-aged man with America's WORST table manners sparks fury by chewing with his mouth open and hurling food on floor at bagel bakery Everyone's missed something so utterly humiliating about Taylor and Travis's wedding... I can't help but scream it: JANA HOCKING Sick twist in horrific case of youth pastor who pushed wife off cliff: Friends and family reveal chilling new details his final phone call hours before suicide... and insult from beyond the grave The humanoid robot designed'for a lifetime': China reveals creepy bots that look and feel like real humans - and they can even reproduce 90% of our movements China has revealed a new generation of creepy humanoid robots that are designed for a'lifetime' of companionship. At an event in the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen, UBTech Robotics launched the world's first mass-produced ultra-realistic humanoid robots. These Uworld U1 androids are covered with'biomimetic skin' that looks and feels just like that of a real human.