Category robotics

Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. can try out Project Genie, an experimental research prototype that lets you create and explore worlds.

Lenovo’s Qira announcement at CES 2026 is not just another assistant launch. With Qira, Lenovo stakes a claim for where personal computing is headed: away from app-hopping and prompt repetition, toward an ambient layer of intelligence that persists across devices, […]

The post Lenovo’s Qira is a Bet on Ambient, Cross-device AI—and on a New Kind of Operating System appeared first on TechSpective.

When fans think about the Super Bowl, they think about the spectacle—the precision of the plays, the roar of the crowd, the halftime show, the moments that become instant history. What they don’t think about is what makes all of […]

The post Super Bowl LX Runs on Data: How NetApp Helps Power the World’s Biggest Game appeared first on TechSpective.

Quantum computers need extreme cold to work, but the very systems that keep them cold also create noise that can destroy fragile quantum information. Scientists in Sweden have now flipped that problem on its head by building a tiny quantum refrigerator that actually uses noise to drive cooling instead of fighting it. By carefully steering heat at unimaginably small scales, the device can act as a refrigerator, heat engine, or energy amplifier inside quantum circuits.

From humanoids and Robots-as-a-Service to nearshoring and lights-out operations, here are my top predictions for what is coming next in 2026.

AI may learn better when it’s allowed to talk to itself. Researchers showed that internal “mumbling,” combined with short-term memory, helps AI adapt to new tasks, switch goals, and handle complex challenges more easily. This approach boosts learning efficiency while using far less training data. It could pave the way for more flexible, human-like AI systems.

As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like "eyebrows" and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

Researchers are continuing to make progress on developing a new synthetic material that behaves like biological muscle, an advancement that could provide a path to soft robotics, prosthetic devices and advanced human-machine interfaces. Their research, recently published in Advanced Functional Materials, demonstrates a hydrogel-based actuator system that combines movement, control and fuel delivery in a single integrated platform.

Last year, when The New York Times reported that Amazon's robotics team's ultimate goal was to automate 75% of the company's operations, replacing more than half a million human jobs in an attempt to pass cost savings onto customers, it was a stark reminder of robots' ever-expanding role in reshaping the American workplace.

Collaborative robots, or cobots, are required to maintain compliant interaction while delivering rapid response performance when subjected to sudden, strong forces, such as during impact riveting, resistance spot welding, or precision shaft-hole assembly. This makes low-damping, high-stiffness impedance control critical for the reliable execution of these tasks.

Each motor requires high power density and precise control, all packed into a small form factor. TI’s technology reduces the size of the board by integrating FETs, drivers and current sensing into one package.

A research team from the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory and the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit at Toyohashi University of Technology investigated how the movements of autonomous mobile robots influence human emotional responses during passing encounters in virtual reality (VR) environments.

Humanoid robots look impressive and have enormous potential to change our daily lives, but they still have a reputation for being clunky. They're also heavy and stiff, and if they fall, they can easily break and injure people around them.