• Nvidia simulates 104 qubits using JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer
• The technique reportedly reduces physical qubit requirements by 90%
• Magic state cultivation could reduce hardware demands for fault-tolerant quantum computing

Nvidia researchers have simulated a 104-qubit quantum computing system on JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer, validating a technique that requires 90% fewer physical qubits.

The experiment took place at Germany's Jülich Supercomputing Centre, where researchers examined how quantum computing systems could operate reliably.

The team investigated magic state cultivation, an approach to fault-tolerant quantum computing that could reduce the physical resources required for complex calculations.

New technique reduces quantum computing hardware requirements

Quantum processors are vulnerable to environmental interference, which introduces errors and makes accurate calculations increasingly difficult as systems grow larger.

Researchers are developing fault tolerance methods to address these problems, enabling quantum computers to maintain computational accuracy despite errors affecting individual physical components.

One approach involves producing specially prepared quantum resources called magic states, which are consumed during operations required for fault-tolerant quantum calculations.

Producing these resources requires substantial computing capacity, making improvements in their preparation important for reducing the hardware demands of useful quantum systems.

Nvidia's simulation examined magic state cultivation, incorporating realistic hardware noise, which allowed researchers to investigate errors that earlier simulations conducted under ideal conditions could not adequately represent.

"Useful quantum computing will require fantastically complex, fault-tolerant systems—and understanding how they behave at scale is essential to building them," said Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO and founder.

"Our results from Jülich show how quantum processors and GPU supercomputers can work together to tackle research that would otherwise be out of reach—accelerating the discovery of transformative quantum applications."

Earlier research at Jülich simulated 50 qubits under ideal conditions, while the latest experiment incorporated realistic hardware noise.

The experiment nevertheless used classical computing infrastructure to simulate quantum operations rather than testing the technique on a functioning quantum processor.

JUPITER enables large-scale quantum simulations

Located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, JUPITER provided the computing capacity needed to model complex quantum operations that conventional systems struggle to simulate.

The supercomputer used Nvidia GH200 processors for the experiment, with researchers scaling their methods to 8,192 GPUs.

Before moving to JUPITER, the team developed and tested its simulation methods using Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 system at the company's Accelerated Quantum Research Center.

Researchers expanded their initial tests from four graphics processors to hundreds, evaluating performance and accuracy before deploying the methods on the larger machine.

These preparations reduced simulations that previously required several weeks to just days, helping researchers use JUPITER's computing resources more efficiently.

The team also used Nvidia's cuQuantum software and CUDA Q platform to simulate quantum circuits and represent the operations involved in magic state cultivation.

The results could help researchers assess quantum processor designs before constructing hardware, potentially reducing the need for costly physical experiments during development.

However, Nvidia's result remains a simulation, and further experimental work must establish whether the technique delivers comparable benefits on actual quantum hardware.

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis: two-minute review

In Ancient Greece, Artemis was a goddess of many things: vegetation, hunting, wild creatures, childbirth… the list goes on. It’s fair to say that she was considered abundant in talent. And her moniker is not wasted on the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis: a set of wireless headphones that have far-reaching, broad talents of their own.

The FoKus Artemis are, put simply, an exceptionally strong performing set of cans. In fact, they might be the best-sounding pair of wireless headphones I’ve used. They have a triple-driver configuration, with dynamic, balanced armature, and planar drivers, affording them all of the dynamism, precision, and speed required to showcase your favorite tracks in their best light.

Like the best headphones around, the Artemis supply palpable yet regimented bass, beautifully detailed and textured mids, and expressive, articulate treble. But the real shining star is their excellent soundstaging. The Artemis bring forth an immense sense of space and scale, making for a highly immersive listen time after time. With aptX Lossless, LDAC, and USB-C audio, you also get high-resolution, nuanced sound that competes with the greatest headphones on the market.

But something else that sets these headphones apart from the crowd is their granular sound control. With help from Audiodo, Noble has included personalized EQ on the Artemis, which can account for hearing loss and provide optimized audio for all users. There’s also parametric EQ and a number of presets that will suit any listener.

The FoKus Artemis boast quite the suite of features, actually, with an effective companion app, wear detection and multi-point connectivity to give you the everyday convenience that you’d hope for at this money. ANC is here too, with a number of modes, including a transparency option. Noise cancellation here isn’t the best of the best, and the Artemis’ looser fit also means a fair few external sounds creep in now and then. But it’s still relatively effective, and will still help dull the world around you.

Spatial audio modes, though functional, also felt a little underwhelming to me during testing, but the Artemis’ wide soundstage means you get a nice and expansive listen from the headphones anyway. Call quality is strong, though, owing to the headphones’ seven-mic array, and you get up to 55 hours of playback (35 hours with ANC on), as well as a replaceable battery, adding longevity to the headphones.

In my view, the Artemis look great as well. Their metallic detailing, fabric headband, and textured ear cups ensure they exude all of the style and luxury you’d look for in an ultra-premium pair of headphones. There aren’t any touch controls, but the physical buttons work well, and are highly responsive. It also helps that the headphones are extremely well-fitting, and they feel comfortable to wear throughout the day.

But here it comes: the price. The Noble Audio FoKus Artemis cost a whopping $899 / £799 (about AU$1,200). Is the price-tag justified? It really depends on your outlook. They’re a seriously advanced set of headphones, with the triple-driver set-up, personalized EQ and premium build adding a lot in terms of value. But you can get phenomenal sound for less — even the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 are $100 / £170 less than these.

Still, if you want truly stellar audio and ultra-precise sound control, then it really doesn’t get much better than the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis. They’re a wonderful pair of headphones, and if you’ve got the budget, then they’re pretty easy for me to recommend. But for some slightly cheaper yet excellent alternatives, be sure to head down to the ‘also consider’ section.

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: price & release date

• Priced at $899 / £799 (about AU$1,200)
• Released in August 2026

The Noble Audio FoKus Artemis started shipping in August 2026, although I got to try them back in June, when the headphones were showcased at High End Vienna 2026. The Artemis are an ultra-premium pair of wireless headphones, and as a result, they carry a very hefty asking price. They’ll typically set you back $899 / £799 (about AU$1,200).

Sure, some rivals, like the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100 and Focal Bathys MG, will set you back even further, but I won’t pretend that the Artemis aren’t a huge investment. And you can get exceptional sounding headphones for considerably less — for example, the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 are a good $100 / £170 less than the Artemis at $799 / £629 / AU$1,299.

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: specs

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: features

• Personal EQ can account for hearing loss
• Strong battery life of up to 55 hours
• ANC is acceptable, rather than great

Noble Audio has put a ton of thought and effort into the feature-set of the FoKus Artemis, and this results in a great user experience.

Where to start? Well, I think the most interesting function is the personalized EQ, which offers surprising depth. Noble Audio partnered with Swedish firm Audiodo to implement a hearing test on the Artemis, meaning you can unlock a sound that suits you — it even accounts for hearing loss. Using Noble’s app, you’ll be asked to listen to a set of prompts, which test your hearing across the frequency range in each ear, and you’ll get a custom EQ that provides bespoke, optimized audio.

This works really well, and can be toggled on or off. There are also a number of presets and a parametric equalizer if you want more granular control. Few headphones offer this attention to detail, and even though I loved the default tuning on the Artemis, they really can sound however you want them to.

There are also some spatial audio modes, with a subtle and immersive option. I didn’t love these so much — I found that tracks sounded less clear and concise, and given that the Artemis whip up an impressive sense of space anyway, I kept this off.

Let’s talk about one of the most important features next, ANC. The Artemis have a seven-microphone system with multiple noise-cancelling modes, including low, mid, and strong ANC and a transparency mode.

So, how good is noise-cancellation with the Artemis? Well, it’s decent. I used them across a huge range of environments: flights, trains, when out on walks, in the office, and at home. When using the strongest mode, I found that they eliminated sounds like typing and light chatter nicely, but more intensive stuff, like a plane’s engine running and passing-by traffic, tended to seep in quite easily. In part, this comes down to the more relaxed fit and clamping on the Artemis, but I did expect a bit more in terms of noise-crushing from these cans, given their price.

Something the mics handle very well, though, is calls. Whenever I made a video or voice call, people on the other end of the line reported that my speech was clear, and never tinny or obscured. This was also the case when I made some recordings and listened back.

The Artemis also impressed me a fair bit in terms of battery life. They offer up to 55 hours of playback with ANC off, and 35 hours. That’s slightly above the standard 30 hours that a lot of premium models offer, and means you’ll be able to listen for days on-end without having to charge the Artemis at all. The battery is also user-replaceable, which is becoming more common with EU legislation making this a requirement for portable devices.

Controlling the Artemis is also pretty straightforward. They feature traditional button controls, favored by a lot of audiophiles for their reliability. Personally, I’m a fan of touch controls (when done right), but this is omitted on the Artemis. Something that does feature, though, is wear detection and this is highly responsive and accurate — it can be toggled off if you’d prefer. Finally, the app is incredibly easy to use and well-laid out. I’ve seen some reports of iOS users having issues, but on my Android phone, the companion software worked perfectly.

• Features score: 4/5

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: sound quality

• Triple driver configurations delivers exceptional balance across the frequency range
• Wide soundstage creates a hypnotic listening experience
• Top-tier codec support and USB-C audio passthrough

It may not surprise you to find out that the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis are a truly spectacular-sounding pair of wireless headphones. In fact, they’re up there with some of the best performers I’ve tested here at TechRadar.

This model stands out from the crowd due to one specific design choice: its triple driver configuration. Dynamic drivers are great for handling the bass and mids, but balanced armature and planar drivers enable the Artemis to deliver enhanced precision, speed, and fidelity. But what’s the actual listening experience like?

Well, the most striking thing about the Artemis for me is their ability to conjure up a tremendously spacious, wide sound. For closed back, wireless headphones, the scale on offer is striking, and I was always treated to an almost hypnotic experience, no matter what genre I threw on.

In What We Got by Midas Field and Marjin Jensen, pumping bass hit with great impact and dynamism, without ever shrouding vocals in the mid-range or percussion up high. The speed and responsiveness of the low-end is excellent, and extends nice and low, meaning that even the darkest sounds in the frequency range sound full-bodied and controlled. Drums in the treble range were also precise and expressive without sounding overly bright, helping the Artemis to perfectly capture the energy of the track.

Switching over to Miracles by Change, and the Artemis continue to impress. Electric guitars were perfectly weighted in the mix, and sounded beautifully textured. They were also expertly separated from emotive vocals, which were in turn given plenty of room to express themselves. Subtle percussive elements were also perfectly audible, and the wide soundstage opened up a highly immersive listening experience.

As my phone supports both LDAC and aptX, I was able to get a highly detailed listen from the FoKus Artemis. USB-C audio passthrough also opens up genuine lossless playback, and with this, the Artemis offer up a phenomenally revealing, layered, and nuanced sound that helps to justify their high asking price.

• Sound quality score: 5/5

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: design

• Stunning design with fabric headband and metallic detailing
• Very comfortable in use, though looser fit has its downsides
• IP52 dust and waterproof rating

If I could use one word to describe the look of the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis, it would be ‘striking’. The silver metallic detailing on the earcups is bold and eye-catching, and truly exudes a sense of luxury. The fabric headband is also built to a great standard, and the plush earcups appear textured and stylish.

There are a few plastic elements on the Artemis, and you could argue that some parts — like the buttons and carry case — don’t exactly look the most premium. But overall I think that the Artemis are a great-looking pair of headphones. They’re also relatively flat and low-profile, which I really like — I’ve never been a fan of the bulkier look of headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM6.

On top of this, the Artemis are amazingly comfortable in-use. I happily kept them on for hours upon hours when making a long train journey, and never found them to be uncomfortable or overbearing. On my (relatively large) head, I’d say that the Artemis fall on the looser side, fit-wise. While this ensures great comfort, it could sometimes mean that external noises crept in a bit too easily — combined with the fairly middling ANC, this means that the Artemis fail to challenge the gods of the ANC domain, such as Bose and Sony.

Something that’s good to see, though, is that the Artemis have an IP rating. Sure, it’s nothing ground-breaking at IP52 — meaning they’re protected against dust ingress and water sprays — but very few over-ears actually display a rating, so kudos to Noble Audio for this.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: value

• Undoubtedly expensive
• But the exemplary sound quality helps to justify this
• Still, exceptional performers are available for less

Look, the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis are a very expensive pair of wireless headphones. At $899 / £799 (about AU$1,200), they sit right up there with models like the Focal Bathys MG, and even exceed the excellent Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 in cost.

But are they really worth it? It honestly depends. If you want some of the best-sounding wireless cans on the market, then you’ll get just that with the Artemis. I’m not sure I’ve experienced any wireless headphones that outperform these. Their spacious, nuanced sound is a delight, and has made me never want to take them off. They also look great and offer a real sense of luxury, while features like the personalized EQ are rarely seen elsewhere.

Still, I can’t help but feel that their ANC could be better for the price, and you can still get incredible sound for a fair bit less with a luxury design from the Px8 S2. As a result, I’d consider the Artemis to be good value if you’re all in on sound, but perhaps consider the options in the ‘also consider’ section if you want to spend a little less.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Should I buy the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Noble Audio FoKus Artemis review: also consider

How I tested the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis

• Tested for one month
• Used on flights, trains, on walks, and in the office
• Mainly streamed tunes over Tidal

I spent one month testing the Noble Audio FoKus Artemis, using them as my primary set of headphones. I used them on flights, trains, and buses, but also when out on walks, working at the office, or relaxing at home. Using them in such a range of environments helped me to fully understand the effectiveness of their ANC capabilities.

When listening to music, I typically streamed tunes over Tidal on my Xiaomi 17 phone, which supports aptX and LDAC codecs, but I also dipped into Spotify from time to time. As always, I sifted through the TechRadar reference playlist when testing, but I also listened to countless hours of music from my personal library.

More generally, I’ve spent years testing audio gear here at TechRadar, including everything from wired IEMs like the Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE to party speakers such as the Marshall Bromley 750. I’ve also tested a whole host of premium headphones, including the Sony 1000X The Collexion and Bang & Olufsen H100, so I know exactly what a pair of headphones needs to stand out in a highly competitive market.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: October 2026

Although AI has sucked up all the bandwidth of public discourse across the tech industry, quantum computing is arguably just as revolutionary a technology – but remains dormant for now. That said, key breakthroughs in the last couple of years are said to mean that these machines could be 'useful' before too long.

Quantum advantage

IBM's senior vice president and director of research Dario Gil explained to CBS' 60 Minutes exactly what the likely impact of useful quantum computers would be.

The idea of quantum advantage, he said, was slightly difficult to wrap your head around. That's certain given the ratcheting-up effect in terms of power that happens when you begin to scale up these machines from just a handful of quantum bits (qubits) to thousands, tens of thousands and beyond.

Because the capabilities of quantum computers grow exponentially the more qubits that you add to the system, it could one day achieve things we haven't been able to even conceptualise yet due to the rigid parameters of existing computing.

More problems

Quantum computing does represent a paradigm shift, as Gil was trying to convey, but that doesn't mean simply building powerful hardware will help us achieve anything. Scientists are also aware that we need to define problems to solve using these future machines.

Many companies like IBM and others have been granting businesses access to quantum computers through the cloud, but these have primarily been used for early pilot programs, to build proprietary algorithms or gear their systems for future hardware.

For example, both Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have partnered with the IBM Quantum Network to simulate chemical reactions inside EV battery cells.

• Micron has warned that the RAM shortage will get much worse in 2027 and 2028
• Then coming to the end of the decade, robots are going to put more strain on memory supply
• So-called 'physical AI' could need 200GB+ of DRAM and multiple terabytes of storage per unit, Micron predicts

Micron just published its latest financial results, complete with some predictions for the future of the RAM crisis that aren't going to prove very comforting for consumers.

Wccftech reports that Micron, which is one of the three big memory chip makers, just revealed its results for fiscal Q4 2026 with predictably booming profits — and some not-so-obvious predictions about the RAM shortage.

As flagged on X by Eric Jhonsa, a portfolio manager for a Dutch asset corporation, in Micron's accompanying guidance the company observed: "We expect memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in calendar 2027 and 2028 than they were in 2026."

Micron also said: "Even with additional industry DRAM cleanroom space plans, with robust demand trends including new upside requests from customers, we do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance."

Also highlighted on X by Shay Boloor, who is chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, Micron made the point that even if the current AI bubble deflates, lessening RAM demand for servers in data centers as a result, there could still be a high level of demand from 'physical AI' — meaning robots.

We're told that "humanoid robots could need 200GB+ of DRAM and multiple terabytes of storage per unit with several physical AI customers already sampling next gen products", and that this could become a "significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of this decade."

Analysis: robot RAM drain

In short, Micron is saying that RAM supply is going to be tight not just in 2027 — which has been a widespread prediction — but also in 2028. Granted, 2028 has been forecast as a gloomy year in general, but from what Micron is saying here, the company is putting this year on a level with 2027 in terms of the memory shortage, and next year is set to be pretty dire by all accounts.

This is feeding more into the RAM crisis lasting until 2030 narrative (one of the earliest mentions of this came from Nvidia's CEO), and the comment about robots further reinforces this. Even if the demand to drive AI falls away somewhat so data centers aren't gobbling up so much memory, the overall strain on RAM supply may remain due to an uptake of robots, which will also need a lot of memory.

The one thing I would say is that Micron may be exaggerating somewhat in terms of talking up the timeframe on the usage of robots here. After all, in these kinds of forecasts, it's in the firm's interest to build up its future prospects and drive more investment.

Clearly, though, Micron is in a very strong position, and robots are something that's on the radar. And with there being a great deal of doubt as to whether the AI bubble is going to burst at all — depending on who you listen to — this is just another concern for consumers (alongside robots taking over jobs to boot).

It seems clear enough that RAM won't be reaching affordable pricing levels for a long time yet.

• OVHcloud and CGI are teaming with the European Space Agency to build its ESA Earth Observation Information System
• Christened "Digital EO," the project will amass an incredible 500PB of Earth observation data by 2035
• The decentralized cloud-based project will provide data and compute processing for scientists, researchers, businesses, and citizens across Europe and the UK

A huge new project to record Earth Observation data has been launched by the European Space Agency (ESA), with OVHcloud providing cloud storage and processing and project management courtesy of IT and business management firm CGI (via its France Défense et Spatial subsidiary).

The ESA Earth Observation Information System, or Digital EO, aims to collect data about our planet from satellites and other observation hardware for use in studies and research.

With initial deployment in Italy, France, and Germany, Digital EO will be able to extend to other European countries, as well as Canada. Despite leaving the European Union, the UK remains a member of the European Space Agency and as such has access to Digital EO.

Decentralized, scalable, resilient

Determining that the growth in data collection from satellites and other devices and hardware requires better management and wider access, the ESA has launched the Digital EO project as a decentralized system that relies on OVHcloud’s expertise.

“Digital EO must allow us to take a new step forward in the way Earth Observation data is managed and used,” said Nicolaus Hanowski, the ESA’s Head of EO Mission Management and Ground Segment Department.

“With CGI and OVHcloud, we will build and operate a European innovative and sovereign system capable of supporting this ambition and of providing lasting support to the ESA and European Commission programs like Copernicus and DestinE.”

OVHcloud will also support the evolution of the ESA Earth Observation Information System, potentially beyond the initial 30 month project, aiming to ensure performance and meet the needs of Digital EO’s users.

Digital EO backbone

The ESA, which is overseen by the European Commission, has a long history of relying on companies and technology across the continent, rather than buying in solutions from the USA, China, South Korea, or Japan.

French cloud technology firm OVHcloud is the ideal partner for the Digital EO project (OVHcloud state it is worth “multi-million” Euros). Its CEO and Founder, Octave Klaba, noted that, “Europe absolutely must have control over the infrastructure that runs its most strategic programs. With Digital EO, we are putting our sovereign cloud expertise at ESA’s service so that it can build innovative solutions to process, store and make the most of ever-growing volumes of Earth Observation data for the benefit of research, industry and operational user communities.”

OVHcloud aims to deliver “performance, resilience and security” says Klaba, adding that the ambition is “to build a robust, sovereign European Digital EO able to evolve over time, in step with ESA’s needs and ambitions.”

• Japan plans to hire millions of AI robots as its working population shrinks
• One domestic startup plans to build 100 workplace robots by 2027
• Japanese insurers are preparing for accidents involving increasingly capable workplace robots

The Japanese government has set a goal of placing 10 million robots driven by artificial intelligence into workplaces before 2040, hoping to offset a rapidly thinning workforce in its aging population.

By 2040, United Nations medium-variant estimates place Japan's population at 112,158,304, which is 6.2% lower than the 119,584,122 projected for 2030.

The median age would reach 54.0 years, with 35.3% of people at least 65 years old and only 10.4% of them children below 15.

Machines move into offices and wards

Hospitals and factories in Japan already struggle to fill positions, which is why a growing number of employers are turning to machines for daily tasks.

Startup Zeals recently introduced the D1 in Tokyo, a wheeled machine with a humanoid form that costs from 5 million yen (about $32,000).

The indoor unit stands 129 cm tall, recognizes faces through a camera, and each of its two arms can lift a maximum of 5 kg.

Zeals intends to build 100 units by March 2027 and accumulate 10,000 hours of running time, selling through dealers and leasing partners.

The company writes its own software and buys components from American and Chinese suppliers, but it eventually hopes to use only Japanese parts.

In late August 2026, a hospital in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, trialed the robot for leading visitors and clearing tables in its dining space.

“It is important to gather training data and ensure that it is actually useful in real-world settings,” said Masahiro Shimizu, CEO of Zeals.

Kakuichi, a Nagano firm that sells steel and systems for managing energy, will onboard a humanoid machine among its new graduates in April 2027.

Play Robotics, a firm that studies humanoids, is helping Kakuichi install and run the Chinese-built robot called Miyazawa Noah.

Kakuichi intends to assign the robot to manufacturing, sales and other departments so that it builds skills by doing real work.

“Developing a humanoid robot is also about fostering employees who will make full use of it,” said Riu Tanaka, CEO of Kakuichi.

Insurers prepare for the dangers that the machines create

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance has joined forces with Zeals to sell policies built for D1 users, counting on demand from hotels, hospitals, factories and logistics firms.

It acknowledges that the use of these robots will be associated with some mishaps, whether physical or cyber-related.

"There are risks of causing harm to people or property, as well as concerns about data breaches in cyber-attacks," said Masaki Oshiro, manager of the 1st Branch Office at the insurer's Tokyo East Branch.

In July, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance acquired shares in a Japanese firm developing physical AI, which lets robots learn new tasks on their own.

The purchase was meant to give the insurer a closer look at how such systems behave and what could go wrong with them.

Buying into a developer while already selling policies suggests the insurer is still learning what these robots can do and how often they fail.

So, while Japan makes moves to boost its workforce with robots, the performance and impact of these robots on its economy is uncertain.

Via Japan Today

• Evri is testing out a two-legged delivery robot in Barnsley
• The robot can avoid obstacles and get up stairs
• Evri says the delivery bot is designed to support couriers, not replace them

We've seen robot delivery schemes before, but none quite like this: British delivery company Evri has partnered with Refined Robotics in Japan to run the first trial of a two-legged delivery robot in Europe — with Barnsley, the UK's first official Tech Town, chosen as the location.

According to the announcement, the bot doesn't have an official name, but is designed to give customers "more choice, convenience and control over how they receive their parcels" according to Evri's Chief Technology Officer Marcus Hunter.

Most of the delivery robots we've seen to date look like cool boxes trundling along on wheels, but the bipedal approach of this new machine means it can navigate its way around obstacles and even get up stairs if necessary.

For the purposes of this pilot scheme at least, the idea is to have the robot act as a "support" for couriers, so it won't be going out delivering parcels on its own (and can't drive a van anyway). The bot can move at speeds of up to 6 kph (3.7 mph), and carry parcels up to 15 kilograms (33 pounds) in weight.

Last-mile logistics

Evri says its delivery robot is able to traverse "uneven surfaces", and get in and out of a delivery van. It can be remotely controlled or work autonomously as the situation demands, and can drop off parcels with or without the recipient being present — so presumably it has a trick for releasing its cargo without any help.

Perhaps understandably, in these early stages the robot is going to be delivering "fashion parcels", as per the BBC — so nothing that's going to get broken or bashed in transit if the robot takes a tumble on the kerbside.

There's no word yet on if or when this might be rolled out more widely: Evri is going to evaluate all aspects of the delivery service trial to see what works and what doesn't, and how robots might ultimately be of most use to customers and couriers.

"Our two-legged delivery robot has been specifically designed to tackle some of the most complex challenges in last-mile logistics," says Refined Robotics CEO Nick Hafner. "[We] look forward to understanding how robotics can complement existing delivery networks and support the future of parcel delivery."

• DARPA will now test Microsoft's controversial quantum hardware inside a dedicated Maryland facility
• Majorana 2 uses a different approach to tackle quantum computing's stubborn error problem
• Microsoft is putting its topological quantum claims under independent government scrutiny

Microsoft has opened a 15,000 square foot quantum research center inside the University of Maryland's Discovery District, a year after the project was first announced.

The facility gives the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) physical access to Microsoft's latest topological quantum system for independent testing.

Previously, DARPA and other outside researchers could only test Microsoft's hardware through cloud-based remote access, making this the first time an external agency will evaluate its topological hardware on-site.

DARPA gets hands-on access to Majorana 2

The system installed for testing includes qubits built on Majorana 2, Microsoft's second-generation topological quantum computing chip.

Topological qubits are designed to reduce the burden of quantum error correction compared with other existing qubit approaches currently in use.

Quantum computers remain highly sensitive to environmental noise, meaning useful systems must detect and correct errors repeatedly while calculations are underway.

Majorana 2's material stack replaces aluminum with lead, a substitution Microsoft says improves overall performance and stability.

The chip has drawn criticism from some scientists, who remained skeptical of Microsoft's earlier performance claims, but Microsoft says the delivery to DARPA may help address that skepticism by opening its hardware to an outside testing team which brings expertise across hardware, control systems, software, and applications, according to the company.

Microsoft describes independent access as a necessary step toward assessing whether its approach can produce an economically relevant quantum computer.

The quantum computing industry does not have a broadly useful, fault-tolerant machine that consistently outperforms classical computers on commercially important work.

DARPA's evaluation falls under the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing program, part of its broader Quantum Benchmarking Initiative.

That wider initiative aims to determine whether competing quantum computing approaches can produce commercially useful machines by 2033.

"DARPA is an ideal partner for our work because its test and evaluation team brings expertise across the computing stack," Microsoft said in a blog post.

A shared space for training and industry partners

Beyond the DARPA testing area, the center includes a hands-on quantum hardware makerspace built for students, researchers, and career changers entering the field.

Seven companies have joined this effort so far, including AMD, Intel, Bluefors, IQM, Riverlane, Quantum Motion, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Fermilab's involvement also extends into a collaboration exploring how its Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit could support broader quantum education efforts.

In the makerspace, visitors will assemble small but functional quantum systems using parts sourced from several leading hardware and computing companies.

Microsoft credits Maryland's Capital of Quantum Initiative, led by Governor Wes Moore, with funding the renovation of the original Discovery Center building.

The Maryland facility will also let prospective partners test how their own technologies work with Microsoft's broader quantum platform.

Hardware engineers can use the space to integrate machines or components, while developers explore possible applications.

Microsoft's strategy centers on supporting multiple quantum hardware types through one shared software and infrastructure layer.

• Ukrainian bombers dropped ground robots more than ten kilometers behind Russian lines
• Gryphon robots reached positions Ukrainian forces could not easily access
• Ukraine is increasingly using machines to reduce soldiers' frontline exposure

Ukraine's Third Army Corps has carried out a first-of-its-kind attack, using heavy bomber drones to deploy ground robots directly behind Russian positions.

The operation formed part of the ongoing Operation Vivaldi counteroffensive, which launched in May 2026 across the northern Donetsk region.

According to the Ukrainian military, soldiers from the corps' unmanned systems units developed this specific tactic entirely on their own initiative.

How bombers delivered strike robots past enemy defenses

Heavy bomber drones operated by the Third Assault Brigade dropped NC13 strike ground vehicles, nicknamed Gryphons, more than 10 kilometers behind Russian lines.

These wheeled robots carried cameras that recorded the entire operation, which allegedly resulted in casualties on the Russian side.

Attacking troops in a location where they had not anticipated ground-level assault reportedly gave Ukrainian forces a clear tactical advantage.

The name Gryphon honors Hryhorii Bach, a machine gunner who went missing during earlier fighting for the settlement of Andriivka.

"Now, even more of our infantry soldiers' lives can be saved, while more enemy personnel and resources are destroyed," said the Third Army Corps in a public statement.

Separately, Ukrainian ground robots cleared antipersonnel mines across more than 18 miles of routes without requiring human sapper teams onsite.

That same clearance task would normally have needed two full engineering companies working manually across multiple days.

Remote-controlled robots and their operators already handle roughly 60% of mine clearance within the corps' entire area of operations.

Electronic warfare units attached to the operation reportedly disrupted more than 20,000 Russian drone missions throughout the wider counteroffensive campaign.

Vivaldi's broader gains and what comes next this autumn

Since its launch, the Ukrainian military claims that Operation Vivaldi has reclaimed up to 96 square miles of territory while defeating one arm of a Russian pincer movement.

“Our operation is called ‘Vivaldi,’ and Vivaldi, as we know, has four seasons. And this is only the first of them. […] There will be good news, but for now our actions require silence,” said Andrii Biletskyi, Commander of the Third Army Corps.

Ukraine's drone campaign against Russian fuel supplies has reportedly limited diesel availability for generators powering enemy electronic warfare systems nearby.

Russia's elite drone unit, known as Rubicon, reportedly withdrew from the region after suffering losses inflicted by Ukrainian forces.

Russian commanders are now redirecting armored vehicles and drone units toward Dobropillya, preparing for expected mechanized assaults later this autumn season.

During the summer months, Russian forces tested a new anti-drone protection system on their most modern tanks.

Ukrainian drones reportedly still overwhelmed those defensive systems despite the added protective measures fitted to the vehicles.

Ukraine's growing reliance on ground and aerial robots signals a broader shift toward reducing human exposure along the most dangerous frontline positions.

As winter approaches, both militaries appear likely to keep adapting their drone tactics in response to each other's latest countermeasures.

Via ArsTechnica

• Thunderobot uses SSD storage to help its 64GB laptop run huge AI models
• The M7000 can reportedly run GPT-OSS-120B despite having 64GB of memory
• Phison's aiDAPTIV+ technology turns part of the SSD into an AI cache

Thunderobot has released the AI Master M7000, a 16-inch mobile workstation built around AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor.

The M7000 comes with 64GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory and Radeon 8060S integrated graphics for demanding workloads.

Its 768GB drive incorporates an 85GB caching layer designed to help AI workloads handle models exceeding available system memory.

AI workloads get an unusual storage assist

The M7000 uses LPDDR5X-8000 memory, while its processor provides 16 cores, 32 threads, boost speeds reaching 5.1GHz, and an XDNA 2 neural processor.

AMD rates the neural hardware at 50 TOPS, while the Radeon 8060S configuration reaches as many as 40 compute units for graphics and accelerated workloads.

Thunderobot says the device can run GPT-OSS-120B locally, despite having 64GB of physical memory available for applications and operating-system requirements.

Its unified memory architecture allows processor and graphics resources to access shared memory, supporting workloads that frequently move substantial model data.

The additional cache comes from Phison’s aiDAPTIV+ technology, which uses part of the internal storage to hold data associated with artificial intelligence workloads.

Rather than functioning as conventional RAM, this arrangement keeps selected information on the SSD when unified memory capacity becomes restrictive during demanding workloads.

Such information can include Key-Value cache, less-active mixture-of-experts components, and model data that applications may require again during processing.

Phison has also shown this storage approach with computers carrying considerably less memory, including a 32GB laptop running the same 120B model.

The technology addresses a limitation faced by large local models, where available memory can restrict the performance of certain workloads.

A 160W mobile workstation with unusually high specifications

Thunderobot gives the M7000 a 160W operating profile supported by two fans and three heat pipes for sustained processing.

The device also uses a 2560×1600 display running at 165Hz, with 500-nit brightness and complete sRGB coverage for color-sensitive work.

Power comes from a 99Wh battery, while the chassis weighs 2.45kg despite its workstation-oriented hardware and cooling requirements.

The display and cooling configuration add considerable hardware capability without changing the notebook’s emphasis on local computing.

For connectivity, this device includes OCuLink, USB-C supporting 40Gbps transfers, HDMI 2.1 FRL, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and a UHS-II microSD reader.

OCuLink provides another high-speed connection for compatible external hardware, giving users added expansion options beyond the laptop's built-in resources.

Thunderobot lists the M7000's Chinese retail price at 24,999 yuan, which converts to roughly $3,733 based on current exchange rates.

That figure places the device well beyond typical gaming budgets, despite the company's product lineup historically centering on gaming hardware.

This device instead reads as an artificial intelligence laptop, given how conspicuously its marketing and branding lean toward AI use cases.

Yet it remains surprising that the caching arrangement still falls short of matching genuine additional system memory in practice.

Via Videocardz

When it comes to personal robots, Mondo's Beni camera robot might be the perfect mix of cute and utility, with an emphasis on cute.

As soon as I laid eyes on the pint-sized, two-wheeled bot, I was smitten. It darted quickly from place to place and, as Beni turned its square head in my direction and 'looked' at me with its two large and luminous eyes, I felt it peering into my lonely soul. Finally, a robot companion that wouldn't terrify me with grabby, slow-moving hands, or crowd me with uncanny valley legs and torsos.

Unveiled a few months ago by Mondo Robotics and set to arrive in consumer hands in October, the self-balancing Mondo Beni was initially intended as a child's toy, but it had features — in particular a 4K 60fps camera that can follow you around — that appealed to creators. So Mondo pivoted, and now the $799 rolling robot is marketed as "your first camera robot".

In addition to the camera, which can also shoot 1080p 120fps slow motion, Beni features a pair of sensor cameras that provide a 150-degree field of view for tracking and obstacle avoidance. I watched as Beni's handlers used the iOS app to select subjects for Beni to track, and then Beni followed them around like a very obedient puppy dog. One Mondo exec described Beni as "a ground drone".

Beni is surprisingly resilient. When someone kicked the robot over, it instantly righted itself back onto its two rubber wheels as it shook its blocky head and made a little noise.

Programming cuteness

One of the things that makes Beni so darn cute is all the canned (Beni does not learn) animations and audio. It has about a dozen of each, and they give the little white and orange bot a distinct personality. There's a sort of programmed indomitable spirit; nothing can keep Beni down or stop it.

It can effortlessly jump (up to 10 inches), flip, and backflip. For now, those moves are triggered either via the app or a wearable remote control with a super-easy-to-use joystick. Mondo would eventually like Beni to jump over obstacles as it sees them.

I used the intuitive wearable remote to drive Beni and, with a press, make the little robot flip. There's also a big red button to stop Beni or, with long presses, have it squat down or stand back up.

Beni starts with 32GB of onboard storage for collecting video of you as it tracks you on a walk or run (up to 17.9mph), or as it follows your pet around (assuming the pet doesn't attack it or run away in horror). There's also a built-in microSD card slot for additional storage.

You can take good-length walks or runs with Beni, because it runs (or rolls) for an hour and a half on a charge. There's a removable battery pack on the back with light indicators to show you Beni's life… er… juice level.

Beni ships with a pair of relatively smooth rubber wheels, but you can buy the combo pack and get some accessories, including knobbier off-road wheels that are better equipped to handle dirt roads and hills.

Beni arrives ready for you

One of the things I like about Beni is that it's not like a robot kit. The wheels, for instance, are easy to pop on and off, and nothing about Beni looks like it was made from an old Erector Set.

And, for better or worse, there is no dev kit. This is in contrast to the equally cute Pollen Robotics Microduck, another white and orange bipedal robot that can hang out with you (and use roller skates), but it's a bit more DIY than SMF (So Much Fun). Where Beni looks polished, the $399 Microduck looks a little more hand-built.

Beni can hear and follow some simple commands. The animations — a head turn here, a shake there — help it look like it's actually listening to you.

Beni's innate adorability might help overcome the obvious privacy concerns. After all, the robot is no taller than an average chihuahua, and its camera is at ground level. To film you as it goes, Beni will be looking up. This might make some people around you uncomfortable.

Maybe keep Beni to your solitary walks or runs, or make sure everyone around you knows that those cute Beni eyes are an indication that it might be filming.

I picked Beni up and found it surprisingly hefty, about the weight of an overfed puppy. It's cute to watch but not at all cuddly to hold. In fact, company execs told me that while there are lots of warnings about picking up Beni, the robot has no way of knowing if your fingers gets caught in, say, one of the joints. It might be best to keep Beni away from small children.

All this capability, power, and cuteness comes at a price. Beni starts at $799 in the US (it will ship to the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, but pricing for those regions has not been set) and starts shipping in October. It's not the ultimate robot, but Beni has the potential to captivate on looks and capability alone.

There are dozens of companies out there building the first wave of mass-produced humanoid robots, with these androids poised to change the way our society works for the better – or so they say.

Intelligence on demand

The founder and CEO of Figure AI, a humanoid robotics company, was speaking with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on stage during the annual Dreamforce event when he made this massive claim.

Prompted by Benioff, who threw out the question: "We're not building robots, we're building a new species?", Adcock agreed, repeating that idea and suggesting the end goal isn't simply to make another kind of machine but to bring into existence a new order of intelligence.

This may seem a little far-fetched considering that today's most advanced humanoid robots are also capable of failing at the tasks they've been assigned so spectacularly, whether that's helping around the house or proving their sporting prowess. But scientists are adamant that with time, the standard of AI embedded into these systems – and their ability to physically understand the world – will improve immeasurably.

Ramping up production

Figure has become known for its glamorous promotional videos showcasing its prototype humanoid robots in tightly controlled settings – mostly in scenarios that you might encounter around the house. These include tidying the bedroom and stacking the dishwasher.

More impressively, the Figure 03 robot took part in a live stream in which it sorted over 100,000 packages without human assistance.

It remains to be seen as to whether the technology is good enough yet to cope in real-world everyday settings, but many companies have signalled they're initiating mass production of their humanoid robots over 2026 and 2027. Initially, robots are expected to be consigned to industrial settings, but manufacturers insist they want to target domestic use cases too.

Knowing what ‘quantum’ is and why it affects the internet may not be something most people understand. How a physics concept changes the security of the internet isn’t really at the forefront of most people’s worries.

But the change is already happening. The internet is preparing for a post-quantum world that renders much of the encryption the world has relied on obsolete. To understand just how powerful post-quantum decryption is, think of enigma: an encryption machine that took the entire secret operation of Bletchley park over a year to crack would be solved almost instantly. For today’s standard public-key encryption algorithms, it's a matter of days or hours.

By some estimates, the viability of quantum computers capable of this level of decryption are still several years away. But preparations are already happening - and not just by the good guys.

How the good guys and bad guys are preparing for Q-Day

Given that quantum computers capable of decrypting the current algorithms many businesses rely on today are all but inevitable, hackers have begun stealing troves of files that they cannot currently crack but will have huge value once commercially available quantum computers become available.

To get ahead of the curve, governance bodies have begun introducing regulations to ensure businesses and services are fully protected ahead of time, using longer, more robust encryption methods that can hold up against the quantum threat.

But the shift to protecting against quantum threats introduces new problems for the wider internet. Longer signatures during exchanges add to congestion, and when multiplied by the millions of terabytes of data transferred across the internet each day, this could compound into a serious logistical problem if the necessary steps are not taken.

OpenSSL is one of the world's most widely deployed open source cryptographic libraries. It has been developing open-source post-quantum cryptography to help secure businesses (and the internet) in the billions of secure online interactions that happen every day.

Ahead of OpenSSL Conference 2026, I spoke to Tim Hudson, President of OpenSSL Corporation, about the post-quantum challenges and how organizations can best prepare for a post-quantum internet.

• What challenges will infrastructure providers face in trying to handle a quantum-safe internet that requires significantly larger digital signatures? What sort of capacity, bandwidth, and latency increases could we expect to see and how can they be addressed?

It helps to separate two migrations that are usually collapsed into one. Key exchange is largely solved and already deployed — hybrid post-quantum key agreement has been running in mainstream browsers and CDNs for well over a year, and most people reading this have been using it without noticing. Signatures are the unsolved part.

The numbers drive everything. An ML-DSA-44 signature is 2,420 bytes with a 1,312-byte public key, against 64 bytes for ECDSA P-256. Add certificate chain signatures and the two Certificate Transparency timestamps browsers require, and a naive substitution adds somewhere between 7KB and 10KB to every new connection.

The problem is not aggregate bandwidth, which is cheap. It is that this pushes handshakes past the initial congestion window — roughly 14KB — and past QUIC's anti-amplification limit. Cross those and you buy an extra round trip on every fresh connection. That is a tail-latency problem, and it lands hardest on mobile, satellite, lossy links and constrained devices.

The fixes are architectural, not bigger pipes: Merkle Tree Certificates, trust anchor negotiation, and suppressing intermediates. This is a PKI redesign, not a library upgrade.

• How would you recommend CISOs navigate budgetary constraints when trying to secure their business for the quantum era? What are the critical assets to secure?

Two principles save real money. First, inventory before procurement. You cannot budget a migration you have not scoped, and the discovery phase in a complex estate runs six to twelve months. A cryptographic bill of materials is now explicitly on the regulatory agenda, so this work is not optional in any case.

Second, buy agility rather than algorithms. Products marketed as "quantum-safe" are a poor investment. The ability to change algorithm without redesigning the surrounding system will still be valuable in fifteen years; any specific algorithm choice may not be.

For prioritisation, the useful distinction is between confidentiality and authentication. Recorded traffic can be decrypted retrospectively, so anything requiring long-term secrecy is urgent today. Signatures cannot be forged retroactively — a signature made in 2026 and verified in 2026 is not at risk — so authentication is a scheduling problem, not an emergency.

That points at the genuinely critical assets: hardware roots of trust, firmware and code-signing keys, HSM-held key material, PKI roots with twenty-year validity, and long-lived embedded or operational technology. Those are the things you cannot retrofit later. Everything else is a software update.

• Are there any technologies that businesses can leverage now to maintain backwards compatibility with their existing data and processes as they adopt quantum-safe cryptography?

Several, and most are already in production. Hybrid key establishment is the obvious one. TLS 1.3 negotiates it cleanly and falls back to classical algorithms when the peer does not support post-quantum, so deployment carries little compatibility risk. For certificates, composite and dual-chain approaches let a single deployment satisfy both old and new relying parties during transition.

The less visible but more important layer is cryptographic abstraction. The OpenSSL Library provider architecture exists precisely so algorithm implementations can be replaced without touching application code, and that is the mechanism that makes the transition survivable for anyone with a large codebase.

On the interface side, PKCS#11 v3.2 defines post-quantum mechanisms so HSM-backed applications share a common API, and KMIP handles key lifecycles across multi-vendor estates. I work on both of those standards, and the aim is the same: rotate the algorithm without re-plumbing the system.

One caution. Hybrid is a transition, not a destination — the Australian Signals Directorate is explicit on that point. If you deploy a hybrid, budget for the second migration now rather than discovering it in 2029.

• What role will open source infrastructure play in the post-quantum internet, and are there any unique challenges or opportunities open-source technologies face?

Interoperability is the whole problem, and open source is where interoperability actually gets settled.

Agreeing on an algorithm is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. A working internet migration requires implementations that genuinely interoperate at the byte level, across every vendor, under real conditions.

That agreement gets reached in shared, publicly testable code far more reliably than in specification documents. The practical consequence is that a handful of open source implementations effectively set the pace of the entire transition.

The opportunity is scrutiny. Post-quantum algorithms are new, and most real-world cryptographic failures are implementation defects rather than mathematical ones. Side-channel weaknesses are found by people who can read and attack the code.

The challenges are the familiar ones, and unresolved. Funding remains disproportionate to dependency. Validation lag is the sharper issue: FIPS and Common Criteria validated modules trail published standards by years, so regulated organisations facing 2030 deadlines may find conformant code exists but validated code does not.

That ecosystem problem is a large part of why the OpenSSL Conference in Prague in October each year is scoped across cryptography and security generally rather than around any single project.

• In your opinion, is regulation and governance moving fast enough to prepare businesses of all sizes for Q-day? Are there any shortfalls you would like to see addressed?

The direction is right; the coverage is uneven. The pace has changed materially in 2026. In June the US issued Executive Order 14412 and OMB Memorandum M-26-15, setting hard dates for federal civilian systems and putting cryptographic bills of materials on the agenda.

Australia's Signals Directorate holds one of the more demanding positions globally, expecting a refined transition plan by the end of this year and traditional asymmetric cryptography retired by the end of 2030. The EU roadmap runs national plans to end-2026, high-risk systems to 2030, and full transition to 2035.

Four shortfalls. Guidance is written for large regulated enterprises; smaller organisations receive exhortation rather than tooling. Validation throughput is a binding constraint that no mandate addresses.

Nothing credible covers deployed embedded and operational technology with fifteen to twenty-five year service lives and no update path — that is a replacement program, not a migration, and nobody has funded it. And procurement rules should require demonstrated agility and CBOM (Cryptographic Bill of Materials) disclosure rather than algorithm checkboxes.

I would also retire the "Q-day" framing. The deadlines that will actually bind organisations are being set by regulators, insurers and procurement teams, not by physics.

• What should those outside of the business world expect to see changing as we approach a quantum-safe internet, and what can they do to prepare?

Mostly, they should expect not to notice. The browser and operating system on your desk have very likely been performing post-quantum key exchange for more than a year without announcing it. That is what a well-run infrastructure migration looks like.

The visible effects will be modest and mostly indirect: slightly larger handshakes, occasionally slower first connections over poor mobile or satellite links, more frequent firmware updates, and some devices losing support earlier than owners expect because their hardware cannot be upgraded to support the new algorithms.

The practical advice is unglamorous. Keep software current - that genuinely is most of it. Expect shorter useful lifetimes for anything with a hardware root of trust. And treat consumer products marketed as "quantum-safe" with scepticism; there is very little a consumer can buy that addresses a risk not already being handled upstream.

The one real personal consideration is long-lived confidential data. Anything that must stay secret for fifteen years or more and is transmitted today could be recorded now and read later. That is a reason to care which services have migrated, not a reason to buy anything.

• The FCC has granted Starlink Mobile the right to operate internationally
• This opens the door both to a roaming service for US customers and a Starlink Mobile service in other countries
• The company already has partnerships abroad, and previous reports suggested Starlink Mobile was planning to launch a rival to conventional carriers

Starlink Mobile is barely off the ground in the US yet, with its service primarily offered through the dead zone-filling T-Satellite service in partnership with T-Mobile. But we know the brand has bigger mobile ambitions — and it now seems they won’t be limited to the US.

Following reports that SpaceX was planning to build a Starlink-branded mobile network in the US, the company — as spotted by NotebookCheck — has now received approval from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to offer international telecommunications services.

This, at a minimum, could allow Starlink Mobile to offer those dead zone-filling capabilities to US customers when they’re roaming abroad, but it also opens the door to Starlink Mobile services being offered directly to residents of other countries, rather than them only being available through partnerships with other networks.

And we know Starlink plans to level up its mobile service, with 5G-level capabilities and download speeds of up to 150Mbps, all beamed from satellites in space.

Those capabilities, coupled with its existing ability to deliver coverage where conventional mobile networks struggle, could make it either a major boon to carriers it partners with or a significant rival if SpaceX sets up a standalone alternative to the likes of T-Mobile and Verizon.

Starlink mobile services are already rolling out in numerous countries

Any rival service is probably still a way off, especially as the company might need to build some more traditional network infrastructure to compete with conventional carriers in densely populated areas.

But SpaceX is already starting to partner with carriers globally. For example, it recently announced a partnership with Japanese telecommunications company KDDI to offer “Starlink Mobile V2,” which will apparently offer “100x the data density, and will enable native calls, high-speed apps, streaming and more.”

And with this FCC green light, we might one day see Starlink Mobile services offered directly to customers both in the US and abroad, rather than through partnerships alone.

• China's UBTech has revealed its new robot factory
• The facility can produce 10,000 androids a year
• It uses many autonomous robots in the production process

Forget AI agents and ChatGPT, fully autonomous robots are the next high-tech frontier, with companies across the globe racing to perfect their android creations. And Chinese firm UBTech has taken a big step in that direction with its new smart factory that can produce 10,000 robots a year — and it might change manufacturing forever.

The factory is the first of its kind in the world, according to the Seoul Economic Daily. It’s located in Liuzhou, in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and is focused on producing UBTech’s Walker S and Cruzr robot series.

And the factory itself makes heavy use of humanoid robots and driverless vehicles, perhaps providing a glimpse of the future of production and manufacturing. Cruzr Y1 and Cruzr S2 androids unload materials and stack, load and transport them, while collaborative robots take part in the final assembly process that finalizes each product. These final-stage robots work in tandem with human operators and include autonomous vehicles and rotating workbenches.

In a separate development, UBTech says it has launched “the industry’s first fully automated three-dimensional warehouse,” according to the Seoul Economic Daily. This can store 112 robots in 65 square meters of space, supposedly utilizing 50% more space than a facility with similar floor space.

Expanding capacity

UBTech said it has been able to create its robot factory thanks to the strong supply chain that exists in China.

According to UBTech vice president Fang Jianxin, “This foundation is rooted in the many engineers, scientists and application scenarios China has accumulated over the past 10 to 20 years, which has formed a very strong supply chain base, manufacturing capability and research and development capacity.”

China has been ramping up its robot production in recent years, with the National Bureau of Statistics of China noting that output hit 98,677 units in July, an increase of 30.2% on the previous year. And 635,056 robots were created between January 2026 and July 2026, an uptick of 28.5% year on year.

We’ve seen similar stories of robots building robots before, such as when 1X published a video detailing its production process, while Chinese firm Agibot has also seen its robot production undergo rapid expansion in recent times.

Agibot today claimed its A3 Ultra robot is "moving from mass production into real-world deployment", posting a video on X showing it working in "hotels, auto dealerships, supermarkets and metro inspection scenarios, with more deployments underway".

And with UBTech’s factory paving the way in terms of robot creation, it might not be long before autonomous factories start expanding across the world.

• Scientists have developed solar panels that can work up to 10 meters underwater
• The panels can capture up to 324 mWh of energy at that depth
• Each device is expected to last up to five and a half years at a time

A lot of devices are deployed underwater for research and exploration purposes, but powering them all can prove to be difficult, especially if they’re under the waves for a considerable period of time. A new scientific paper, however, has shown that solar panels can be successfully used at depths of up to 10 meters, potentially presenting a new way to keep underwater tech powered up and ready for action.

The paper was published in the Joule periodical and accompanied by a press release explaining its advances. The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Yunnan University in China, who said that a series of solar cells placed 32 feet (10 meters) below the water’s surface in the South China Sea were able to collect enough energy to power up a set of lithium-ion batteries in two hours.

The cells were made from lead halide perovskite with a polymer called polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride added into the mix. This additive helped to enhance the effectiveness of the panels.

According to Wen-Hua Zhang of Yunnan University, “Very few studies have been reported on underwater solar cells, and all of them are focused on very shallow water depths of only two meters or less, a scenario far from catering for requirements of practical application.”

“This work presents the first functional validation of submerged solar cells practically operating at a water depth of up to about 10 meters, greatly broadening their application scope,” Zhang added. The researchers stated that each cell could be deployed for around five and a half years at a time.

The panels captured 1,416 milliwatt-hours (mWh) of electricity at a depth of two meters. This decreased to 752 mWh at six meters and 324 mWh at ten meters. During separate lab testing, the solar panels had a power conversion efficiency of just under 35%.

Paving the way

The idea behind this research is that underwater solar panels could be used to power devices such as sensors, cameras, communications systems, and more.

Many of these objects are stationary for much of the time, so nearby solar cells could help keep them topped up and working without necessarily requiring extensive human intervention.

One question that remains unanswered is how exactly solar panels like this would interact with their environment. For example, it’s likely that they would accumulate biomatter that could hinder their operation, potentially requiring regular cleaning in order to remain fully functional. After all, the sunlight that will power these cells could also promote the growth of plants and animals — a process known as biofouling.

Still, the research seems to have potential. As the authors noted, “This work paves the way for the practical deployment of perovskite photovoltaics in underwater environments, offering a promising route toward self-sustained marine energy systems and autonomous underwater devices.”

• NEC has reportedly ended quantum hardware development after nearly three decades of research
• Several NEC quantum researchers have reportedly moved to rival Fujitsu
• NEC once ranked first globally in semiconductor sales in 1990

NEC has reportedly stopped building physical quantum computers after roughly three decades of research into superconducting circuits and solid-state qubit technology.

The Japanese technology company is instead expected to concentrate on quantum applications while avoiding the costs associated with developing physical machines.

Several engineers connected to the initiative, including a senior research figure, subsequently moved across to rival firm Fujitsu to continue their work.

A legacy built on chip dominance

NEC once dominated the global chip industry, ranking first worldwide in semiconductor sales back in 1990, ahead of several rivals.

Companies such as Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Motorola and Intel all trailed well behind NEC's chip business throughout that period.

Intel eventually surpassed NEC as personal computer processors grew into a massive and highly profitable segment of the global electronics market.

NEC's 1999 breakthrough in superconducting qubits emerged from a firm that possessed vast internal expertise in solid-state device engineering and manufacturing.

Its researchers produced the earliest known solid-state qubit, a milestone still referenced widely across the quantum computing field.

Variants of that early breakthrough now quietly underpin quantum processors currently built separately by both technology giants Google and IBM.

Unlike NEC, IBM remained committed to quantum hardware and grew into a leading global developer of quantum computing systems overall.

That contrast makes NEC's exit relatively rare among the original corporate pioneers of quantum computing hardware development.

A retreat that took nearly a decade

NEC did not exit the semiconductor business overnight; the retreat instead unfolded gradually across roughly a full decade of restructuring.

The company effectively abandoned its DRAM memory operations in 1999, folding them into a joint venture that was later renamed Elpida.

In November 2002, NEC spun off its remaining chip units, covering microcontrollers and system-on-chip devices, into an entirely new firm.

That entity was subsequently renamed NEC Electronics, eventually becoming the major chipmaker now known globally as Renesas Electronics.

NEC's current business portfolio now centers on IT services, enterprise systems, aerospace, defense, telecom infrastructure, AI and security work.

Quantum hardware development apparently did not fit naturally alongside that existing and increasingly diversified corporate business focus of the company today.

NEC has not formally described the move as a complete withdrawal from quantum computing research.

The company says it will keep assessing real-world uses and commercialization paths connected to quantum technology.

Quantum computing hardware remains a notably costly pursuit, and returns on investment can take many additional years to materialize fully.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu, working alongside research partner Riken, already launched a quantum computer built around 256 superconducting qubits last year.

The firm aims to build a system exceeding 1,000 qubits sometime within 2026, according to earlier public statements from company officials.

Longer term, Fujitsu has reportedly set a goal of building machines that carry over 10,000 superconducting qubits before fiscal 2030 arrives.

NEC's departure suggests that even firms with decades of deep expertise increasingly view quantum hardware as commercially unviable in the short term.

Via Diamond Online (originally in Japanese)

Elon Musk has been at the heart of promoting various companies throughout the 21st century, with two of his most prominent companies anchored in the notion of mass production. In the case of his infamous clunky and angular Tesla Cybertruck, he encountered several difficulties in bringing the prototype to market.

Planting the seed

Musk was speaking about the rigors of bringing the Cybertruck to life during an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Rogan asked how far away Musk was from delivering the vehicle to people, with Musk revealing at the time that the timing was about a month away.

But the prototype was initially unveiled in November 2019. Explaining the delay, the Tesla CEO hinted that the process of manufacturing the vehicle proved much harder than expected given the need for consistency in producing each model.

Rinse and repeat

There's an element of common sense in buying into the idea that making a prototype is much easier than mass-producing a finished version of that product.

Not only is there a much lower tolerance for error, but establishing the supply chain for materials, components, and resources is far more complex. Then there's the economics of it all – ensuring that the cost to produce one vehicle can, at least, be recouped by a customer should there even be a willingness to pay for it.

It's reminiscent of the "production hell" phrasing that Musk has also frequently deployed through the years – especially during a manufacturing crisis between 2017 and 2018. During this time, the Tesla production line became a futuristic and automated process known as the "alien dreadnought" – but this robotic network eventually slowed down manufacturing and prevented Tesla vehicles from being ready on time.

• IBM and NASA launch open source AI model to help further lunar research
• Researchers will be able to better analyze petabytes of Moon data from last five decades
• IBM and NASA also release dataset for public usage and analysis

IBM has launched a new open source AI model it hopes will help spur on NASA researchers in their push to get humanity back to the Moon.

The new NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation model, available on Hugging Face, will allow researchers to analyze decades of lunar observation data, and identify geological features that are critical to understand for NASA as it looks to build a sustained human presence on the Moon.

The model has been trained by IBM and NASA researchers on a huge, multimodal NASA dataset, which will also be released alongside the model, providing wider access to the latest advanced AI systems in a bid to push on wider progress in lunar exploration.

To the Moon (and beyond)

At its most obvious level, the model will allow a much easier way for researchers to study petabytes of data gathered on the Moon's surface for potentially hazardous locations such as ice deposits or craters.

Currently, scientists often rely on manual analysis or low-resolution, task-specific AI models, which can be not only computationally demanding, but also often lack the accuracy needed for detailed geographic analysis.

The new release will now mean that instead of needing to build a new AI model for every potential issue, scientists can now adapt a single foundation model to investigate a range of lunar geologic features.

The model has already proved useful, identifying craters and volcanic features far more accurately (see below) and significantly reducing errors in locating potential ice deposits.

IBM, which has worked with NASA for over five decades, including on the Apollo missions, believes the model could help future astronauts navigate safely and even find essential resources, as well as helping scientists better understand the Moon's geological history.

“Uncovering the mysteries of the Moon requires an ability to learn from an extraordinary volume of scientific data,” said Juan Bernabe-Moreno, Director of IBM Research Europe, UK and Ireland.

“The NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model gives scientists a foundation to explore the Moon at scale, connecting observations across instruments, revealing patterns that are difficult to see in isolation, and providing an open platform the global research community can build on.”

The release of the dataset will mark the first time a unified, publicly-available cache has been made available and ready for machine learning. It brings together over 30 spatially aligned layers from nine instruments across four missions, including tens of thousands of images and maps showing unique geophysical properties of the lunar surface from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and NASA’s GRAIL mission.

Identifying lunar ice deposits could be particularly vital, as the presence of both water and oxygen will be crucial to establishing a human base on the Moon, and even creating rocket fuel for future Mars missions.

Scanning the Moon's volcanic features, known as Iregular Mare Patches, can allow scientists to better understand the Moon's volcanic history and thermal evolution, as well as helping identify potential sites for landing and other surface operations.

Finally, studying the Moon's craters can offer a wealth of information on its history, including the age of different terrains, their geology, and even the chemical composition of the early lunar interior - as well as again helping to identify safe landing sites without hazards such as steep slopes and boulders.

• Russia has launched 32 Rassvet satellites, though coverage remains limited
• Rassvet remains vastly smaller than Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation today
• Russia plans 156 satellite launches in 2026, 292 in 2027, 318 in 2028, and about 900 in 2035

Russia has launched 32 Rassvet communications satellites as Moscow works toward building a domestic network capable of competing with Starlink.

The current fleet, however, remains too small to provide continuous service, while reported orbital problems have raised further doubts about progress.

Russia still plans commercial operations from 2027, although reaching that stage depends on expanding the constellation and overcoming serious technical limitations.

Thirty-two satellites leave Russia far from continuous coverage

Ukraine's Defense Intelligence chief, Oleh Ivashchenko, said the existing constellation cannot yet deliver reliable communications across the areas Russia intends to serve.

“We know that today the Russians are trying to put satellites into orbit. But so far, there are not enough of them, and their effectiveness is low,” said Oleh Ivashchenko, chief of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence.

Ivashchenko did not disclose the spacecraft’s orbital paths, operating frequency, or the Ukrainian regions where the system currently provides coverage.

However, he maintains that Rassvet remains far smaller than Starlink, which has more than 12,000 satellites in orbit and continues adding around 200 spacecraft each month.

The much smaller constellation means Rassvet cannot yet provide the same level of continuous coverage as Starlink.

Moscow has committed 102.8 billion rubles, or about $1.3 billion, to Rassvet as part of efforts to establish domestic broadband connectivity.

Russia plans to launch 156 satellites in 2026, followed by another 292 spacecraft by 2027, when authorities expect commercial operations to begin.

The programme ultimately aims for 318 satellites by 2028, while later plans envisage expanding the network from 250 spacecraft toward 900 by 2035.

Those figures reveal the scale of work remaining, since the existing fleet represents only a fraction of Russia's planned communications infrastructure.

Technical problems could make expansion considerably harder

Reports indicate that some Rassvet spacecraft faced difficulty gaining altitude, with certain satellites drifting downward after reaching orbit.

Defense Express reported on August 25 2026 that one Rassvet-3 communications satellite was lost, while two others faced possible atmospheric reentry.

Such incidents could complicate Russia's schedule because each failed spacecraft reduces the already limited constellation and creates additional pressure on future launches.

Building the planned network would require at least 18 Soyuz-2.1b missions, despite Russia currently carrying out only six to eight launches annually.

The launch requirement therefore creates another obstacle, especially if replacement spacecraft become necessary after further technical failures during orbital operations.

Rassvet could eventually provide communications links for unmanned aircraft and military units operating beyond the practical limits of conventional radio systems.

That possibility gained greater attention after Ukraine and SpaceX restricted unauthorized Starlink terminals reportedly used by Russian forces during February 2026.

“We are working on this. Russia’s ‘Rassvet svg’ must turn into a ‘zakat svg,’” said Oleh Ivashchenko, chief of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence.

Russia continues developing Rassvet despite these setbacks, but the current constellation remains unable to provide continuous connectivity expected from a fully operating network.

Via United24media

• A new teaser trailer for the forthcoming Musk documentary has landed
• It features footage of SpaceX rockets and spicy quotes about Musk
• Musk will be in theaters from October 16 before an HBO release

A new teaser trailer for the documentary Musk has landed on YouTube ahead of the much-anticipated film's premiere today at the Venice Film Festival.

The 48-second teaser (below) provides a taster of the documentary's likely divisive reflections on the world's richest man. It contrasts quotes calling him "the real-life Iron Man" and "the greatest capitalist in history" with some less complementary reactions — with one stating that "in a science fiction novel, he would not be the hero".

The documentary's Academy-Award winning director, Alex Gibney, has a strong track record with pieces about powerful people and corporations, having previously made classics like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

His Musk documentary has been over three years in the making, with Gibney revealing that he'd started work on it back in March 2023. Elon Musk isn't particularly happy about the documentary's release, posting on X back on August 6 that "it’s a hit piece" and that "Gibney is incapable of anything else".

Musk says director is trying to 'bore people to death'

Aside from its polarizing subject, the Musk documentary is notable for another reason – its run time is almost four hours. That's something that Musk himself also poked fun at on X, stating "is he trying to bore people to death?"

The trailer doesn't give a huge amount away about its conclusions, but Alex Gibney did reveal a little more in a chat with AP earlier this week. "In some ways it’s a simple story (with) a lot of complicated details," he told AP.

"I think his genius, if there is a genius, is that he is not an inventor, he’s an investor. His genius is stock pumping," he added. We can expect the documentary, like the trailer, to stir a lot of controversy then, particularly as it also delves into Musk's relationship with Trump.

So does Musk himself appear in the documentary, or did he try to prevent it from reaching screens? "He didn’t really except in so far as the fact that people were terribly afraid to speak to me on the record, or at least on camera," Gibney told AP. "They were just terrified of Elon. And these were people in his companies. These were people who knew him well. These were supporters and critics," he added.

The Musk documentary will be released theatrically in the US on October 16. There's currently no confirmation of a UK release, but it's also expected to stream on HBO Max later this year.

• Intel report claims 60% of business leaders expect to operate robot fleets within the next five years
• Conversely, only 40% have a human-robot workforce strategy
• The Robotics Readiness Gap report assesses the state of robotic adoption around the world

Intel’s 'Robotics Readiness Gap' report has revealed that many large businesses are planning to implement a human-robot workforce within the next five years, with a majority expecting a doubling of operational output with a full-scale deployment.

The survey of 800 senior leaders in organizations with over $500 million annual turnover also found while adoption plans are accelerating, the rollout of a human-robot workforce has some key challenges, not least infrastructure, skills, strategy, and safety.

Despite the positive outlook for robotics, the scenario has a heavy dose of reality. Only 40% of businesses surveyed have a suitable strategy in place, despite a belief that robots could prove more cost-effective than humans within three years.

Human-robot workforce

Within this context, the aim of achieving a human-robot workforce seems more achievable, although some of the findings suggest an aspirational element to the drive towards robotics.

While 60% of leaders are expecting to run a fleet of robots by 2030, only 40% have a suitable human-robot workforce strategy in place. So while 74% believe workforce planning will be inseparable from robotics strategy within 5 years, there is a gap in preparation.

The report notes that “On average, leaders believe that deploying a robot will become more cost-effective than hiring a human in their sector within three years.”

But does this mean replacing jobs? Intel says not. “This isn’t about replacing people but creating new forms of human-machine collaboration, with robots working alongside employees as productive teammates.”

Doubling operational output

Intel’s report states that robotics in the workplace is approaching a “critical threshold,” with leaders predicting that “operational output would double if robotics were deployed at full scale across their organization.”

However, both notions rely heavily on five factors: strategy, skills, safety, shape (function), and scale (which includes physical AI infrastructure).

Intel’s report states, “few are prepared for what large-scale deployment actually requires. Closing this gap will mean redesigning operating models for a workforce that includes autonomous systems.” Even in the defense industry, this gap exists (“confidence outstrips preparedness by 48%”).

Placed in these terms, and with the context of the size of the organizations quizzed on their robotics strategies, that critical threshold seems a little further away than five years.

• G7 urges governments and organizations to begin transitioning to quantum‑resistant encryption
• Warning highlights risk from future quantum computers able to break current standards like AES
• Guidance: inventory cryptographic assets, prioritize critical systems, and adopt phased PQC strategies

The G7, a collection of some of the world’s most powerful economies, is urging organizations to adopt quantum-resistant encryption as soon as possible and minimize the risk of losing sensitive data to technologically advanced threat actors.

Virtually every industry in the world today relies on encryption (the process of converting readable data into scrambled, unreadable data so that only someone with the correct key can decode and access it) to protect sensitive information. Banks, telecommunications providers, defense organizations, and practically everyone else are using some form of encryption - most probably AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).

Decrypting the protected data without the encryption key is considered almost impossible, since the computational effort necessary to pull it off would simply be too large. However, since quantum computers work on a fundamentally different principle, it is believed that once they are mature enough, they will be able to “crack” today’s encryption standards.

G7's advice

Now, the G7 has urged government and organizations to remain ahead of the curve by deploying “quantum-resistant encryption”:

“To protect themselves from the threat brought by CRQCs (cryptographically relevant quantum computers), organizations should begin planning their PQC transition now and should aim to complete their transitions within any the timelines set out by their national cybersecurity authorities,” the warning reads.

“In addition to quantum-related risks, organizations that delay their PQC transition may lose competitive advantage or may be excluded from contracting opportunities, including public procurement.”

The G7 advises governments and organizations to take a number of steps, including identifying critical systems and prioritizing them. They should adopt a phased and risk-based strategy, start their transition early, and inventory their cryptographic assets. They should also map their dependencies and develop a transition plan.

“To limit transition-related costs, they should opt to purchase products that integrate PQC and replace their systems with quantum-safe ones as part of their standard renewal schedule. As such, starting the transition early could result in lower migration costs overall. Planning and conducting their PQC transition properly would enable organizations to prevent insecure implementations and avoid increased exposure to conventional cyber threats.”

• The Anthbot R7 Series includes an 'EdgeEase' string trimmer
• Its mounted on an arm and comes with its own camera for safety
• There's also infrared animal detection

Effective edge trimming has long been the bane of a lawnbot-maker's life. After all, what good is a robot mower if you then have to go in with a side-trimmer to clean up all the lawn edges afterwards? Anthbot's newest robo-mower — the R7 Series, on show at IFA 2026 — has an innovative solution.

The brand has tacked a string trimmer onto the side of the lawnbot. Or, more accurately, onto a "robot arm", mounted to the side of the lawnbot. This arm is designed to adjust to follow winding lawn boundaries, ensuring "zero-gap edge cutting without manual touch-ups". Anthbot dubs the system 'EdgeEase'.

I saw it being demoed — albeit on an AstroTurf lawn, without any actual cutting. The arm movement is smooth and functions well, tucking neatly away when not required. (It's a little less visually impressive than Segway Navimow's own mechanical side-trimming system, but which system functions better remains to be seen.)

I've seen side-mounted blade trimmers before, but this string version feels like a slightly safer option to be protruding out into the open... at least when not in use. Of course, when spinning, those strings will be able to slice just as effectively as a blade.

On that point, I'm surprised Anthbot hasn't added any kind of protective casing. There is a camera specifically dedicated to keeping an eye on the trimming arm, but it's still putting a lot of trust in those obstacle-spotting skills.

Hedgehog spotting

The EdgeEase string trimmer is the headline addition, but I was also interested to see Anthbot has included an infrared sensor for animal detection. This is designed to pick up thermal signals from critters like hedgehogs that might be hidden in the grass, so the mower can avoid them.

These are two standout features in what looks like an altogether extremely capable lawnbot. For the main mowing, it uses two floating cutting discs, designed to adjust to uneven ground for a clean finish. There's also all-wheel drive — precisely powered by four drive motors and two independent steering motors. That's designed to help with traction and maneuverability.

The navigation suite includes LiDAR, RTK, and three AI-backed cameras (including that trimmer cam) to provide "robust, all-scenario positioning" that won't drop out if, for example, the satellite signal is blocked. Anthbot emphasizes the R7 Series is "designed to handle the complexity of real gardens rather than idealized, flat lawns".

The ANTHBOT R7 Series comprises two lawnbots: the R730 and R720. The R730 is designed for lawns up to 3,000㎡ and has the string trimmer included as standard. The R720 has a smaller battery and is meant for yards up to 2,000㎡, and the string trimmer is an optional extra.

• A new study analyzes the impact of a 2025 solar storm
• GPS systems were knocked off course by up to 10 meters (33 feet)
• Experts are working on better modeling and prediction

You may not think about it, but Earth is under a constant bombardment of solar radiation shooting through space. While our planet's magnetic field does an excellent job of blocking it, sometimes concentrated bursts of radiation known as solar flares are strong enough to interfere with our ground infrastructure via secondary magnetic field ripples.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers from the US have documented the damage done by a solar 'superstorm' that erupted from the Sun on November 11, 2025. It hit the maximum level on the scale used to measure these storms, causing an unprecedented level of disruption in Earth's upper atmosphere (the ionosphere).

The storm's effects were also unusually widespread, the researchers report, stretching coast to coast across the US for hours. It threw GPS positioning systems off by as much as 10 meters (33 feet) in some areas, and interrupted satellite communications.

Given that GPS errors of just 1-2 meters (3.3-6.6 feet) can cause "catastrophic issues for precision agriculture and autonomous vehicles", the researchers state, this is serious interference. However, the study doesn't go into any specific detail of incidents with self-driving cars or farming machinery.

Potential damage and harms

The researchers are mainly concerned with the scientific aspects of the storm, but do point out that if the event had happened during the main farming season months, the damage could have been much worse. A May 2024 solar storm was estimated to have cost the US agriculture industry around $500 million (£386 million / AU$695 million).

For people, the risk of direct health harms is minimal – though if you're in an airplane and up close to the ionosphere, you might expect to experience bursts of radiation that are equivalent to several X-ray scans. On the plus side, these incidents come with vibrant auroras across the northern and southern poles.

As we can't shut down the Sun, the best way to protect our infrastructure and tech systems from these storms is to improve scientific prediction models, and upgrade hardware protections, which is what the study team emphasizes.

"The results underscore the importance of accurate understanding of various space weather phenomena to enhance our predictive capabilities through coordinated observations and physics-based modeling and ultimately reducing disruptions to RF applications during space weather events," write the researchers.

• Segway Navimow has unveiled its Navimow H510 Pro lawnbot at IFA
• It features an extending, robotic arm for trimming lawn edges
• Also uses the brand's 'Xero-turn' technology for gentler turns

First, we had a robot vacuum with an arm for picking up socks. Now, limbs are making their way to robot lawn mowers too. The new Segway Navimow H510 Pro features its own mechanical arm, and this one is for trimming the edges of your lawn.

Effective edge-trimming has long been a problem for lawnbot-makers, and in recent years we've started to see side modules being added onto machines for exactly this purpose.

But Segway Navimow's solution is altogether cleaner: it has taken the main blade and mounted it on a robotic arm, so when the lawnbot is at the perimeter of a lawn the whole thing can reach out (by up to 2.9in / 7.4cm) to mow those edges. In fact, the brand promises 'zero-gap edge trimming' — no blade left unshorn.

I saw it being demoed at IFA 2026, and it was pretty majestic in action. You can see a clip below of the blade retracting back in.

The supporting software, called 'EdgeSense', coordinates the movement depending on the type of edge it's tackling. It'll react differently to hard edges (like walls and patios), soft edges (like flower beds) and irregular edges (table legs).

Because the edge trimmer and main mower use the same cutting deck, the results should be more consistent and even than if you were relying on two separate systems. Segway Navimow's aim is to "finally [close] the gap between robotic convenience and truly finished results".

One issue with finding a successful edge-cutting solution is how to handle the safety aspect of having blades protruding out from the bot's main shell protective casing.

On this front, Segway Navimow has added a side shield that provides a barrier against the blades. There's also "live-detection protection" that will shut off operation instantly when a human or animal approaches. The latter partly relies on heat-sensing to alert the lawnbot that there's a live creature about.

Smooth mover

The Segway Navimow H510 Pro uses the brand's 'Xero-Turn' technology. This tech was introduced at CES in January, and sees the lawnbot twist its wheels to effectively crab-walk its way around bends, so it won't churn up your grass.

There are further features to help the lawnbot tackle tricky terrain without risking damage to your turf. Each of the four wheels is independently powered (it's an AWD machine) to enable it to move with precision, and there's rear wheel suspension to maximize wheel contact at all times, even when the ground is uneven.

• Meta continues to test data center robots for tasks like power cycling and network connections
• The company already has a number of models being tested at different campuses
• One worker worries robots could replace 80% of data center technicians

Meta is now said to be exploring whether it can perform some data center and server tasks with robots instead of human technicians, including power cycling devices and swapping network cables.

According to new Ars Technica reporting, the company has already deployed a simple, finger-like robot that can physically press the power button on hardware like Mac minis.

The company also demonstrated a self-driving robot in 2023 that was cable of moving heavy server racks, so it's not the first time Meta has been exploring how to automate its growing data center footprint.

Meta continues to look at ways to automate data center tasks

According to the latest reports, some of those earlier robots have already been deployed at its Iowa and Virginia facilities, and it's the Iowa campus that looks to be one of the company's biggest testing grounds. For the past year or so, the Facebook's parent company has reportedly been testing two two-arm robots for cable-related work, under human supervision.

A separate scissor-lift-style machine with a robotic arm is also rolling around Meta's Ohio campus in a trial for jobs like reseating components.

However, the growing complexity of AI data centers also presents its own challenges for robots, making fine motor skills far more important for costly and vital components.

Naturally, worker feedback hasn't always been so positive. Besides one unnamed employee warning that robots could replace 80% of the human roles before long, many also complain that autonomous robots spend far too long charging their batteries – not working.

Still, robots are clearly still part of the company's plan. Robotics exec Eric Xu previously described a future where robots are used for incident response, environmental monitoring and preventative maintenance.

"America is in the middle of its biggest infrastructure boom since World War II, and there’s a major shortage of skilled workers to fill the roles; we need more workers, not fewer," company spokesperson Francis Brennan told Ars Technica.

Although AI is advancing at a rapid pace, the idea that it might one day replace humanity has thus far been consigned to the realm of fiction.

Rather than signalling the end of mankind, however, others have speculated that an advanced AI may one day simply supplant our position at the top of the food chain and live harmoniously with us, a species that will live to serve it.

Electric sheep

The American mathematician and computer scientist Claude Shannon was giving an interview with Omni Magazine on his work and legacy when he speculated on the role of AI and robotics in the future.

His comments came during a conversation about the limits of digital computers and the piping that backs so much of the AI technology we use today, artificial neural networks. He suggested, despite the sour mood around AI at the time, that it would be one day so advanced that our collective intelligence as a species would pale in comparison.

Far from being a doomsday scenario, though, his likening of humanity to a dog indicated a sense of companionship, mutual love and respect, and a sense of loyalty that would cement mankind's role in a world dominated by a future machine intelligence.

Roboslop

At a time when funding for AI was running dry and we encountered many bottlenecks like the lack of compute power, science fiction writers and scientists alike both started envisioning ways in which future systems could one day replace us.

Although none of those predictions have come to pass, there is a widening consensus that one day the technology will grow to surpass the level of human cognition.

This hypothetical technology, known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), may not be invented any time soon – and we may not presently have the architecture required to see progress. But scientists expect this to come within living memory.

Once we reach this point, which many refer to as the technological singularity, it's wholly unclear what the implications may be and whether AGI may eventually give rise to a cascading series of more intelligent systems that culminate in an artificial superintelligence (ASI).

• Some Rassvet satellites remain dangerously low after failing to raise their orbits
• One Rassvet spacecraft has already fallen from orbit and reentered Earth's atmosphere
• Two newer satellites have shown no observed orbital-raising maneuvers since July 2026

Moscow's push to field its own broadband satellite network is running into some technical and industrial issues, new reports have revealed.

Bureau 1440, the company developing the Rassvet-3 system, has sent up two batches of spacecraft in 2026, one in March and another in July.

According to reports, some of these systems did not climb smoothly toward their intended altitude; instead, they stalled, drifted, or fell back toward Earth.

A satellite already lost, others trending downward

One craft from the first group, known as Rassvet-3 No. 4, never managed to raise its orbit after separating from its rocket.

That satellite, catalogued as NORAD 68363, eventually reentered the atmosphere on June 6, marking an outright loss for the young constellation.

Two more spacecraft from the second launch group, numbers 17 and 23, appear to be following a similar pattern of inactivity.

Tracking data shows neither satellite has performed any observed maneuver to climb higher since it separated from its carrier rocket on July 19.

Both currently sit at an average altitude near 290 kilometers, with their lowest points measured at roughly 277 kilometers above the surface.

Without engine activity to counter this decline, the pair could eventually drop low enough that reentry becomes essentially unavoidable.

However, there are some positives, as some of the satellites have successfully begun climbing, though none has reached the network's target altitude of about 800 kilometers.

Spacecraft from the earliest operational batch launched just over five months ago, and at the moment, they hover between 500 and 550 kilometers.

A few more units from the group are not yet at that intermediate range, which means that the company is yet to hit its long-term altitude plan.

The Bureau 1440 has now paused raising some Rassvet satellites higher toward their planned 800-kilometer orbit, and the company hasn't revealed the reason for the pause.

Ground infrastructure adds to the program's troubles

Russia intends for the Rassvet network to rival SpaceX's Starlink by offering fast internet through hundreds of orbiting satellites.

Officials have said commercial service should begin in 2027, with plans calling for 292 satellites to be functioning in orbit by year's end.

Meeting that timeline would require Bureau 1440 to conduct a rapid sequence of additional launches over the coming months.

A separate complication has now emerged on the ground, far from the satellites already circling the planet.

Ukrainian forces allegedly used FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles to strike Samara's Progress Rocket and Space Center.

That facility builds the Soyuz-2.1b rockets responsible for carrying every Rassvet-3 satellite launched so far this year.

The plant also supports numerous other Russian launches, including several military, reconnaissance, and communications missions unrelated to broadband service.

The rocket production capacity is one of the central bottlenecks limiting the constellation's overall deployment pace.

Should the damage at Progress persist, sustaining the launch tempo needed to reach nearly 300 satellites may prove genuinely difficult.

Via United24media

• Microduck is Pollen Robotics' new programmable robot
• It looks like a cute robo-duck, and has some adorable, pre-baked interactions
• It's up for pre-order priced at $399, and it should ship in time for Christmas

If the measure of a successful robot is cuteness, Microduck could be the most successful bot in ages. Unveiled this week by Pollen Robotics (a division of AI company Hugging Face — yes, that Hugging Face), Microduck is a 25-centimeter-tall educational robot that appears to arrive with surprising mobility, balance, and personality.

Pre-orders, which kicked off today (August 27) promise a $399 (that's the introductory price), roughly 1.7lb pre-built duck-like robot complete with a mouth that doubles as a gripper, a voice —duck calls, it seems — 15 degrees of freedom (basically a measure of the number of ways all the motors let it move), and motors that let it walk, waddle, move its head and, thanks to a pair of IMUs (inertial movement unit), stay upright even when pushed around.

There's a single-eye camera paired with a Lidar system for navigating its environment and, perhaps, recognizing its owner. Pollen Robotics has yet to specify the camera's megapixels. There are also speakers for voice, and microphones for it to hear. The robot runs on a relatively low-power Rockchip RK3566 ARM chip that's backed by 1GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage. There's on-board Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, and a smallish 2,600mAh battery that promises roughly one hour of operation.

These are not killer specs, but the teaser videos show a highly engaged and undeniably adorable little bot. I was particularly taken with how it can recover and stand back up after a fall (or being pushed over). Microduck will arrive with a lot of pre-programmed interactions, but much of the cuteness may come via its open-source platform and your programming skills.

The Microduck kit will ship with an SDK that includes virtual training environments, along with training scripts and tools, and "a tested sim-to-real workflow." The idea, obviously, is that while you might grow to love Microducks' baked-in personality, it's what you can build with your kids that will really matter. This is an educational robot, after all.

It's almost familiar

It's also worth mentioning Microduck's obvious resemblance to another extremely cute, though entirely unattainable robot: Disney's and Star Wars' BDX Droid. Both robots are bipedal with a somewhat squat posture and cute, oversized heads, and as with the BDX-Droid, it's hard to believe the Microsoduck can stay upright. But that's where the similarities end. That semi-autonomous/remote-controlled BDX Droid is much larger, probably far more expensive, and is currently only wandering around Disney World. Plus, there are currently no plans to bring it to consumers.

The $399 Microduck is just the base package, and Pollen Robotics also plans to ship an optional charger pack for $39, a dev pack that includes spare motors, cables, and batteries for $119, and an accessory pack that includes a laser pointer (perhaps for Microduck to chase), roller skates(!) that Microduck can wear and ride, and 10 NFC tags. One wonders if those tags might be used to trigger certain Microduck actions.

Microduck is Pollen Robotics' second edu-robot, the first being the Reach Mini, an almost equally cute but more or less stationary desk companion robot. Pollen Robotics claims it sold 10,000 units.

Microduck's success will likely depend on just how many of those endearing qualities are on display out of the box, and how much we have to code ourselves. Initially, you can fake some of it, since Microduck can be remote-controlled with a gaming controller; but the real fun happens when it starts to respond in unexpected ways.

The other X factor is how many people are willing to pay almost $400 for a plastic and semi-autonomous robot duck. I know I'm intrigued, and wouldn't mind trying to program it to create the duck-bot of my dreams.

Microduck is expected to ship by Christmas, and is available in Cream, Graphite. Lavender, and Sky.

One of the most exciting areas in technology is quantum computing, but it's also one of the areas that's been among the least accessible, difficult to relate to the real world, and still largely buried away in the lab. To reach the point at which quantum computers become useful, there's still plenty of work to be done.

The race to a million qubits

There are, and continue to be, different approaches to building quantum computers as well as all the components that power them. But the goal among all companies and institutions is the same: to build a machine that can outpace the fastest classical computer.

The cofounder and CEO of quantum computing company PsiQuantum, Jeremy O'Brien, was sharing his vision behind his organization, essentially saying that his team had attempted to work against a forged consensus.

Rather than scaling up qubits from a handful to 100 or 1,000, he said at the time that he was "fanatical" about getting to a million-plus qubits – the point at which experts expect there to be a meaningful performance leap.

New architectures and approaches

Intriguingly, O'Brien's comments came at a time when sheer scale and qubit count were the most sought-after elements in a quantum computer.

Since that point, so much research in the space has shifted not to the sheer size of the chips and how many qubits they can hold, but to building better qubits. Because quantum processors are so prone to failure, researchers have instead been trying to build processors with a few error-resistant qubits over millions of basic error-prone qubits.

The goal is still to achieve a quantum computer that can outpace classical machines, but experts expect that due to new breakthroughs, these quantum computers may need far fewer qubits than the millions we thought just a few years ago.

• IBM connects two box-shaped cryogenic modules into a single environment and cooled them below 15 millikelvin, linked by a thermally shielded tunnel carrying quantum cables between cells
• The cooling technology is established dilution refrigeration; what is new is an enclosure that offers up to twelve times more wiring area and lets modules sit side by side with shorter interconnects in tow
• IBM plans to install Nighthawk chips later this year, with a roadmap targeting 1,000 programmable qubits by 2027 and establishing fault tolerance in 2029

IBM has joined two cryogenic modules into a single environment at its Poughkeepsie facility and cooled the combined system to below 15 millikelvin, bringing it as close to absolute zero as possible.

The company said this was an important milestone on the road to IBM Quantum Starling, the fault-tolerant machine it intends to deliver in 2029.

IBM said the temperature is more than 180 times colder than deep space, and it is only part of the announcement, which furthers quantum computing considerably.

A story beyond temperature

Superconducting qubits need to sit a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, and a dilution refrigerator gets them there. To date, IBM has housed these inside tall cylindrical cryostats, one processor per can, an approach that dictates how every IBM Quantum System One in the field currently operates.

IBM has not replaced the refrigerator but rather modified the container: its new cryogenic cells are box-shaped, built from solid aluminum panels and framing, roughly three times the size of a kitchen fridge.

Their rectangular shape has an advantage: they can stand in a tight row rather than being spaced out as cylinders must be, and openings in the side walls let quantum cables run from one cell into the next. Multiple layers of thermal shielding wrap those cables to form what IBM calls a protected cryogenic tunnel, keeping the link between processors at operating temperature rather than forcing signals out through a warm gap and back down again.

IBM's achievement is demonstrating that it can run two previously independent cooling cells as one low-temperature environment, while offering 0.53 square meters of available wiring space and 2.75 cubic meters of vacuum chamber volume per cell.

IBM says this is up to twelve times more wiring room than its most widely used systems and addresses the constraint that has been quietly throttling superconducting quantum computers: every qubit you add needs control and readout lines running down into the cold, each line carries heat, and a cylinder runs out of cross-section long before one runs out of qubits.

Not only is IBM's new approach much more scalable than its previous ones, but it's goal here is different than what one would think at first glance given that It has already hit 1,000 qubits (its Condor processor already did so physically on a single chip in December 2023); its new approach is to have programmable qubits usable for computation across linked processors, a much different task than what IBM has already demonstrated.

Its 2027 target refers to qubits you can actually address and run a calculation on, spread across several chips linked together. That is a harder thing to deliver than a raw count, and IBM's roadmap, which also aims to have a fault-tolerant machine by 2029, is a reach by any measure, but one that is promising for a company that is at the forefront of quantum computing research and has just shown a bleeding-edge cooling enclosure to further its cause.

• The 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games are happening this week
• Robots are performing better than ever across 51 events
• Stopping a sprinting robot remains a major engineering challenge

The World Humanoid Robot Games are underway in Beijing, China, and records set by flesh and blood humans are tumbling: these bots have now beaten our best efforts at the 100-meter sprint and the high jump.

As the Associated Press reports, the robot record for the 100 meters now stands at 9.39 seconds (beating Usain Bolt's 9.58 seconds), while a humanoid bot has reached 2.88 meters on the high jump (above Javier Sotomayor's 2.45 meters).

This is only the second year of the Robot Games, but the progress from 2025 is noticeable — these robots were only reaching 0.95 meters on the high jump last year, for example. One engineer told the South China Morning Post that improved networking capabilities, meaning better access to cloud AI processing, is one reason for the advances in the tech.

These humanoid robots will be put to the test across 51 different disciplines over the course of the five-day event, with sports like tennis, table tennis, and kickboxing newly added for 2026. More practical trials are also included, covering tasks across industrial production, logistics, and hospitality.

Stop right there

As impressive as a lot of these robot athletes are, we're still seeing plenty of fails — such as sprinting robots smashing into safety barriers to stop. Getting these machines to slow down is actually a harder engineering challenge than you might think: we're talking about high-speed, complex movement that needs to be managed with exact precision.

There's a lot of energy that needs dissipating, a lot of rebalancing that's required, and a lot of transitioning from one state to another to be done. Researchers have managed it in simulations, but not yet in actual sprinting robots — right now the speeds and movement mechanisms are too much for the robot AIs to cope with.

It comes back to a perennial problem for robots: avoiding falling over. We take staying upright for granted, but it involves a lot of split-second calculations. When a robot is running, the problem gets exponentially more difficult.

Those watching don't seem too concerned by the abrupt stopping mechanisms. "These sports are perfectly normal for humans, but now robots can do them. I find it amazing," spectator Yang Shangzheng told the Associated Press.

• Trump wants US to up aims to launch over 1,000 spacecraft every year by 2030
• Only 178 launches happened in 2025, mostly carried out by SpaceX
• Federal agencies must find new land for rocket launch sites

A new presidential memorandum signed by Donald Trump sets an ambitious annual benchmark for American commercial space activity within the next four years.

The new National Space Transportation Policy wants government agencies to work together so that the US hits over 1,000 spacecraft launches and returns per year by 2030.

In 2025, there were only 178 of these missions, though that number is already ten times higher than it was back in 2013, and SpaceX was behind most of them.

Land, permits, and spectrum take priority

The order replaces a national space policy that had been in place since 2013, when the previous framework was first adopted.

Within 90 days, several departments must scout available federal land that could host new sites for launching and landing spacecraft.

Approval processes for these facilities should move faster too, with environmental reviews and permits getting streamlined under the new rules.

Access to wireless spectrum, air traffic coordination and a stronger launch workforce are also named as priorities the government must address going forward.

Agencies have further been told to step back from any activity that might discourage or undercut private companies competing in the same space.

Export policies covering space technology will also be revisited periodically, aimed at protecting American intellectual property while expanding sales abroad.

The policy also calls for regular federal reviews of launch range schedules, intended to make better use of limited windows nationwide.

"This policy meets this moment of explosive growth and positions America to lead the next era of space," said Michael Kratsios, the White House's science and technology policy director.

Beyond Earth orbit, the memorandum pushes NASA toward landing American astronauts on the moon again before the end of 2028.

Early elements of a lunar base should follow two years later, alongside continued study of robotic and eventually human trips to Mars.

A dominant player and lingering doubts

Elon Musk's SpaceX remains the industry's clear leader, having carried out 170 missions last year that placed about 2,500 satellites into orbit.

Officials at the Federal Aviation Administration said back in May that the firm hopes to reach 10,000 flights annually within the next five years.

SpaceX has separately floated plans for roughly 1 million satellites designed to capture solar energy and feed power to AI data centers.

In addition to SpaceX, the U.S. will entertain requests from foreign companies that want to launch from American soil.

These firms will be screened individually, weighing security risk, investment value and site availability.

NASA, on the other hand, has been asked to build a lunar logistics network that private companies could eventually use to reach the moon commercially.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, have kept urging NASA to stay focused on Artemis, its long-running lunar program that has already consumed billions in funding.

That pressure suggests the administration's push toward 1,000 annual launches could still meet real budgetary and political resistance in Congress.

• NASA’s ground control software has a critical vulnerability that could allow third-party access to spacecraft
• The flaw has been found in a browser-based variant of NASA’s AMMOS Instrument Toolkit
• NASA has not publicly responded to the flaw’s disclosure

NASA’s open source ground control software has a critical vulnerability that could enable an unauthenticated attacker to gain access and take control of spacecraft. The AMMOS Instrument Toolkit’s browser-based interface is the source of the vulnerability, which has since been resolved.

The AIT-GUI (AMMOS Instrument Toolkit Graphical User Interface) tool up to version 2.5.1 has been identified as vulnerable, but the fault has been fixed in v2.5.2, according to researcher Yuval Elbar.

If the vulnerability had been found by a third party, it would have given access to issue commands to spacecraft, instruments, and execute server-side scripts. In addition, command sequences could potentially have been run by an attacker, leaving craft almost wholly beyond NASA’s control.

Weak API

Elbar, who works with the Cycode Agentic Development Security Platform, disclosed the vulnerability on August 18, 2026. The problem appears to start with AIT-GUI running as a web server with all network interfaces open, rather than the host’s setting. Incredibly, the API also has no authentication, or authorization protection. In addition, the CSRF (cross-site request forgery) protection on changing endpoints is also absent on affected versions of AIT-GUI.

Attackers can exploit basic access-control security failings in AIT-GUI, exposing the /cmd and /script/run and /seq prompts while also setting up filesystem paths. This enables files (potentially malware, or custom-built scripts) to be passed directly to NASA craft via a vulnerable AIT-GUI browser session, potentially escalating to full control.

To emphasize the scale of the weakness, Elbar introduced the disclosure with “A web GUI used to drive spacecraft and instrument commanding shipped a server that listens on every network interface, asks nobody for a password, and can be steered by any web page an operator happens to open.”

External access

As if this wasn’t concerning enough, the attacker doesn’t need to be on the same network. Direct access via an exposed port, or directing an operator to a web page hiding malicious code, or even simply a web page under live control by an attacker, can afford access to a third party.

Elbar adds “operational and ground-system software inherits the same web weaknesses as everything else, but with a far higher cost of failure. Auth, CSRF defense, and input confinement are not optional extras on a panel that commands hardware.”

Cycode advises administrators of AIT systems to upgrade AIT-GUI to v2.5.2 and run checks on the console port. They should also review command history.

• A Florida company has moved from printing furniture to manufacturing military drone boats
• Haddy built its latest unmanned boat using giant robotic 3D printers
• The company completed an earlier autonomous vessel project in nine days

Haddy, a digital manufacturing company in St. Petersburg, Florida, has produced a military drone boat using large-format robotic 3D printing.

The company announced the vessel, called the TF-179 Drone Boat, but did not name the customer behind the project.

Haddy started in 2022 building custom furniture and architectural pieces before shifting much of its focus toward defense manufacturing.

A rapid build process

The St. Petersburg facility spans roughly 30,000 square feet (about 2,800 square meters) and houses eight large-format CEAD printing systems.

Seven of those machines run on rails, extending their reach to produce unusually large single-piece components without seams.

Haddy previously used this process to print a carbon-fiber-reinforced hull for HavocAI, delivering a testable vessel from design to sea trial within nine days.

"The maritime industry is redefining how vessels are designed and manufactured," Haddy said in a company statement announcing the TF-179 vessel.

Haddy released photographs of the finished TF-179 vessel alongside its statement but offered no details about the boat's intended mission.

Demand for small, expendable maritime drones has surged across the U.S. defense industry over roughly the past year, according to the company.

A shift in Naval strategy

Haddy has also partnered with Blue Ops, the maritime drone division of Red Cat Holdings, to help double production capacity for uncrewed surface vessels.

Blue Ops sells those drone boats to U.S. and allied militaries as smaller, cheaper alternatives to traditional crewed patrol vessels.

Haddy was founded by Jay Rogers, a former Marine and Princeton graduate who previously led a similar 3D-printing venture called Local Motors.

The company opened what it describes as the world's largest 3D printing facility, based on total throughput and machine count, in April 2025.

This trend toward faster, cheaper naval hardware follows direct lessons drawn from Ukraine's ongoing war against Russia in the Black Sea.

Inexpensive, remotely piloted drone boats have repeatedly damaged or destroyed far more expensive warships belonging to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Even in Iran, swarms of very cheap Iranian drones have been used to track expensive aircraft, some of which were eventually brought down, including a $60 million U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle and multiple $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drones.

These outcomes have pushed American and allied defense planners to prioritize speed and volume over the years-long timelines of traditional shipbuilding.

Small, disposable drone boats can be replaced and redesigned far more quickly than a single multimillion-dollar warship ever could.

Robotic additive manufacturing fits into that calculus because Haddy can adjust a vessel's design digitally and print a new version within days.

Conventional shipbuilding for crewed naval vessels can take years to complete, a pace defense planners increasingly view as too slow for today's threats.

Battlefield requirements have shifted quickly in recent naval conflicts stretching from the Black Sea to the Middle East, adding pressure on manufacturers.

Haddy has not said whether the TF-179 design will be adapted for other military customers beyond the still-unnamed client behind this particular order.

Whether this printed approach can match the durability and long-term reliability of conventionally built naval vessels remains to be seen.

Via Defence Blog

• The Honor Robot Phone is attracting lots of attention on social media
• Commenters are calling its built-in gimbal an "innovation" and arguing that customers "are tired of seeing the same phone every year"
• Some critics argue it could be fragile or hard to clean

Earlier this month, Phones Editor Axel Metz travelled to Shenzhen, China, to be among the first to try the Honor Robot Phone.

This upcoming flagship from Chinese smartphone giant Honor features a built-in gimbal camera that can pop out of a special rear panel for enhanced video stabilization, along with high-tech features like AI-powered subject tracking and advanced shooting modes.

It's one of the most distinctive and exciting smartphones we've seen in years, and it's likely to cost less than you might think if it does reach Western markets. It officially launched in China for ¥9,999, which comes to around $1,500 / £1,100 / AU$2,100.

There is a big catch, however. Honor used to be a Huawei subsidiary and, while its devices are no longer subject to sanctions following its separation in 2020, they're still not officially sold in the US.

That fact hasn't stopped our US audience from expressing their excitement for the Robot Phone on TikTok and Facebook, where a brief hands-on video we posted last week has already reached more than a million views and accumulated thousands of likes and comments.

One top-rated comment reads: "This is why Chinese companies get banned in the US. Our tech is so behind."

"US companies can't compete," reads another. "That's why they just banned them."

Other users praised the unique concept of a gimbal built into a phone. "That's what I call innovation. People are tired of seeing the same phone every year, like the iPhone," wrote one commenter.

Another posted: "This right here is innovation light-years ahead of iPhone."

"Americans only dream of phones like these," wrote one wistful commenter.

There are also plenty of sceptics, with some users citing durability concerns and others arguing that the gimbal would be hard to keep clean. "External moving parts are never a good idea," wrote one critic.

There's currently no official word on whether the Honor Robot Phone will be available in the US, UK, or Australia, but it certainly seems like there's a lot of interest. Hopefully Honor makes an announcement soon.

In the meantime, you can read what Axel thought after two hours with the Honor Robot Phone, or our interview about the Honor and ARRI collaboration behind its camera.

The Tesla Optimus, also known as the Tesla Bot, is one of an entire catalogue of humanoid robots that manufacturers have unveiled in the last few years. Humanoid robots may look the part, and while they may be a few years away from maturation, executives like Tesla CEO Elon Musk are adamant they're a direct substitute for human labor.

Optimus Prime

Before Musk had unveiled the first prototype of the Optimus robot, he was speaking to its potential and the role it could play in the workforce of the future.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit, Musk reportedly said that the robot could one day be good enough to replace human labor, just as machinery in the last few decades has gradually replaced humans in production lines.

His comments also suggested that rather than eliminating jobs, and thus leading to mass unemployment, the rise of humanoid robots will fill a gap in labor demand that currently exists, allowing corporations to make more and build quicker. He was adamant, in these comments and in several remarks since, that there aren't enough people and we aren't reproducing enough to maintain our current population levels.

Robotic replacement

Musk is adamant that the rise of humanoid robots will not impact the level of available jobs – but that doesn't mean his views will play out.

Many disagree, suggesting there is a material risk to current roles, including those that involve repetitive or manual tasks. But experts disagree over whether this means a net reduction in jobs, or simply a shift in the demand for human roles in the future.

Many suggest 2027 will be the year in which robots enter a serious level of production. While the Optimus robot is not currently being made, Tesla is targeting next year and beyond for mass manufacturing and distribution following several delays to date.

Despite mammoth advanced in artificial intelligence and computer vision, and a slew of humanoid robots either being piloted or hitting parts of the market, there’s still one major challenge that machines need to overcome.

It’s tactility, sensation, knowing how to hold an object. Picking up a strawberry, for example, a robot might not know how much pressure to apply, whether it’s secure, slipping, or about to be crushed. It’s something that we humans can feel through our skin, but it’s much harder to replicate on a machine level.

But it’s a work in progress, because there are companies out there like Touchlab who are working to give these skin-like characteristics to robots in a bid to make them more useful around the home, in care or in manufacturing. And it’s a lot more complex than we could ever imagine.

In Touchlab’s instance, it actually relies on quantum tunnelling technology to measure pressure, force and direction through a material that’s thinner than human skin, and with response times of less than a millisecond.

E-skin technology exists, but deployment is a challenge

Although the solution is laid out on the table, moving from pilot to production is a different ball game. Durability, reliability, affordability, adaptability… they’re all considerations that stand between theory and real-world use cases.

Touchlab is addressing some of these concerns with off-the-shelf components that already exist for established platforms, using bespoke engineering only where necessary.

It’s also seeking to reduce latency by bringing processing to the edge so that the robot only transmits the data necessary for the task, being that the e-skin can detect and collect huge amounts of micro-data.

With robots now rolling out across workplaces, care environments and, likely soon, homes, the ability to sense contact is becoming as important as the ability to see.

I speak with Touchlab’s team to understand how we can go from pilot to production in a realistic way.

• Why do robots need the sense of touch, and how is Touchlab trying to achieve this?

Computer vision allows a robot to predict, but touch is what confirms. Without tactile feedback, robotics remains trapped in a classic paradox: a machine can calculate complex equations in milliseconds, yet struggle to pick up a strawberry, handle soft medical instruments, or turn a valve without either crushing the object or dropping it. Without tactile sensing, a robot is functionally numb.

Touchlab solves this by developing biomimetic electronic skin (e-skin) that is actually thinner than human skin. Powered by quantum tunneling technology, our e-skin measures 3D forces, direction, and pressure in real-time. Crucially, it detects incipient slip—meaning the robot senses that an object is beginning to slip before it actually drops, enabling instantaneous, sub-millisecond grip adjustments just like the human nervous system.

• I tried the technology at Future Lab... I tried to control a robotic arm with haptic feedback and it felt a bit clunky with cables and restrictions. Why is it so hard to make it smoother?

Teleoperation is a classic engineering balancing act! First, there is a natural learning curve—controlling a high-degree-of-freedom robotic arm through a haptic glove isn't always intuitive on the very first attempt. It usually takes a bit of practice time and muscle memory to get the hang of the subtle force dynamics.

Second, running live demonstrations at high-traffic public events like Future Lab introduces specific hardware constraints. To ensure hundreds of visitors with completely different hand sizes can safely participate, setup requires universal-fit, heavy-duty tethered rigs and robust cabling.

Longer-term, our roadmap moves away from bulky, tethered operator suits entirely. By embedding our e-skin directly onto the robot and pairing it with onboard AI, the robot handles slip detection and dexterity autonomously—removing the need for an operator to wear restrictive physical gear.

• Right now, the focus is on your proprietary robot fingertip tech. What's the plan going forward? Do you plan to license it or sell it as a finished product? How will you deal with various robotic architectures?

Every robot platform is unique—whether it’s a humanoid deployed into hazardous industrial environments or a cobot assisting nurses in hospital wards. Touchlab is uniquely positioned to design, develop, and manufacture bespoke tactile devices tailored to specific OEM architectures.

At the same time, we offer scalable, off-the-shelf tactile components that are pre-integrated (both electronically and mechanically) with a wide variety of popular robot end-effectors. We provide volume-based discounts alongside strategic hardware loan and collaboration programs for robotics companies aligned with our vision. Over the past seven years, we have become extremely adept at rapidly building reliable integrations to suit diverse customer requirements.

• What are currently the biggest technological barriers Touchlab is encountering? What does the end game look like, and will we ever digitize our largest organ, the skin?

Our ultimate end game is for Touchlab’s tactile technology to become as ubiquitous as MEMS sensors— integrated into every commercial robot interacting with objects and humans. We envision full "finger-to-toe" tactile coverage powered by specialized edge computing and tactile orchestration software that mirrors the human somatosensory system.

Regarding barriers: the challenge isn't just technical; it's navigating western market adoption timelines for deeply transformative hardware. While digitizing human skin at scale presents manufacturing and durability hurdles, Touchlab can already deliver sensors matching or exceeding human-level spatial resolution, readout frequency, and sensitivity. The real task is packaging this capability into rugged, cost-effective formats ready for mass market deployment.

• How is Touchlab designing the user interface to reduce operator fatigue during long shifts?

We focus on shared autonomy. Rather than forcing a human operator to manually sense and adjust every micro-force vector, our e-skin handles low-level reflexes (like slip prevention) locally on the robot. The human operator directs higher-level tasks, while the robot's tactile system autonomously maintains optimal grip— dramatically reducing both physical strain and cognitive fatigue.

• High-density e-skin generates massive amounts of data. How do you handle bandwidth and network transfer without overloading systems?

High-density sensing does not automatically equal richer functional data, and often comes at the cost of hardware robustness. For our commercial products, we optimize spatial and temporal sensor density specifically for manipulation tasks, keeping data payloads lightweight.

For advanced R&D, we utilize distributed edge computing and are pioneering event-based asynchronous sampling in tactile sensing (similar to event-based vision cameras). Because our e-skin does not rely on heavy image-based data streams, it operates with extremely low latency and modest network bandwidth— making long-distance remote teleoperation surprisingly efficient.

• Because e-skin can identify objects and textures, what protocols protect tactile data security and privacy?

Tactile data on its own does not contain personally identifiable information. However, when integrated with video, audio, and LiDAR streams, multi-modal data security becomes critical.

For example, during our deployment with the Valkky medical robot in a Finnish hospital, all data transferred across hospital networks was strictly encrypted. Identifiable multi-modal data remained entirely on-premises on air-gapped storage devices and was fully anonymized before being processed for research or system analytics.

• E-skin is often seen as a high-end luxury. What is your roadmap for driving down production costs for commercial robotics?

Much like the early days of automobiles, groundbreaking technology often enters the market at a premium before scaling. While Touchlab is capable of producing full human-spec density today, deploying that level of complexity everywhere would make commercial robots cost-prohibitive.

Our strategy focuses on pragmatic engineering: delivering touch sensing tuned precisely to real-world task requirements at an accessible price point. We are actively collaborating with industry bodies to establish standardized performance metrics for tactile data, driving down manufacturing costs and making e-skin a standard baseline for all commercial robotics.

Writing about chipsets can be a bit like watching paint dry. These tiny mobile brains get more powerful every year, but 99% of smartphone users don’t get anywhere close to using their full potential. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, for instance, came out in 2023, but most people would be hard-pressed to notice a performance difference between that chipset and Qualcomm’s latest, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which powers most of today’s best Android phones.

It’s a classic case of diminishing returns — semiconductor manufacturers can keep raising the chipset performance ceiling, but if phones can’t make use of all that extra power, the tangible gains are small at best, and non-existent at worst.

It was refreshing, then, to hear Honor describe the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset in its new Robot Phone as “very good” for still image processing, but “not good enough” alone for cinema-grade video capture. Did we just skyrocket through that seemingly impenetrable performance ceiling?

Well, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. As Honor’s President of Hardware Engineering, Yang Liu, explained to me in a group interview at the Robot Phone’s China launch: “The core CPU [in the Robot Phone] is the Snapdragon [8 Elite Gen 5], but Honor has developed a dedicated Image Signal Processor (ISP) — the Honor Imaging Chip H1. The processing [demands] of the Robot Phone are very high, so we must use a dedicated chipset for that, not just the Qualcomm chipset. The Qualcomm chipset offers very good performance for still image processing, but for video, it’s not good enough — for now.”

All phones have an ISP (or multiple ISPs) built into their main chipsets — indeed, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 was the first mobile chipset to feature triple 20-bit ISPs, which, in layman’s terms, means it’s a very capable chipset for photo capture. But the best camera phones — think the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Vivo X300 Pro — feature custom ISPs alongside those in their respective chipsets to further enhance camera performance.

That’s what Honor has done with Robot Phone, except it’s not framing its new H1 Imaging Chip as merely a complement to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, but as a necessary addition to allow the gimbal-equipped Robot Phone to fulfil its potential as a cinema-grade video capture device.

Built in partnership with German film camera manufacturer ARRI, the H1 enables real-time on-device image processing — that’s things like white balance adjustment, tone mapping, and exposure control — and supports 10-bit ARRI LogC3 recording and ARRI Wide Gamut 3.

It’s a formidable piece of micro-engineering, and my impression is that ARRI — a 109-year-old company with exceptionally high quality standards — was only willing to partner with a burgeoning Chinese tech company on the Robot Phone because Honor could provide it with the level of processing power necessary to uphold those high standards.

“Pixels are very precious to us,” David Bermbach, ARRI’s Chief Product Officer, told me in the same interview. “[Working on the Robot Phone] was a challenge, but also an opportunity, because mass-produced devices have much more functionality on a smaller scale than special devices for one industry, where we sell a few thousand [units].

“So the task for us was to basically analyse all the different little Lego pieces on the different modules that exist in the phone and [figure out] how to connect them, how to utilize them, to basically rebuild as much of our pipeline as possible. And luckily, the processing power of the Robot Phone is extremely high.

“Also, there’s not just one camera [in the phone],” Bermbach continued, “there are several cameras. And we had to [figure out] how to get the best out of them, how to use the tools at hand, and optimize them towards [producing] a technically good picture, from our perspective, but also an artistically good picture [from a smartphone user’s perspective].”

As I wrote in my hands-on impressions of the Robot Phone, its 200MP, 1/1.28-inch gimbal camera produces dynamic, professional-grade footage — or at least footage comparable to what you can achieve with larger, dedicated gimbals like the DJI Osmo Pocket. The key difference here, of course, is that you’re getting the benefits of a gimbal and a phone in a single device, as well as ARRI’s “cinema-standard processing,” as Liu puts it.

Evidently, then, Honor’s H1 Imaging Chip is an impressive innovation, and while the Robot Phone has its problems — it gets noticeably hot after prolonged filming sessions, for instance, and isn’t anywhere near as durable as other flagship phones — I’m excited to see how far creators can push its unique video capabilities.

“This [device] is so revolutionary that we don’t even know all the use cases [yet],” Bermbach told me in our interview — he’s clearly excited too.

Humanoid robots are on the rise, with a slate of companies building several different prototypes. Whether they're designed to be on the production line or engineered to roam around your house performing various chores, different kinds of machines are on the cusp of mass production.

Setting expectations

Australian roboticist Brooks remarked on the appearance of robots in the first of his own three laws of robotics, inspired by Isaac Asimov, in a blog post that he self-published.

The co-founder of robotics company iRobot, which created the Roomba robot vacuum, Brooks explained that the anthropomorphization of humanoid robots – both by engineers and by consumers – could be counterintuitive.

While the form is necessary to gain pubic acceptance, engineers must deliver on performance and capabilities. Adopting a similar form to that of humans may imply a level of humanlike intelligence or competence in navigating the real world. Should robotics companies fail on that count, people will see straight through the ruse.

Robots of mass production

Brooks' laws focus on the competency and capabilities of robots and the need for creators to ensure that they are trained, that they're capable, and that they don't remove human agency.

Plenty of highly polished demos, recorded promotional videos, and on-stage appearances have done well to highlight the fact that these machines are not ready for prime time – despite impressive capabilities in highly controlled environments. That's evidenced by a series of 'robot fails' when they're introduced into real-world settings.

Companies, however, say they're improving the AI technology powering these machines, as well as the dexterity of appendages. They plan on ramping up production toward the end of this year, with the first machines set to be deployed in commercial settings by 2027.

In a few short hours, parts of the Earth will experience a rare and wonderful sight: a full solar eclipse. The moon will squeeze between us and the sun so that Spain, in particular, will, for a few minutes, fall into almost total darkness. What won't happen is that humans and other stationary objects not bolted to the ground will float up into the air. Gravity won't disappear.

But that's not the full story.

Listen, I ended up diving down a rabbit hole this morning, a journey triggered by one Weather Channel post on Threads:

"You all know we’re not actually going to lose gravity for 7 seconds today right? It’s important to me that you know that."

Turns out that there is a wild conspiracy theory going around that the eclipse will somehow trigger a gravity disruption, basically canceling it for 7 seconds.

The rumor was apparently set off, in part, by a TikTok claiming NASA had something called "Project Anchor" addressing the phenomenon.

NASA quickly quashed the rumor, telling Snopes:

"The Earth will not lose gravity on Aug. 12, 2026. Earth's gravity, or total gravitational force, is determined by its mass. The only way for the Earth to lose gravity would be for the Earth system, the combined mass of its core, mantle, crust, ocean, terrestrial water, and atmosphere, to lose mass. A total solar eclipse has no unusual impact on Earth's gravity. The gravitational attraction of the Sun and Moon on the Earth, which doesn't impact Earth's total gravity, but does impact tidal forces, is well understood and is predictable decades in advance."

Let's talk about the pendulum anomoly

So that settles it, and I think we can all rest easy that our feet will be firmly planted on the ground today, tomorrow, and beyond.

On the other hand, the concept of a solar eclipse having some nominal effects on gravity or the movement of objects affected by gravity is not totally out of the question, and the existence of such anomalies may explain why some people have extrapolated a wildly exaggerated solar eclipse gravitational impact.

There have been various reports over the decades of eclipses impacting, for instance, the swing of pendulums (according to New Scientist, the anomaly was first spotted in 1954). In fact, there have been some scholarly studies going back at least 25 years on the phenomenon.

In 1999, Chris P. Duif, then a physicist with the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, produced a scholarly paper examining, among other things, why certain pendulums reportedly altered their swings during a pair of solar eclipses.

Duif's paper notes that there were "weak conventional explanations" but added that the anomalies could still be "assigned to mundane causes such as temperature changes. "

In the end, though, Duif's research did not confirm the impact; equally, he seemed unable to rule it out. As he told New Scientist in 2009, "I'm not really convinced the anomaly exists, but it would be revolutionary if it turned out to be true."

In the paper, Duif appeared to hope for more study, writing, "If an anomalous eclipse effect does exist, a clever combination of experiments and input from theoretical models will be necessary to reveal its existence." One has to wonder if AI could assist in this pursuit. After all, it is quite good at finding meaning in the vast amounts of data typically found in such models.

The point is that there's this persistent idea that solar eclipses can affect gravity and that, it seems, has perpetuated and ballooned, with the help of conspiracy theorists, into this wild idea of a total gravitational pause. But, as The Weather Channel and NASA will quickly remind you, that's simply not the case.

First there was the phone. Then there was the iPhone. And now, according to Honor, there is the Robot Phone — a “revolutionary, category-creating device that shatters the physical boundaries of traditional mobile technology.”

Now look, I love to call out marketing department hyperbole as much as the next journalist, but notwithstanding its description as the evolutionary successor to Apple’s greatest-ever product — sell 3 billion units, then we’ll have that conversation — the Chinese tech company is right to position the Robot Phone as something wholly different to what’s come before.

No smartphone I’ve ever come across features a fully motorized, three-axis mechanical gimbal built directly into its chassis, nor such a comprehensive suite of professional-grade camera features, some of which are autonomously controlled by a physically expressive AI agent (it even has a name: YOYO). We’re in full The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy territory here, and while the Robot Phone may never become as mainstream as the iPhone, it most definitely is as revolutionary as Honor wants us to believe.

First teased in October 2025, the Robot Phone appeared in prototype form at MWC 2026, before finding its way to the Cannes Film Festival and, more recently, the World Cup final (Spain’s Eric Garcia was spotted filming with the device). Now, it’s officially launched in China for ¥9,999 (around $1,500 / £1,100 / AU$2,100), and I was among the first group of journalists permitted to hold, capture, and critique the Robot Phone at its extravagant Shenzhen showcase.

Gimme, gimme, gimme a gimbal

Let’s start on that gimbal, which marks the Robot Phone out as something entirely different from any of the best phones money can buy in 2026. It really is as if Honor has strapped a DJI Osmo Pocket to its flagship Magic 8 Pro, except the gimbal in question can tuck itself away into the phone’s rear panel when not in use, almost like an S Pen slipping discreetly into a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Why would you want a gimbal attached to your phone? For several reasons. There’s the improved video stabilization, which results in steadier footage; the manual 360-degree control of the gimbal camera itself; the AI-powered subject tracking; or even the many automatic shooting modes like AI SpinShot (a 90- or 180-degree camera roll) and Tilt Locked (which locks the phone’s gimbal at your chosen angle).

This is no knock-off gimbal, either. Honor says the Robot Phone’s mechanical gimbal system — which features more than 100 individual components — is some 65% smaller than mainstream gimbal systems like the Osmo Pocket, and its structure is 200% stronger as a result. The gimbal motor itself weighs just 2.6g and facilitates movement speeds of up to 360 degrees per second, while a dedicated Flip Motor delivers a torque density of 120 Nm/L.

Full disclosure: I did not know what torque density meant before seeing the Robot Phone for myself, but I now know it’s a measure of how much twisting force a motor can produce relative to its size. A figure of 120 N·m/L is, apparently, very good — it means the Robot Phone’s motor is powerful enough to turn the gimbal with speed and precision, despite being small enough to fit snugly into the phone’s rear camera module.

And good news! This mechanical gimbal system works very well. I was skeptical about how effective a phone-mounted gimbal could possibly be, but after playing around with the Robot Phone’s various shooting modes, it produces dynamic, professional-grade footage — or at least footage that’s comparable to what you can achieve with larger, dedicated gimbals like the DJI Osmo Pocket. The key distinction, of course, is that the Robot Phone doesn’t ask you to walk around with (or purchase) a separate gimbal.

The gimbal camera is a 200MP 1/1.28-inch sensor with an f/1.6 aperture, supporting up to 4K video with special recording formats like LogC3 and ARRI Cinema. The latter comes as a result of ARRI’s partnership with Honor on the Robot Phone; the German brand — known for producing motion picture film cameras — lends its expertise to help bring Hollywood-grade color science to Honor’s smartphone pipeline.

Not to get too technical, but Honor says the Robot Phone performs noise reduction earlier in the RAW domain, processes data in 14-bit 4:4:4, and outputs 10-bit LogC3 and 4:2:2 video, preserving more usable image information for post-production. ARRI LogC3, meanwhile, preserves more highlights and shadows, while ARRI Wide Gamut 3 provides a broader color spectrum.

If that all sounds like a foreign language to you, that’s because the Robot Phone is absolutely intended for video creators, rather than regular folk; its video stabilization capabilities are certainly useful for everyday shooting, but for me, they’re not leagues ahead of what you’ll get from software-based stabilization features in other phones, like Apple's Action Mode or Samsung's Super Steady with Horizontal Lock. The real juicy benefits are those post-production features, which were hard to capture and quantify in my short hands-on session, but were certainly present.

Say ‘hello’ (again) to YOYO

I did, however, get a taste of the Robot Phone’s YOYO agent. This agentic assistant initially debuted on the Magic 8 Pro in China as a tool for carrying out cross-app smartphone tasks on your behalf — it’s not dissimilar to Google’s Gemini Intelligence feature in that way — but on the Robot Phone, YOYO uses the existence of a gimbal to express itself physically. At launch, YOYO can nod, shake its (gimbal) head, dance to music, and perform other motorized oddities, which are complemented by over 100 on-screen facial expressions.

The desired effect is that YOYO feels like a physical companion in your pocket, unlike any other smartphone-based assistant on the market. The reality is that these physical gestures and on-screen expressions are the definition of gimmickry, though the ability to give YOYO gimbal-related commands using natural language — “turn left 45 degrees” or “turn around for five seconds,” for instance — is genuinely useful, and worked well.

Outside of its gimbal and YOYO agent, the Robot Phone is every bit a 2026 flagship. It’s got a 6.3-inch display; it measures just 9.59mm thick (for context, that’s less than 1mm thicker than an iPhone 17 Pro Max); there’s a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a sizeable 7,060mAh battery, and two additional flagship-grade cameras (a 200MP telephoto and 50MP ultra-wide).

In the hand, the Robot Phone doesn’t feel too dissimilar to existing 6.3-inch phones on the market, which is quite the feat given that there’s a full-on gimbal on offer here. That said, I’m not sure how well that gimbal is going to hold up to real-world use — I felt, for instance, like I could easily (or accidentally) snap off the plastic shield covering it. And that’s to say nothing of its vulnerability to dust and debris when fully extended.

But none of this really matters. The Robot Phone is not meant to be treated like a regular phone, because it is not a regular phone. Heck, almost nobody reading this can even buy it. It’s a ridiculous, remarkable product that should be thought of more like the Samsung TriFold — i.e., an example of what’s technologically possible — than as a genuine disruptor to an industry that foldable phones have barely managed to dent.

The Robot Phone is essentially Honor saying, “Look at what we’ve been able to do with technology,” and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. To have brought a fully functioning robotic phone to market is no mean feat, and it’s exciting to see and touch a device that’s so drastically different from the phones we’ve become used to.

In many ways, the Robot Phone is like one of those outlandish gadgets from science fiction movies. And using it made me feel like a kid again.

• Chinese equipment fills critical roles, though it represents only a small share overall
• Russia plans to quadruple annual Angara rocket production within the next decade
• Internal documents expose extensive factory upgrades supporting future rocket manufacturing

Russia is pushing to significantly grow production of its Angara space rockets, to quadruple annual output within the next decade.

Internal planning documents obtained by researchers show the expansion depends heavily on imported machine tools, and most of them are Chinese-made.

That dependence stretches across shop floors that Russia will need to modernize before it can build four rockets a year instead of one.

Counting the Chinese machines

Of the 541 pieces of equipment listed in the procurement plan, 477 are Russian-made, and only 57 come from Chinese suppliers.

Two more machines came from Bulgaria, leaving the Chinese share of the total list at roughly 10.5%, a modest slice on paper.

That number changes sharply once each machine is weighed by its technological importance rather than simply counted one by one.

Measured that way, Chinese suppliers account for 28.2% of the entire project's technological core, based on the internal planning documents.

In the metalworking shop alone, over 47% of the equipment needed there comes from Chinese manufacturers instead of domestic ones.

The finance tells a similar story: over 84% of the entire 3.62-billion-rouble (~$44.71 million) equipment budget still flows into that same technological core.

In total, Khrunichev intends to put close to 900 million roubles (~ $11.29 million), toward equipment made in China.

Roughly 10 manufacturers account for most of that spending, and several of them also sell machinery to buyers in Europe and America.

Where the machines really come from

Some of those companies fit a wider trend that has taken hold since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started in 2022.

Heavy forging and hydraulic press equipment fall under European Union export restrictions whenever the intended buyer is based inside Russia.

Washington has also placed sanctions on Russian makers of heavy hydraulic presses, one of them a firm called Pressmash, back in 2023.

Yet under that very same customs code, the EU's imports of Chinese-made machine tools still totalled 207 million euros (~$238 million) in 2025.

Those imports rose another 17.6% in the opening six months of 2026, measured against the equivalent stretch the previous year.

In effect, the same manufacturers profit from Western markets that back Ukraine while also helping modernize the military hardware Russia sends into orbit.

Sanctioning any single Chinese supplier is unlikely to stop this flow of equipment, since near-identical machines are made by several competitors.

Whether losing access to European and American customers would ever outweigh the profits of supplying Russia remains an open question.

The Angara rockets built with the Chinese equipment carry the Russian Ministry of Defense satellites that American experts claim could threaten assets in orbit and on the ground.

However, Russian experts described the spacecraft as operating "in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense."

That difference between Moscow's official position and Washington's assessment has persisted since the conflict in Ukraine began.

Via United24media

• Recycled Mars rover hardware may still cost NASA more than expected
• PROMISE faces mounting questions over unexpectedly high development and integration costs
• Existing rover hardware cannot eliminate costly engineering and certification requirements

NASA's long-term lunar exploration program includes robotic missions requiring specialized vehicles capable of carrying scientific instruments across the Moon.

One proposed mission involves sending the Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration (PROMISE), a robotic Moon rover, to conduct scientific investigations on the lunar surface.

According to NASA, the proposal to build the rover from recycled Mars rover engineering hardware could become too expensive after estimates reached between $723 million and $1.33 billion.

Reusing existing rover hardware does not eliminate major mission costs

Instead of building the Moon rover from scratch, NASA plans to combine engineering models from the Curiosity and Perseverance rover programs.

Although the concept relies on existing hardware, NASA says the expected costs remain far beyond what the agency considers acceptable for such a mission.

The cost estimates were prepared by Casey Dreier, the Planetary Society's chief of space policy, after reviewing NASA's proposal for the planned lunar rover.

According to Dreier, the estimated total includes launch and landing costs ranging from $234 million to $320 million together with engineering expenses.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman did not challenge every figure within the estimate, but argued that launch and landing expenses would exist for any lunar mission.

Isaacman believes that it “would be crazy not to take advantage of hardware taxpayers have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in."

But, "If PROMISE costs even 20 percent of your low-end estimate, we simply will not fly it," he concluded.

The proposal combines MAGGIE and OPTIMISM, engineering models developed to support testing for the Curiosity and Perseverance rover programs before their Mars missions.

Those vehicles were built to help engineers test hardware performance, software functions, and driving activities under controlled conditions before operational spacecraft left Earth.

NASA originally considered the concept because using hardware that already exists appeared capable of reducing development costs.

Recycled rover concept still requires major engineering work

Engineers would still need to certify the hardware for launch because equipment designed for ground testing cannot automatically survive spaceflight and lunar operations.

Additional work would also involve adapting communications equipment and integrating NASA's available plutonium radioisotope power system into the redesigned lunar vehicle.

The engineering models currently support existing activities, meaning removing them from those roles could affect testing work linked to other programs.

Dreier summarized the financial challenge by saying, "Regardless of whether one agrees with every estimate… one thing is clear: PROMISE is far from a 'freebie.'"

The engineering models currently support existing activities, meaning removing them from those roles could affect testing work linked to other programs.

NASA has not released its own detailed cost estimate for the proposed rover; therefore, the project's overall financial viability remains under wraps.

That said, its future will likely depend on whether engineers can reduce costs while overcoming technical challenges involved in converting Earth-based test hardware.

Via The Register

• Japan ramps up drone production to reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturers
• Defense startups are shifting from civilian projects into military drone manufacturing rapidly
• Japan dramatically increases funding for interceptor drones and autonomous defense systems

Japan's drive toward large-scale drone manufacturing has gained fresh urgency, as a growing cluster of startups, including Eams Robotics and Terra Drone, are now shifting from civilian projects toward defense-oriented drone production.

A report from Nikkei Asia said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi seeks to reduce the country's reliance on Chinese suppliers.

Chinese firms currently hold about 90% of the global industrial drone market, a dominance Tokyo now views as a strategic vulnerability worth addressing.

Startups pivot from civilian work

Eams Robotics began in 2016 as an aerial photography company serving television broadcasters before moving into drone manufacturing two years later.

The company, based in Minamisoma, has since worked with Sagawa Express, the University of Tokyo, and NTT DoCoMo on autonomous flight systems.

In December 2025, the company flew a fully autonomous drone across an active railway line without a ground observer present.

It now reportedly aims to partner with the American defense firm Anduril, mirroring a wider shift taking place across the industry.

Terra Drone, the more defense-focused of the two firms, is launching mass production of Japan-made batteries for defense and industrial customers.

Batteries account for more than a quarter of a drone's cost, and Japan currently lacks a domestic supplier able to meet defense-grade demands.

Budget and battlefield pressure build

Japan's budget for unmanned defense systems jumped this year to 277 billion yen (~$1.72 billion), up from 111 billion yen (v$705 million) in 2025.

Its total defense spending is also set to rise to 3.5% of GDP, a shift expected to channel further investment into unmanned systems.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party approved a plan on June 9 to produce roughly 80,000 drones annually by 2030, though funding details remain sketchy.

Japan's Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA), the defense ministry's procurement arm, has scheduled demonstrations next month, aiming to fast-track acquisition and deployment of interceptor drones near radar sites and bases.

These systems are meant to counter long-range suicide drones such as the Shahed-136, which have flown as far as 1,100 miles in the Middle East.

The push for domestic production comes as reports surface that Tomahawk missile deliveries to Japan could face delays, after the 38-day U.S. campaign against Iran strained the U.S stockpiles.

Defense officials in both Washington and Tokyo have denied any disruption, though Japan's defense minister said domestic missile development will continue.

Unconfirmed reports suggest Anduril has discussed converting Nissan's Oppama plant into a drone production site, amid concerns over a possible Taiwan Strait conflict.

This fits into Japan's wider five-year military buildup, set to wrap up in 2027, which also covers missile networks and unmanned ground and maritime systems.

Terra Drone CEO Toru Tokushige described interest from Japan's defense ministry as "very much positive," citing lessons drawn from Ukraine's battlefield experience.

However, whether that optimism will eventually translate into real, battle-tested capability against long-range drone threats remains genuinely uncertain.

• Starlink Mobile could become a reality in 2027
• It will likely rely on the very new Starlink V3 satellite
• SpaceX's huge Starship will play a crucial role in the effort to compete with major carriers

SpaceX's first earnings call this week as a publicly traded company was full of promises and hyperbole, including the prediction from boaster-in-chief Elon Musk (also SpaceX CEO and Chief Engineer) that Starlink "will deliver a majority of the world's internet, at least in countries where we're allowed to operate, which is the vast majority of countries." As for a time scale, think not the distant future, but fewer than 10 years.

That's some bold talk, but SpaceX President, COO, and someone far less likely to wax bombastic, Gwynne Shotwell, backed up those claims. "As far as revenue, I'm just going to take a very high-level kind of top-down. The big three in the U.S., AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, roughly between them, $600 billion a year. I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers because I think our service will be better." Shotwell told investors.

These promises all hinge, in part, on the development and launch of Starlink's V3 satellites, which will, on a per-satellite basis, drastically improve throughput. Starlink's current V2 satellite has a downlink throughput of roughly 80GBps. V3 can, the company claims, deliver 1 Terabit of downlink connectivity. Uplink jumps from roughly 7 Gbps to between 160 and 200 Gbps.

It's not just the speed; Starlink V3 satellites promise exponentially more beams, which is basically support for more concurrent users. V2 offers just under 200 beams while V3 promises 2048 per satellite.

Still, with just a reported 10,918 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), they will need a way of quickly delivering tens of thousands of satellites into orbit to achieve this lofty goal.

And so the other part of this hyperbolic plan hinges on SpaceX's still-in-testing Starship rocket. Granted, the 408ft tall spacecraft is rapidly transitioning to the operational phase and may have a full launch as soon as this month. It's already lifted some V3 satellites into orbit during one of its earlier orbital test flights. Now, to realize Musk's plan, it must shift to rapid launch deployment and then relaunch and deploy again.

Musk told investors that "Starlink V3 satellite is about an order of magnitude more capable than the Starlink V2 satellite." Then he added some color on the scale of what SpaceX and Starlink are planning: "We expect to launch about an order of magnitude more Starlink V3 satellites. That would mean a roughly two-order-of-magnitude increase in the delivered bandwidth."

Musk believes we'll need all that bandwidth, not just for potential consumer mobile broadband users but for the vast amounts of data and connectivity required by AI and robotics (both here and possibly on a Moon base), two other sectors where Musk has a vested interest.

"With the advent of AI, and humanoid robotics and vehicle robotics and just a massive number of robots, the appetite for bandwidth will be much greater than it has been in the past," he explained during the earnings call.

Starlink Mobile reality check

Starlink, though, is quite a distance away from competing directly with Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T in the US. Across them, they have more than 300M connections (or customers). Starlink has a reported 12M global customers.

As for those V3 satellites that will help propel Starlink Mobile into the mobile broadband competitive space, they do not officially launch until next year. In the meantime, Starlink's V2 Satellites will fill the gaps and help provide partners like EchoStar with better, faster, and maybe more reliable satellite connectivity.

We do already have some proof of the efficacy of Starlink WiFi connectivity and throughput. Earlier this year, TechRadar US Managing Editor for News Jake Krol took a flight on a Starlink-equipped United Airlines aircraft where he enjoyed incredible connectivity and speed. Krol was a fan: "I could livestream a show or movie, or even select a 'live channel' via Disney+ on an iPad, watch any video on YouTube, and scroll through TikTok or Instagram Reels without the slowdowns or loading issues typical of non-Starlink-equipped United flights."

Of course, that connectivity goes from the Starlink satellites to a responder on the jet, which then feeds the signal to onboard Wi-Fi and connected devices. In the case of Starlink Mobile, there'll potentially be no middleman, just your phone, a satellite, and instant, fast connectivity.

The benefit of the low-Earth-orbit V3 satellites, when they do finally launch and fill the skies, is that they should allow consumers to connect with them just as they would with towers assigned to their favorite carrier.

There is also one major hurdle that SpaceX and Starlink already cleared when the FCC granted Starlink approval in January 2026 for the company's "Next-gen satellite constellation."

Even with all this in place, the stars must align with Starship being fully operational, all those new satellites launched, and customers lined up by the millions. The last bit is surely the biggest question mark. Even if most of their modern cellphones support these direct-to-satellite connections, how likely are consumers to leave their trusted carrier behind?

Shotwell, for one, is bullish: "I'm quite excited about Starlink Mobile going forward," she told investors, "We will start to fly the satellites next year, and we will start providing service end of next year."

• A spent Falcon 9 upper-stage rocket will hit the Moon near the Einstein Crater on 5 August at 5,400 mph, releasing roughly the energy equivalent of three tons of TNT
• The impact, though unintentional, was predicted since September 2025, giving NASA's LRO and South Korea's Danuri time to plan before-and-after imaging of the new crater
• Its scientific value is a rehearsal rather than a measurement: no seismometers have operated on the moon since 1977, so the event mainly tests impact-localization methods for future experiments

At roughly 06:35 UTC on August 5 2026, a spent Falcon 9 upper stage will stop being space junk and start being a crater.

The object, cataloged as 2025-010D, is projected to strike the lunar surface near the crater Einstein at 2.43 kilometers per second, which converts to about 8,700 kph or 5,400 mph.

While this was not intentionally aimed at the moon, almost a year of advance notice separates it from the usual category of orbital accident, even as NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri are being prepared to take before-and-after images of the area on the moon where it is expected to make its impact.

An increasingly crowded atmosphere

The object itself is the spent upper stage of the Falcon 9 which launched from Kennedy Space Center on January 15, 2025, carrying two commercial landers: Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1, which went on to make the first fully successful private lunar touchdown that March, and ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2, which was lost shortly before landing in June.

Independent astronomer Bill Gray, whose Project Pluto software produced the original prediction, puts the stage at roughly 12 meters long, about the height of a five-story building, with a mass near 4,900 kg.

After separation, it stayed in an elongated Earth orbit with a 26-day period, swinging between roughly 220,000 and 510,000 km. Its path and the moon's path cross, but for 18 months the two objects have never met at the crossing point.

Gray expects a single crater around 17 meters across, reasoning by analogy with the double crater left by a Chang'e-5 T1 upper stage in 2022. The observation-planning paper led by Benjamin Fernando points higher, at roughly 27 meters across and 5 meters deep. Either way, the impact should release energy equivalent to about three tons of TNT.

There are limits to what can be measured from it. When NASA deliberately crashed Saturn V third stages and lunar modules into the moon between 1969 and 1972, those impacts were seismic sources fired into an emplaced network of four seismometers. That network was switched off in 1977, and nothing has replaced it yet. So while orbiters will photograph the resulting crater, the impact cannot be recorded seismically at all.

This will be only the second dead rocket known to have hit the moon by accident, after the 2022 Chang'e-5 T1 event, which China has never publicly acknowledged. Gray, for his part, says the episode points to a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware gets disposed of. Objects in low Earth orbit eventually meet the atmosphere and burn up. The moon has no such cleaning mechanism, so lunar impacts are permanent.

• Disney Worldbuilders lands on Disney+ on August 20, 2026
• Leslie Iwerks' new documentary goes inside Disney Imagineering
• Expect behind-the-scenes stories from Galaxy's Edge, Pandora, Pixar, and more

If you're a fan of the many franchises under the Disney umbrella — Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, or Disney Animation — or simply love visiting Disney Parks around the globe, the company has another documentary arriving on Disney+ later this month.

I say "another" because earlier in 2026 we got a fresh look at how Disneyland was created with Disneyland Handcrafted. Now, the same director, Leslie Iwerks, has sat down with many of the creative minds behind Disney's biggest franchises, including Kevin Feige, Dave Filoni, Pete Docter, Jon Favreau, Jared Bush, Jennifer Lee, James Cameron, new Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, and former CEO Bob Iger.

It's an impressive lineup of people who helped create many of these iconic worlds and, just as importantly, bring them from the screen or page into the physical environments we can actually experience.

From Pixar Pier and Toy Story Land to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, Zootopia, Pandora, and countless other destinations, Disney Worldbuilders promises to show how these lands came to life through the people who imagined and built them. It also looks set to tease upcoming expansions and entirely new experiences.

As you can see in the trailer, Worldbuilders explores both these iconic lands and the creative process behind them through interviews with the people who made them possible. Jon Favreau, who most recently directed The Mandalorian & Grogu, says, "We can push the limits of technology to pursue something mind-blowing," and that feels like an apt description of Disney Parks today.

Just look at the recent update to Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland with its new projection-based Audio-Animatronic, or the overhaul of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which now feels even more like a video game thanks to Unreal Engine-powered updates. That same drive to push technology forward can also be seen in the free-roaming BDX Droids in Galaxy's Edge, the walking, talking Olaf robot, and even experiences aboard Disney Cruise Line ships.

There's a good chance Worldbuilders explores many of those innovations. While it will almost certainly lean more heavily on interviews than Handcrafted, Leslie Iwerks' involvement gives me confidence it'll have the same warmth, care, and strong narrative that made that documentary so enjoyable. That's especially true if you're a fan of Disney Parks, Disney's many franchises, or simply enjoy documentaries about how ambitious creative projects come together.

Beyond the technology, it also appears the series will follow the journey from early concept art to construction and finally opening day, while showing how these lands continue to evolve through new characters, refreshed attractions, and entirely new destinations. I'm especially curious whether the Pixar section will include a look at the upcoming Monstropolis land at Disney's Hollywood Studios, as well as The Magic of Disney Animation, which opens there next month.

Disney Worldbuilders premieres exclusively on Disney+ on August 20, 2026. Unlike Disneyland Handcrafted, it won't also be available to watch for free on YouTube. If you're looking for something to watch before then, I'd also recommend We Call It Imagineering, Behind the Attraction, or Disneyland Handcrafted for a behind-the-scenes look at how Disney's magic is made.

• China unveils rugged AS2-W robotic platform with advanced onboard artificial intelligence
• Robot wolf climbs steep slopes while carrying heavy operational payloads
• AS2-W combines wheeled mobility with advanced terrain handling capabilities

Chinese robotics company Unitree has unveiled its new AS2-W, an uncrewed ground vehicle on its official website.

The four-wheeled vehicle weighs 25 kg and can carry a stationary payload of up to 150 kg while sitting still.

It travels roughly 30 km on a single charge without cargo, or about 25 km carrying up to 16 kg.

Sensors and mobility built for rough terrain

According to Unitree, the AS2-W can climb obstacles reaching 80 cm high while traversing slopes of up to 45° without manual intervention.

The robot reaches speeds exceeding 6 m/s using industrial-grade joint modules delivering approximately 95 N·m of peak joint torque.

Unitree also says the platform uses a 648 Wh, 15,000 mAh battery capable of providing more than three hours of unloaded operation.

Its equipment includes industrial-grade 64- to 128-line LiDAR, an HD camera, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, 4G connectivity, microphones, speakers, and front lighting.

The AS2-W supports an IP54 dust and water resistance rating and is designed to operate in temperatures ranging from -20°C to 55°C.

Unitree also provides developer software tools, application programming interfaces, and support for artificial intelligence models enabling autonomous interaction and decision-making.

A demonstration video released by the company shows the robot navigating rocky slopes without losing its footing throughout the test.

The same footage shows the machine maintaining full mobility even after falling from elevated platforms during separate testing runs later.

Unitree describes the AS2-W as running a high-performance AI module capable of 150 TOPS, or trillion operations per second, onboard.

The company has not specified whether that processor is actually manufactured by Nvidia, despite widespread reports describing it that way.

Its ISS 3.0 autonomous navigation system is designed to provide centimetre-level positioning accuracy during movement through complex operating environments.

Military interest follows the armed version sighting

The People's Liberation Army has already shown interest in the AS2-W following its appearance during the Chinese-Mongolian Steppe Partner 2026 joint military exercise.

Chinese military reports indicated similar robotic platforms performed reconnaissance and fire support tasks during the exercise alongside conventional military units.

The public unveiling followed those exercises, although Unitree's commercial announcement focused primarily on the platform's technical characteristics rather than operational deployment.

The vehicle's onboard artificial intelligence enables object processing directly on the platform, potentially reducing delays associated with transmitting information to remote operators.

Its combination of autonomous navigation, onboard computing, and off-road mobility reflects broader interest in unmanned ground vehicles across several defence programmes worldwide.

However, the company has not disclosed the full operational limitations, endurance under sustained military use, or performance while carrying heavier payloads.

Unitree's YouTube video of this robot comes with the disclaimer, "Please, everyone be sure to use the robot in a friendly and safe manner."