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The US Spends Billions on Autonomy but Has No Robotics Strategy
The Department of Defense is requesting $13.4B for autonomous systems, yet the US still has no federal robotics strategy. Funding is split across six agencies, with point-fix bills trying to cover the gap.
Nucleus Drops the Legs. The Factory Wanted 10 kg and 9 Hours
Nucleus dropped its Unitree G1-based humanoid after a month. The factory wanted 10 kg per arm and a full shift; the G1 gives about 2 kg and two hours. Nucleus II runs on wheels.
MassRobotics Survey: The FCC Ruling Splits Robotics in Two
A MassRobotics survey of 14 firms shows July's FCC decision splitting the industry exactly along manufacturing location. Motors, sensors and cheap DC-DC converters are the hardest to source domestically.
da Vinci 5 Gains Force Feedback in Europe, Sampled 1,000 Times a Second
Intuitive is reported to have secured CE marking for force feedback instruments on da Vinci 5. Sensors sample force a thousand times per second, with a Force Gauge showing it to the surgeon. The maker's newsroom does not corroborate it.
Antioch Raises $32M for Physical AI Simulation
Antioch raised a $32M Series A led by Greylock for a physical AI simulation platform. It calibrates simulations to a customer's specific hardware. The only named customer is Amazon's Ring.
SuperDog: 5,000 Orders at IFA and a Sunrise Chip Under the Hood
Vbot booked over 5,000 SuperDog orders from 16 partners at IFA 2026. The quadruped carries 12 kg, navigates with LiDAR and UWB, and runs on a D-Robotics Sunrise chip. Cumulative sales top 13,000 units.
Palladyne AI and FANUC America Partner on Industrial Robot AI
Palladyne AI and FANUC America announced a collaboration around the Palladyne IQ platform for industrial robots. Scope covers motion planning, teleoperation and simulation training. No figures, dates or model names.
Humanoids at the Front: China and the US Test Combat Robots
An analysis of 100+ Chinese military documents shows PLA work on humanoids for urban combat. Norinco showed the 90 kg Fuxi, while the US has one firm in the niche. The barrier is the battery, not the law.
Dynamic Creatures Exits Stealth as Boston Dynamics' Entertainment Arm
Boston-based Dynamic Creatures is now Boston Dynamics' official entertainment and hospitality partner. A former CSO and a former research lead from that company run it, with Marc Raibert among the angels. The round size was not disclosed.
Figure's Index Hits 69,943 Weekly Users and 35 Minutes a Second
Figure's Index grew from 44,000 to almost 70,000 weekly users in ten days. The app pays people to film everyday tasks on their phones — $15M disbursed so far. The data feeds the Helix model.
Video as Policy: Markov Robotics Controls a Hand With LTX-2.5
Markov Robotics uses the LTX-2.5 video model as a manipulation policy: the robot generates footage of the completed task and executes the motion it implies. A 1:192 compression ratio makes it computable, but no benchmarks have been published.
Tokenmaxxing: Firms Burn AI Budgets They Cannot Justify
Uber burned its annual AI coding budget by April with no demonstrated link to product quality. Gartner forecasts $207 billion in agentic software spend for 2026.