Monday, October 12, 2026
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Waymo publicly criticized Tesla's camera-only approach to autonomous driving days before Tesla's Cybercab launch, arguing safety at scale requires cameras, lidar, and radar together.
Newlight's hydrogen-injection retrofit cut fuel use by 24% and CO2 by 28% on an 8,500-nautical-mile cargo voyage, and the startup raised a $9 million seed round.
A new nonprofit called Fermi Explorer, founded by Starcloud's team, plans an about $15 million, 1-kilogram spacecraft aimed at Alpha Centauri on an 80,000-year journey.
Investor Lachy Groom led a $2.5 million pre-seed round in Alteon, an Indian startup trying to keep autonomous aircraft aloft for over a year using wind energy.
Nvidia is investing $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek, giving it access to Nvidia tech for designing custom AI chips.
Washington tightened restrictions on foreign robotics and drones this summer, but analysts say the moves won't offset China's manufacturing scale and cost advantages in the global robotics market.
Spanish startup Liux has secured Europe-wide homologation for the Liux Big microcar, aiming to launch it in the first half of next year.
Caterpillar is applying decades of mining-automation experience to its AI rollout, including a voice-controlled Cat AI Assistant and $100 million in planned workforce training.
A TechCrunch review found the $299 Theragun Sense (2nd Gen) massage gun better suited to everyday aches and relaxation than heavy-duty recovery work.
Xpeng's robotics unit raised more than $900 million at a valuation above $6.3 billion, as Chinese automakers including BYD, Chery and others race into humanoid robots alongside Tesla.
A TechCrunch review of XREAL's around $300 a01 smart glasses found sharp visuals but questioned whether watching movies on a battery-less, tethered headset beats just using the nearby screen it's plugged into.
Google unveiled a special-edition Fitbit Air that syncs with Pokémon Sleep, timed to the franchise's 30th anniversary, preorderable for $129 ahead of a September 15 ship date.
Hoomanely, a Palo Alto startup, has raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding for an AI platform built around a sensor-laden feeding station that tracks dogs' eating habits to flag possible health problems.
Hugging Face unveiled the Microduck, a $399 open-source duck-like robot that can waddle, pick things up with its beak, and roller skate, shipping before Christmas.
Waymo and Zoox test drivers sustained more than two dozen injuries in 2024 and 2025 from the vehicles' hard braking, OSHA data show.
Plaud launched the Plaud One, AI note-taking earphones with an eSIM-enabled case, available for preorder now at $249 ahead of a fourth-quarter 2026 ship date.
Amazon and Nvidia expanded their partnership with a deal to add 2 million more Nvidia GPUs to AWS data centers by 2028, as Nvidia posted $96.2 billion in quarterly sales.
Apple announced Wednesday that its next launch event, themed "Surprise and Shine," will take place September 9 — the first under incoming CEO John Ternus.
Perceptron, founded by two former Meta FAIR scientists, launched Isaac 0.5, an open-weight vision model designed to help robots perceive, reason, and act in warehouses and factories.
At last week's Actuate conference, physical-AI developers described their field as being in a "GPT-2 era" — capable robots without the training data needed to make them commercially reliable.