Google co-founder Larry Page is quietly building Dynatomics, a stealth startup focused on applying AI to physical manufacturing. Led by former Kittyhawk CTO Chris Anderson, the team is developing AI that creates optimized object designs for direct factory fabrication. Why it matters: One of tech's richest minds is now betting AI can reshape physical industrial design.
Johns Hopkins researchers just developed a biomimetic prosthetic hand blending rigid 3D-printed bones with soft silicone joints. Multi-layered fingertip sensors allow it to recognize everyday objects with 99.69% accuracy and hold a full water cup without crushing it. The prototype still requires an air compressor and awaits clinical amputee trials.
Uber and Waymo just launched autonomous rides in Austin, Texas, giving Uber riders a chance to get picked up by an all-electric Jaguar I-PACE with no human driver behind the wheel. The ride comes at no extra cost, and passengers can easily opt in or out. It plants robotaxis right in Tesla's home territory ahead of its own planned rollout.
T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom just announced an "AI Phone" built with Perplexity, putting Perplexity Assistant directly on the lock screen to eliminate app-hopping. Slated for later this year under $1,000, the device also integrates tools from ElevenLabs and Google Cloud AI. It marks Perplexity's push to evolve from an answer engine into an action machine.
A fully driverless Maserati MC20 Coupe just hit 197.7 mph (318 km/h) at the Kennedy Space Center, shattering the autonomous land speed record. Powered by algorithms from Politecnico di Milano and Indy Autonomous Challenge, the team pushed the AI software to its absolute limit to stress-test systems and eventually improve high-speed highway safety.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed that a brand-new lineup of "beautiful" devices is landing this fall to accompany the upgraded Alexa Plus. The conversational assistant costs $19.99 a month or comes bundled with Prime, and Amazon's hardware leadership hinted that richer screens will play a massive role in the next generation.
Figure just moved up its home robotics roadmap by two years, with plans to begin alpha testing its Figure 02 humanoid in living rooms later in 2025. CEO Brett Adcock credited Helix, the startup’s new generalist VLA model, for the rapid shift. Why it matters: While rivals stick to factory floors, Figure is taking on the messy real world surprisingly early.
Sesame just came out of stealth with a remarkably expressive voice AI and plans for wearable companion glasses. Backed by top venture firms and led by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, the assistant handles natural interruptions and banter with ease, with open-source models supporting 20+ languages slated for the coming months.
DJI just unveiled the Dock 3, a rugged drone-in-a-box system that lets drones launch directly from moving vehicles with an optional gimbal mount. Built for the Matrice 4D and 4TD, it packs an IP56 rating, handles extreme temperatures from -30 to 50 degrees Celsius, and starts at $21,059. Why it matters: Mobile launches allow inspection and emergency teams to deploy aerial scans without ever having to stop the truck.
Meta just unveiled Aria Gen 2, its next-generation smart glasses built for machine perception and robotics research. The 75-gram frames run SLAM and multi-modal tracking entirely on-device via custom silicon, packing new nosepad sensors to isolate the wearer's voice and pulse. Why it matters: It provides AI researchers with a wearable testbed to collect egocentric data for training embodied AI and assistive tech.
Mark Engineering just launched the Mark 1, a $129 smart bookmark made of Grade 5 titanium designed to track your reading. The device features a small screen and a rotary knob that syncs reading progress to a companion app, generating summaries, key quotes, and reading statistics. It's a fresh attempt to digitize paper books, though detailed specs and potential subscription plans remain unconfirmed.
Qualcomm just unveiled Dragonwing, a dedicated brand targeting industrial IoT, networking, and enterprise infrastructure. The lineup includes the IQ series packing 100 INT8 TOPS for rugged environments and the Q series optimized for edge AI and Wi-Fi 7. Qualcomm is keeping Snapdragon for consumer gadgets while sending Dragonwing to challenge Nvidia and AMD in factories.
Apptronik just inked a pilot deal with manufacturing giant Jabil to deploy its Apollo humanoid robots on factory floors for sorting and transport tasks. If all goes smoothly, Jabil will eventually mass-produce Apollo in its own facilities—meaning the robots will literally help build themselves, with commercial manufacturing targeted for 2026.
Apple just announced that Apple Intelligence is coming to Apple Vision Pro in April with the visionOS 2.4 beta. The initial rollout brings Writing Tools with ChatGPT integration, Image Playground, Genmoji, and smart notifications to spatial computing. It kicks off in U.S. English, expanding to more languages later this year.
Figure just introduced Helix, a vision-language-action model that drives full upper-body control for humanoid robots. By decoupling slow scene comprehension from a 200Hz reactive action policy, it lets robots pick up unfamiliar household items and even coordinate across two units entirely on onboard, low-power GPUs.
Clone Robotics just introduced Protoclone, billed as the world's first bipedal musculoskeletal android. Powered entirely by water and electricity, it replaces rigid electric motors with proprietary artificial muscles called Myofibers that contract faster than human tissue. It is a wildly biomimetic step toward soft-bodied, sci-fi-style humanoids.
Humane just threw in the towel on the AI Pin, selling its platform, patents, and team to HP for $116 million. Existing devices will stop connecting to servers after February 28, bricking core voice and cloud features. Humane's founders and technical staff will join HP to launch a new division dubbed HP IQ.
Microsoft researchers just introduced Magma, a multimodal foundation model designed to act in both digital and physical spaces. Using visual marking for action grounding and trajectory planning, it can navigate mobile UIs and steer robotic arms to grab objects. Why it matters: it moves AI beyond isolated chat interfaces into a single unified agent that handles software and hardware alike.
The NBA just revealed a trio of AI-powered robots currently testing with the Golden State Warriors. Steph Curry uses one named A.B.E. as a non-stop rebounder, while other bots mimic real-time defensive pressure and boost team morale in the locker room. Why it matters: professional sports training is finding real utility in specialized autonomous hardware.
Meta researchers just published two papers showing how AI can decode brain activity into text using non-invasive MEG and EEG sensors. Its deep learning model, brain2qwerty, reached up to 80% character accuracy across 35 typing subjects. It brings surgery-free mind-to-text communication and speech restoration a big step closer to reality.
