RoboticaGuide: Humanoid Robot and Embodied AI News

Robotica Guide covers humanoid robots, embodied AI and large language models, with a focus on what companies have actually shipped, demonstrated or disclosed. Every article links its primary sources and labels company claims, demos, pilots and deployments for what they are. Edited by Brandon Cook.

Orange industrial robot arm with a flat gripper beside a roller conveyor and an open AKE airport baggage container, with a blue suitcase on a nearby conveyor, in Mujin's bag-loading cell

Orange industrial robot arm with a flat gripper beside a roller conveyor and an open AKE airport baggage container, with a blue suitcase on a nearby conveyor, in Mujin's bag-loading cell

NTT World Model Lets Robots Preview a Load Collapse. Its 92.3% Comes From One Shelf Test

November 11, 2026

Overhead view of a wooden test table with a chrome toaster plugged into a white power strip, an empty white mug and two black robot grippers at the bottom edge

Overhead view of a wooden test table with a chrome toaster plugged into a white power strip, an empty white mug and two black robot grippers at the bottom edge

RoboSpoof: Blurring a Robot’s Camera Got AI Models to Attempt 88% of Unsafe Tasks

Apptronik's white Apollo 2 humanoid robot bending over blue parts bins at a kitting station on a Mercedes-Benz production line, reaching toward a black sequencing tray of metal brackets

Apptronik's white Apollo 2 humanoid robot bending over blue parts bins at a kitting station on a Mercedes-Benz production line, reaching toward a black sequencing tray of metal brackets

Gemini Robotics 2.5 Hit 96% on Mercedes-Benz Lines. DeepMind Hasn’t Said 96% of What

Latest

Qwen4-Max Is Live Until Nov 25 on a $3 Plan. Alibaba Hasn’t Shown a Single Benchmark

A white five-fingered robot hand reaching over a table of test objects including an SD card in a clear box, a padlock, a mahjong tile and a small potted plant, with a depth camera mounted beside the wrist

A white five-fingered robot hand reaching over a table of test objects including an SD card in a clear box, a padlock, a mahjong tile and a small potted plant, with a depth camera mounted beside the wrist

LingBot-Touch Gives Robot Hands a Shared Sense of Touch. Its 26-Task Scores Use Partial Credit

Guides and Explainers

Two teal and black Agility Digit 5 humanoid robots at a workbench, one lifting a blue tote of metal parts, in a still from Agility's Introducing Digit 5 video

Two teal and black Agility Digit 5 humanoid robots at a workbench, one lifting a blue tote of metal parts, in a still from Agility's Introducing Digit 5 video

Humanoid Robot Glossary: DoF, Payload, Runtime, IP Ratings and Other Spec-Sheet Terms Explained

What DoF, instant vs sustained payload, runtime, run-to-charge ratio, IP67, tactile sensing, VLA and other humanoid spec-sheet terms mean, with real examples from the Boston Dynamics Atlas,…

November 3, 2026

Dark grey Figure 03 humanoid robot holding a black plastic car body part beside green parts bins at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, with a second Figure 03 working in the background

Dark grey Figure 03 humanoid robot holding a black plastic car body part beside green parts bins at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, with a second Figure 03 working in the background

Humanoid Robot Readiness Levels: How to Tell a Demo From a Real Deployment

October 14, 2026

Bipedal vs Wheeled Humanoid Robots: What Actually Changes

October 7, 2026

What Is a Robot Foundation Model? (VLA, GR00T, Helix and Open Weights)

October 7, 2026

Comparisons

White Figure 03 humanoid robot with a black visor head and black gloved hands perched on a sofa arm, reaching toward a plate on a living-room coffee table

White Figure 03 humanoid robot with a black visor head and black gloved hands perched on a sofa arm, reaching toward a plate on a living-room coffee table

Tesla Optimus vs Figure 03 vs Atlas: What Can Be Compared Fairly (2026)

Tesla Optimus, Figure 03 and Boston Dynamics' electric Atlas compared on what each company has actually published: size, payload, runtime, hands, production and deployments, plus the numbers…

November 5, 2026

Grey and silver robotic hand gripping black scissors that are cutting a sheet of white paper on a wooden table

Grey and silver robotic hand gripping black scissors that are cutting a sheet of white paper on a wooden table

Unitree Dex5-S Robot Hand Costs From $6,350. Atlas and Sharpa Haven’t Named a Price

October 12, 2026

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot standing on a lit stage, next to a Tesla Optimus humanoid robot displayed in a glass case

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot standing on a lit stage, next to a Tesla Optimus humanoid robot displayed in a glass case

Humanoid Robot Prices 2026: Every Published Price, Checked

October 12, 2026

Close-up of the Flourish 1 home robot's round white head with two small rectangular eyes under a wide pale-green conical hat

Close-up of the Flourish 1 home robot's round white head with two small rectangular eyes under a wide pale-green conical hat

The $3,555 Flourish 1 Home Robot Comes With No Warranty and No Returns

October 11, 2026

Robot Companies

Six AgiBot G2 wheeled humanoid robots in a promotional illustration for the 24-hour convenience store challenge, carrying boxes, coffee, a trolley and a cleaning brush, with the event dates in a banner

Six AgiBot G2 wheeled humanoid robots in a promotional illustration for the 24-hour convenience store challenge, carrying boxes, coffee, a trolley and a cleaning brush, with the event dates in a banner

AgiBot G2 Robots Ran a Shanghai Store for 24 Hours. Two of Six Didn’t Pass

Six AgiBot G2 wheeled humanoids worked an operating Shanghai convenience store from Nov 2 to Nov 3 and logged 1,730 tasks, AgiBot says. Four of six passed its assessment. What the count shows,…

November 9, 2026

Embodied AI's AIR robot, a light blue two-armed humanoid torso with an open lattice head, placing small cardboard parts into boxes beside a conveyor in a factory hall

Embodied AI's AIR robot, a light blue two-armed humanoid torso with an open lattice head, placing small cardboard parts into boxes beside a conveyor in a factory hall

Embodied AI’s AIR Humanoid Is Teleoperated on Day One and Promised Autonomous in a Month

November 9, 2026

Unitree industrial robots in a warehouse aisle — official Unitree product photography used for the IPO evergreen featured image

Unitree industrial robots in a warehouse aisle — official Unitree product photography used for the IPO evergreen featured image

Unitree STAR Market IPO: Filing, Raise and What Listing Means

November 6, 2026

StarBot Spark, Astra and Flex humanoid and wheeled platforms standing side by side on a white studio background

StarBot Spark, Astra and Flex humanoid and wheeled platforms standing side by side on a white studio background

StarBot Spark Is $7,999. Here’s What That Price Leaves Out

November 5, 2026

Agility Robotics Is Public: AGLT Begins Trading After the Churchill XI Close

November 5, 2026

Xiaomi’s Humanoid Robot Worked an 8-Hour Car Factory Shift. It Stopped Twice to Charge

November 4, 2026

Policy and Safety

Rows of UBTECH Walker S2 humanoid robots walking out of a building and into open shipping containers on a loading dock

Rows of UBTECH Walker S2 humanoid robots walking out of a building and into open shipping containers on a loading dock

China Wants a Permanent ID Code on Every Robot It Builds. Here’s What MIIT’s Draft Requires

China's MIIT opened comment (Nov 6 to Dec 5) on draft rules giving every robot made in China a permanent 'one machine, one code' ID under GB/T 48541-2026: coded before shipping, filed within…

November 9, 2026

Silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot with a glowing face visor holding a frying pan over an induction plate at a workbench, with eggs in a glass bowl

Silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot with a glowing face visor holding a frying pan over an induction plate at a workbench, with eggs in a glass bowl

The UK’s First Humanoid Robot Insurance Is Here. What Adrian Flux’s Home Policy Covers

Google Search Relations' Gary Illyes and Cherry seated at a desk with an old CRT computer, a tangle of cables and a No entry sign in a Google Search Central video about robots.txt

Google Search Relations' Gary Illyes and Cherry seated at a desk with an old CRT computer, a tangle of cables and a No entry sign in a Google Search Central video about robots.txt

Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic Back One robots.txt AI Training Opt-Out. Here’s the Catch

Yellow FANUC industrial robot arms with cable bundles working around a car body held on an orange fixture in an automotive plant

Yellow FANUC industrial robot arms with cable bundles working around a car body held on an orange fixture in an automotive plant

Trump’s Section 232 Robotics Proclamation Sets No Tariffs Yet. It Starts a 180-Day Clock

Humanoid Robots

Boston Dynamics' electric Atlas humanoid rolling on two black scooter wheels in place of feet across a concrete warehouse floor between shelves of boxes, with engineers watching in the background

Boston Dynamics' electric Atlas humanoid rolling on two black scooter wheels in place of feet across a concrete warehouse floor between shelves of boxes, with engineers watching in the background

Atlas on Wheels Isn’t a Product. Boston Dynamics Built It to Push Atlas’s Motors to the Limit

November 10, 2026

Booster humanoid robots in blue and purple team bibs contesting a soccer ball in front of the goal at RoboCup 2026, with spectators behind the pitch

Booster humanoid robots in blue and purple team bibs contesting a soccer ball in front of the goal at RoboCup 2026, with spectators behind the pitch

Humanoid Robot Competitions and Benchmarks: What Races, RoboCup and Leaderboards Really Prove

November 4, 2026

A researcher wearing a VR headset teleoperates a humanoid robot reaching into an open refrigerator while a second researcher stands at the robot's wheeled hoist frame at KIMM's data factory

A researcher wearing a VR headset teleoperates a humanoid robot reaching into an open refrigerator while a second researcher stands at the robot's wheeled hoist frame at KIMM's data factory

South Korea Opens Its First Humanoid Data Factory, With 12 Teleoperated Robots

November 3, 2026

Audi Is Testing Agile Robots’ Mobile Humanoids for Parts Sequencing. Here’s What It Hasn’t Said

November 1, 2026

Lightberry’s Lumi Is the First Humanoid Cleared Under the FCC Robot Ban. It’s Built on a Unitree G1

October 31, 2026

Embodied AI

A white and silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot with a camera mounted on its head and a black box on its back stepping sideways through a half-open bedroom door

A white and silver Unitree G1 humanoid robot with a camera mounted on its head and a black box on its back stepping sideways through a half-open bedroom door

Apple HALO: A Unitree G1 Humanoid Learned Six Skills in Simulation, Then Hit 91% in Real Homes

November 10, 2026

Wheeled CMU Pixel humanoid robot beside a person sitting on a sofa in a lab, still from the official Pixel project photo

Wheeled CMU Pixel humanoid robot beside a person sitting on a sofa in a lab, still from the official Pixel project photo

CMU’s Pixel Is a Wheeled Humanoid Under $15,000. The Catch: It’s Still a Lab Stack

November 5, 2026

Tutor Intelligence's Sonny robot, two white robot arms with cameras on a vertical lift above a white base, standing in a warehouse aisle between shelves of boxed products

Tutor Intelligence's Sonny robot, two white robot arms with cameras on a vertical lift above a white base, standing in a warehouse aisle between shelves of boxed products

Tutor Intelligence Raises $75M to Rent Out Robots by the Hour

Three photos of research robot setups side by side: a white robot arm gripping an apple next to a soda can, a gripper routing a white cable on a lab table, and a small black robot arm in a toy kitchen sink

Three photos of research robot setups side by side: a white robot arm gripping an apple next to a soda can, a gripper routing a white cable on a lab table, and a small black robot arm in a toy kitchen sink

Open X-Embodiment Dataset Explained: What’s Inside, What RT-X Showed and Its Limits

AI Models

A white two-armed robot with five-fingered hands above a lab bench with a glass funnel on a ring stand, a beaker and an orange-capped wash bottle

A white two-armed robot with five-fingered hands above a lab bench with a glass funnel on a ring stand, a beaker and an orange-capped wash bottle

NVIDIA GR00T 2 Learned From 400,000 Hours of Human Video. Its 95% Comes With a Footnote

NVIDIA's GR00T 2 world action model, announced at CoRL on Nov 9, pretrained on 402,730 hours of human video and reports 40% zero-shot and 95% five-shot success on 50 tasks. The whitepaper says…

November 10, 2026

Two black off-the-shelf robot arms on a wooden table reaching toward a colorful puzzle cube, with camera insets and an on-screen label reading Claude solves a puzzle cube

Two black off-the-shelf robot arms on a wooden table reaching toward a colorful puzzle cube, with camera insets and an on-screen label reading Claude solves a puzzle cube

Claude Fable 5.2 Drops to $8/$40 and Undercuts GPT-6 Astra. Its Robot Score Comes With a Footnote

November 10, 2026

Meta AI Got ‘Active Memory’ for Everyone. Here’s What It Keeps and How to Delete It

November 10, 2026

GPT-6 Cyber Costs Twice GPT-6 Astra and Is Invite-Only. We Checked the 81 Firefox Bugs

November 9, 2026