Canadian roboticists have created a #drone# that can land on icebergs sloped nearly 60 degrees, with wind speeds of up to 30 km/h. Landing on icebergs lets drones monitor them for months, producing more detailed observations than a flyby overhead.

All roboticists - in case you are building VLAs, please stop what you are doing, take a break, get a coffee, and read the LeWorldModel paper by @lucasmaes_, @randall_balestr, @ylecun and collaborators: And then read it several more times - the same general approach can be directly mapped to other key problems in robotics, including dealing with multimodal inputs such as vision and speech

The NASA TechLeap Prize: Robotically Manipulated Payload Challenge is open! 🦾🤖 NASA Flight Opportunities seeks proposals for a payload that can be manipulated by a robotic arm in low Earth orbit. Phase 1 registration closes on July 29! Learn more:

Live from @NVIDIAGTC 🤖 Day 1 packed with talks on physical AI from prototype to production. Why talk about it when you can actually build it? Get ready for tomorrow’s hands-on lab: production-grade robotic AI, live, with GRID + NVIDIA. Add to your calender 👉🏻 #NVIDIAGTC# #PhysicalAI# #GTC2026#

We're back at @NVIDIAGTC 2026! 4 sessions. Physical AI. GRID. Fastest path to useful robots! - @saihv leading a hands-on training lab on scaling robotic AI from prototype to production ( - Dinesh Narayanan on a theatre session on Physical AI and autonomous operations with @Accenture's Christian Souche and @Microsoft Azure's Felice Miller at the Microsoft booth on deploying agentic AI in real-world robotics. - We will also showcase the fastest path to useful robots with #GRID# at Microsoft Demo Kiosk! Will we see you there? #NVIDIAGTC# #Accenture# #MicrosoftAzure#

Some people, myself included, are seeing ChatGPT chats get cut off surprisingly quickly, with the popup suggesting that we start a new conversation. Could this be an OpenAI move to save compute? Or maybe they’re preparing to merge ChatGPT Work / Codex and regular Chat into a more unified experience? I don’t know yet. I’m running several tests to figure out what’s actually happening. But I sincerely hope that if Chat eventually gets merged with Work, ChatGPT doesn’t turn into a robotic AI that sounds overly formal all the time.

Ready to expand your Block D map even further for Animaga Melbourne 2026? 🛒✨ Here is the next row of talented artists, illustrators, and makers locking in their spots at Animaga this August. Start tagging your con buddies and setting up your wishlist: D27 | Toastchild D28 | Umbra Artistry D29 | Arctic Circle D30 | Astrovique | @astrovique DB | Phleep&Yan | @Phleep824 D31 | Pika's Stall | @pikakirarabbit D32 | Ramori Atelier | @Wolfram_1_ & @justtorilwx D33 | rikaa32 | @Rikaa32_ D34 | rosarium D35 | DropsteR D36 | Sakutara D37 | YOHYONKO! D38 | Mushroom Folk Fibres D39 | Nyanrial | @nyanrial D40 | Orenji World | @orenjikunArt D41 | peachcott D42 | robotica & magicaleeart | @robotica_art D43 | Yookes_ | @Yookes_ Which table is a guaranteed stop for your haul? Let us know in the replies! 👇 #Animaga2026# #AnimagaMelbourne# #ArtistAlley#

MIT Press published a robotics textbook. Then put it on GitHub for FREE. 📌 "Introduction to Autonomous Robots" covers everything: kinematics, sensors, actuators, motion planning, localization, computer vision, and neural networks... from mechanisms all the way to algorithms. It's written for undergraduates. Which means it's actually readable. Most robotics textbooks assume you're already deep in the field. This one builds everything from the ground up, step by step, with real examples. Stanford's Mac Schwager called it "much-needed" (because it genuinely is). Four professors at the University of Colorado Boulder spent years building it from lecture notes. MIT Press published it. Then they open-sourced the whole thing under Creative Commons. PDF. Free. GitHub. If you're trying to understand how autonomous robots actually work (not just the frontier research, but the foundations), this is where to start. 📌 [ Share this with your fellow roboticist! —— Weekly robotics and AI insights. Subscribe free:

HUMANOID BOM: The Cost Layer of the Robot Economy What is HUMANOID BOM? BOM = Bill of Materials. In humanoid robotics, the BOM represents the complete physical cost structure required to build one humanoid robot. Think: Compute Cameras, LiDAR, IMUs and force sensors Motors, actuators and gearboxes Batteries and battery-management systems Frames, joints, hands and feet PCBs, wiring and motor controllers Connectivity and communications hardware Manufacturing and assembly inputs Why does this matter? Because the humanoid BOM may determine whether humanoids become a mass-market technology or remain expensive prototypes. Imagine: $20K BOM → $30K robot versus: $12K BOM → $30K robot That difference can completely change the economics of manufacturing, leasing and deploying humanoids at scale. And this is where things get particularly interesting. Humanoids share major technology and supply-chain intersections with EVs: Battery cells Power electronics Electric motors Controllers Advanced manufacturing Global component supply chains As humanoid production scales, the industry will need increasingly sophisticated ways to track, benchmark and optimize the cost of every component. That creates a potential infrastructure category: HUMANOID BOM Imagine a future platform tracking: → Actuator costs → Battery costs → Compute costs → Sensor costs → Joint and gearbox costs → Manufacturing costs → Supplier ecosystems → BOM comparisons between humanoid platforms → Cost reductions as production scales → Estimated cost per humanoid generation The EV industry developed enormous ecosystems around vehicle specifications, component costs and manufacturing economics. Humanoids may develop something similar. That makes an interesting digital asset for the emerging humanoid economy. Not simply a domain. A potential address for the cost-intelligence layer of humanoid robotics. As the industry moves from prototypes to production to millions of units, one question becomes increasingly important: What does it actually cost to build a humanoid? HUMANOID BOM could become the place where that question gets answered. #HumanoidRobots# #HumanoidBOM# #Robotics# #PhysicalAI# #EmbodiedAI# #HumanoidAI# #RoboticsIndustry# #Manufacturing# #EV# #ArtificialIntelligence# #RobotEconomy# #FutureOfRobotics#