Another day, another humanoid robot breakthrough. While the U.S. and China have a growing number of firms developing cutting-edge humanoid robots — Boston Dynamics, Figure, Unitree, and EngineAI among them — the technologically advanced nation of South Korea also has its fair share of roboticists tinkering away in the workshop.
Take WIRobotics, a firm founded four years ago by former engineers at Samsung’s robotics development team. This week, WIRobotics introduced ALLEX (from “All EXperience”), an impressive-looking humanoid robot that it claims brings “human-like whole-body force sensing and compliance across arms, fingers, and waist.” Note that the robot’s lower body has yet to be unveiled.
A video of ALLEX (top) shows a camera- and sensor-laden head, and astonishingly versatile hands with fast-moving fingers and human-like motion. Those rapid, spidery movements may send a shiver down your spine, but it’s an astonishing piece of technology that you can imagine one day being used in precision manufacturing or even prosthetics.
The team says the hands also sense forces like a human and yields compliantly to external loads, while the robot’s arms feature more than 10 times lower friction and rotational inertia than conventional collaborative robot arms, meaning it’ll feel more natural when someone physically interacts with it.
Indeed, WIRobotics’ focus is on creating humanlike interaction capabilities, with the team already claiming that ALLEX sets a new standard for humanoid robots, taking it beyond existing designs.
The company said it’s working with an AI startup to develop ALLEX’s AI smarts, while also collaborating with leading research institutions and companies both in South Korea and overseas.
“ALLEX goes beyond merely replicating human movement — it’s the first robot that truly experiences and responds to the real world,” Yong-Jae Kim, co-CEO and CTO of WIRobotics, said in a release.
He added that within the next five years the team hopes to launch a general-purpose humanoid robot that anyone can use in everyday life — presumably one with legs included.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.