figure

Figure will start ‘alpha testing’ its humanoid robot in the home in 2025

Robotics /

Figure is planning to bring its humanoids into the home sooner than expected. CEO Brett Adcock confirmed on Thursday that the Bay Area robotics startup will begin “alpha testing” its Figure 02 robot in the home setting, starting later in 2025. The executive says the accelerated timeline is a product of the company’s “generalist” Vision-Language-Action […]

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Figure’s humanoid robot takes voice orders to help around the house

AI /

Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock Thursday revealed a new machine learning model for humanoid robots. The news, which arrives two weeks after Adcock announced the Bay Area robotics firm’s decision to step away from an OpenAI collaboration, is centered around Helix, a “generalist” Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model. VLAs are a new phenomenon for robotics, leveraging

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Figure AI is in talks to raise $1.5B at 15x its last valuation

Startups /

Silicon Valley-based robotics startup Figure AI is in talks to raise a massive $1.5 billion round at a $39.5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reports. That’s a whopping 15 times higher than Figure’s $2.6 billion post-money valuation for its $675 million Series B last year. Figure’s current round is expected to be led by Align Ventures and

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Figure AI details plan to improve humanoid robot safety in the workplace

AI /

Safety is often overlooked in the rush to bring humanoid robots to the workplace. As high-profile corporations ranging from retailers like Amazon to carmakers such as Mercedes and BMW have announced humanoid pilots for factories and warehouses, conversations around worker safety are regularly buried beneath industry hype. One Bay Area-robotics firm is hoping to correct

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Tesla’s bot non-disclosure and why humanoid robots are taking off

Venture /

At Tesla’s robotaxi reveal event last week, several Optimus humanoid robots mingled with guests, pouring drinks and cracking jokes. Impressive technology, but the vocals and some of the gesticulations appear to have been remotely controlled by humans, something Tesla did not disclose.  On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan chatted with TechCrunch’s hardware editor Brian

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Figure’s new humanoid robot leverages OpenAI for natural speech conversations

AI /

Figure has unveiled its latest humanoid robot, the Figure 02. The system is — and its name helpfully suggests — the successor to the Figure 01 robot unveiled in 2023. An initial teasr video is similar to those we’ve seen from other humanoids, echoing consumer electronics product videos, rather than a raw demo of the

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Persona’s founders are certain the world can use another humanoid robot

Robotics /

MIT research scientist Jerry Pratt is back at it. In 2022, he left Boardwalk Robotics, a humanoid startup he founded and led, and joined the well-funded ranks of the Bay Area-based robotics firm Figure as its CTO months before it exited stealth. But he and Figure quietly parted ways last month. Last week, when Pratt

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