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Walden Robotics came out of stealth with a $300M seed at a $1.1B valuation. A Toyota Research Institute spinout (founded January), its thesis: the hard problem in robotics is now deployment, not research. So it's putting general-purpose humanoids to work on the repetitive tasks workers find burdensome. They're already running in a pilot at a North American Toyota plant: its robot works 8-hour shifts alongside human teams, loading and unloading car parts, cleaning machinery, and kitting for assembly. Team: led by CEO Russ Tedrake (MIT professor, ex-SVP of Large Behavior Models at TRI), with a founding group drawn largely from TRI's robotics team plus deployment and operations veterans. Full-stack: builds its own hardware, software, and AI models Backers: Toyota, NVIDIA, Boeing, Samsung Ventures, CoreWeave Ventures, Deviation Capital Cambridge, MA based

3/ Wrist actuation I really like how they did this. The differential is compact, efficient, and stays out of the way of the tendons. Two rotary actuators drive a capstan mechanism (mirrored on the other side). Turn the actuator clockwise → the hand tilts left and flexes toward the camera (red arrows). Counterclockwise does the reverse. How much it tilts vs. flexes depends on what the second actuator is doing and how the other two ropes wrap the joint.

Another good weekend

A stunning piece of engineering!! 1X unveils the new humanoid hand for NEO - 25 degrees of freedom: 22 fully actuated in the fingers and palm, plus 3 at the wrist. - The DoF are distributed anatomically rather than evenly, deliberately biased toward a thumb that genuinely opposes the fingers. - In-house tendon-driven, quasi-direct-drive running low gear ratios of ~5:1 to 15:1 vs the typical 100:1–200:1. - Motors live in the forearm and pull tendons through the wrist. This keeps the hand light and its inertia low while producing high forces. Sensing - All 25 DoF are natively force-controlled and fully backdrivable. Every joint doubles as a force sensor. - Very important, closed-loop proprioception: it always knows its own pose and effort without looking. - Tactile skin across the fingertips and surfaces measuring contact and shear. This helps with adaptive gripping in real time. Safety and durability - IP68 waterproof and food-safe, so it can wash its own hands. - Compliant by construction: the low gear ratios, tendon drive, and low distal inertia let external impacts safely backdrive the fingers. It yields when hit by a hammer or caught in a drawer. - Full finger assemblies validated to millions of cycles. Manufacturing - Deep vertical integration: in-house motors, custom electronics, and tendon systems. - Hundreds built already, with capacity to produce 10,000 hands this year. "An API to the Physical World"

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas humanoid robot just stole the show at the World Cup During halftime of the Brazil vs Norway Round of 16 match, Atlas handed the match ball to the referee and nailed Erling Haaland’s signature goal celebration. Hyundai Motor Group completed its 100% acquisition of Boston Dynamics last month. --- Mass production is already underway this year with a full order book. The company plans to scale to 30,000 units by 2028, with the first batch of Atlas robots deployed at Hyundai’s Metaplant in Georgia for material handling, component installation, and order fulfillment.