👻Ghost Ride: Robo-taxis may finally hit the road this year. Elon Musk claims that Tesla will launch a self-driving ride-hailing service in Austin this June, using its own fleet of vehicles and an “unsupervised” version of its Full Self-Driving software. Musk says the rollout will expand only when safety surpasses human drivers, but did not divulge any more details.
👨🎓Robot Academy: Nvidia hit the ground running this year with the launch of Cosmos, a platform designed to fast-track the development of physical AI systems like autonomous vehicles and robots. It creates photoreal, synthetic simulations based on a combination of prompts, which helps developers train and test models more efficiently.
🧠Mind Control: Brain implant startup Neuralink shared a video of what appears to be someone controlling a robotic arm with their mind to write a word. The implant presumably reads neural signals from the motor cortex and wirelessly sends them to the robotic arm, which then translates the signal into movement that produces the writing.
🪼Jelly Bot: Cornell researchers have developed bio-inspired robots that use 'embodied energy' — a method that integrates the power source directly into the robot’s body. The designs — a jellyfish and a modular worm — run on a hydraulic fluid-powered battery, which cuts extra weight and cost, making the movements more lifelike.
🙄First Look: Leaked footage just gave us a peek at DJI’s upcoming Mavic 4 Pro, and it’s packed with some major upgrades — a three-camera system with 6x zoom, improved low-light performance, vertical video capture, a sleeker, more aerodynamic design, and better thermal management. No official release date yet, but rumors point to early 2025.