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Artificial Muscles, Boston Dynamics, and More Videos

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Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA

Enjoy today’s videos!

The functional replication and actuation of complex structures inspired by nature is a longstanding goal for humanity. Creating such complex structures combining soft and rigid features and actuating them with artificial muscles would further our understanding of natural kinematic structures. We printed a biomimetic hand in a single print process comprised of a rigid skeleton, soft joint capsules, tendons, and printed touch sensors.

[ Paper ] via [ SRL ]

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Two Boston Dynamics product managers talk about their favorite classic BD robots, and then I talk about mine.

And this is Boston Dynamics’ LittleDog, doing legged locomotion research 16 or so years ago in what I’m pretty sure is Katie Byl’s lab at UCSB.

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[ Boston Dynamics ]

This is our latest work on the trajectory planning method for floating-based articulated robots, enabling the global path searching in complex and cluttered environments.

[ DRAGON Lab ]

Thanks, Moju!

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OmniPlanner is a unified solution for exploration and inspection path planning (as well as target reach) across aerial, ground, and underwater robots. It has been verified through extensive simulations and a multitude of field tests, including in underground mines, ballast water tanks, forests, university buildings, and submarine bunkers.

[ NTNU ]

Thanks, Kostas!

In the ARISE project, the FZI Research Center for Information Technology and its international partners ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, University of Bern, and University of Basel took a major step toward future lunar missions by testing cooperative autonomous multi-robot teams under outdoor conditions.

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[ FZI ]

Welcome to the future, where there are no other humans.

[ Zhejiang Humanoid ]

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This is our latest work on robotic fish, and is also the first underwater robot of DRAGON Lab.

[ DRAGON Lab ]

Thanks, Moju!

Watch this one simple trick to make humanoid robots cheaper and safer!

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[ Zhejiang Humanoid ]

Gugusse and the Automaton’ is a 1897 French film by Georges Méliès featuring a humanoid robot in nearly as realistic of a way as some of the humanoid promo videos we’ve seen lately.

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[ Library of Congress ] via [ Gizmodo ]

At Agility, we create automated solutions for the hardest work. We’re incredibly proud of how far we’ve come, and can’t wait to show you what’s next.

[ Agility ]

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[ Humanoids Summit ]

Anca Dragan is no stranger to Waymo. She worked with us for six years while also at UC Berkeley and now, Google DeepMind. Her focus on making AI safer helped Waymo as it launched commercially. In this final episode of our season, Anca describes how her work enables AI agents to work fluently with people, based on human goals and values.

[ Waymo Podcast ]

This UPenn GRASP SFI Seminar is by Junyao Shi, on “Unlocking Generalist Robots with Human Data and Foundation Models.”

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Building general-purpose robots remains fundamentally constrained by data scarcity and labor-intensive engineering. Unlike vision and language, robotics lacks large, diverse datasets spanning tasks, environments, and embodiments, limiting both scalability and generalization. This talk explores how human data and foundation models trained at scale can help overcome these bottlenecks.

[ UPenn ]

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Irish data security start-up Evervault raises $25m

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The funding will be used to expand Evervault’s encryption infrastructure, invest in product development, and grow its engineering and product teams.

Evervault, a data encryption start-up founded by Irishman Shane Curran, has raised $25m in Series B funding.

The round was led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Next Play Ventures and new investors including Operator Partners. The new round brings the start-up’s total funding to date to $46m.

Evervault builds developer infrastructure to collect, process and share sensitive data.

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The New York and Dublin-based company helps businesses to encrypt and orchestrate sensitive data without ever handling it in plaintext.

“Most compliance frameworks assume sensitive data will exist in plaintext somewhere, but with automated, high-velocity data exchange, that’s a liability,” said Curran, who is also CEO of the company.

“At Evervault, we believe sensitive data should be treated like hazardous material. Systems must be designed so it isn’t touched in the first place.”

Evervault has initially focused on card payments security with a solution that combines encryption with 3D-Secure authentication, network tokens and card data enrichment in a single integration, along with streamlining payment card industry (PCI) compliance.

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The company claimed that on average, its solution helps customers cut PCI data security standard compliance costs by $100,000, achieve compliance 95pc faster and ship secure payment systems “in days rather than weeks”.

The start-up said that since its establishment, it has processed more than $5bn in transaction volume and secured more than four times year-over-year revenue growth.

“Our mission isn’t just about payments,” said Curran in a blogpost announcing the raise yesterday (5 March). “We’re building the trust layer for the internet: a global clearinghouse for sensitive data. A place where companies can share, enrich and route information without taking custody of it. We’re replacing contractual trust with cryptographic guarantees.”

The new funding will be used to expand Evervault’s encryption infrastructure, invest in product development, and grow its engineering and product teams, according to the start-up.

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Founded in Dublin in 2019, Evervault’s roots can be traced back to the 2017 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition where Curran took home the top prize for his project qCrypt, which was a quantum-secure, encrypted data storage solution with multi-jurisdictional quorum sharing.

Two years later, Evervault secured $3.2m in seed funding, before going on to raise $16m in Series A funding.

Curran previously spoke to SiliconRepublic.com’s Ann O’Dea at a Future Human pop-up event in 2020, where he discussed his experience as a young entrepreneur and the Irish business contingent in Silicon Valley.

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Netflix’s version of Overcooked lets you play as Huntr/x

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Netflix’s library of streamable party games is expanding today with a custom version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat. Netflix launched its cloud gaming program with games like Lego Party and Tetris Time Warp, but Overcooked feels a bit unique because it features a roster of Netflix-affiliated characters from KPop Demon Hunters and Stranger Things.

For the uninitiated, Overcooked plays like a more manic version of Diner Dash, where teams attempt to prepare food together in increasingly elaborate kitchens filled with obstacles. The original version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat was released in 2020, and includes DLC and stages from previous versions of the game. Netflix’s version bundles in the same content, and “10 Netflix celebrity chefs” including “Dustin, Eleven, Lucas, and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things,” and “half-dozen faces from KPop Demon Hunters,” like “Mira, Rumi, Zoey, Jinu, Derpy and Sussie.” Like Netflix’s other streaming games, playing Overcooked also requires you to use a connected smartphone as a controller.

Offering a growing library of streaming games is part of Netflix’s new strategy under Alan Tascan, a former executive from Epic Games. Tascan took over as Netflix’s President of Games in 2024, and appeared to start revamping the company’s plans not long after, cancelling the release of several mobile games and reportedly shutting down its AAA game studio. Netflix is also continuing to adapt video games into content for its platform. For example, A24 is reportedly developing a game show based on Overcooked for the streaming service.

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Valve doesn’t sound confident the Steam Machine will ship in 2026

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As part of a Year in Review blog detailing changes Valve made to Steam in 2025, the company shared a minor update on its hardware plans that doesn’t sound good for anyone hoping to buy a Steam Machine, Steam Controller or Steam Frame in 2026. Specifically, the company is now opening up the possibility its new hardware won’t ship this year at all.

In February, when Valve acknowledged the ongoing memory and storage shortage had delayed the launch of its hardware and could lead to higher prices, the company was still committing to a (fairly wide) window of when its hardware would ship:

“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change.”

As of the company’s latest post, however, things somehow sound even less certain. “We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us,” Valve wrote in its Year in Review post. “We’ll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!”

While Valve’s air of secrecy can make it easy to read too much into the limited information the company does share, moving from “the first half of the year” to “[hoping] to ship in 2026” certainly gives it wiggle room to not release new hardware this year. And considering the difficulties other companies are facing sourcing memory and storage, it wouldn’t be all that surprising.

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HP said in February that RAM accounts for a third of its PC costs, and industry analysts expect the RAM shortage could radically alter the PC landscape as companies are forced to raise prices. Valve’s already struggling to keep the Steam Deck in stock due to its issues securing RAM, it stands to reason sourcing components for even more devices wouldn’t make that process any easier. Then again, the company hasn’t updated its launch timing FAQ, so there’s still reason to hope the Steam Machine ships in 2026.

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One Sailing Pulley To Rule Them All

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When thinking of humanity’s ability to harness wind energy, many people will conjure images of windmills from places like The Netherlands or Persia. But people have been using wind energy for far longer than that in the form of sailing ships. Using the wind for transportation goes back another four thousand years or so, but despite our vast experience navigating the seas with wind alone there is still some room for improvement. Many modern sailboats use a number of different pulleys to manage all of the rigging, but this new, open-source pulley can replace many of them.

The pulley, or “block” as they are sometimes called, is built with a polymer roller made out of a type of nylon, which has the benefit of being extremely durable and self-lubricating but is a bit expensive. Durability and lack of squeakiness is important in sailing applications, though. The body is made from CNC-machined aluminum and is composed of two parts, which pivot around the pulley’s axis to allow various ropes (or “lines”) to be inserted without freeing one end of the rope. In testing, this design outperformed some proprietary stainless steel pulleys of similar size.

Another perk of this design is that it can be set up to work in many different applications on a sailboat, whether that’s for hoisting a mainsail or pulling in a jib or any other task a pulley could be used for. It can also be stacked with others in many different configurations to build custom pulleys of almost any type, and can support up to 14 mm lines. For a sailor this could be extremely valuable, because as it stands each pulley on a ship tends to be used in only certain applications, and might also be proprietary from a specific company. This pulley is being released into the open-source world, allowing anyone to create them who wants one.

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Thanks to [Keith] for the tip!

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Seagate is now shipping HAMR disk drives holding up to 44TB of data

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Seagate introduced the Mozaic 3+ platform in 2024, turning the heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) dream into a real product for customers in need of massive storage capacities. The HDD maker is now introducing the next-generation Mozaic 4+ drives, which offer capacities up to 44TB.
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Apple thinks it can lure in the 'Apple curious' for $599

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Apple has made it pretty clear that it wants to siphon off Android and Windows users, and it’s doing it by adopting an aggressive, “budget-friendlier” model across nearly its entire ecosystem.

Large bold blue price text reading $599 with layered rainbow-colored shadows on a solid black background
Apple is using $599 devices to grow its ecosystem

When I first entered the Apple ecosystem, it was when I bought an iPhone 4 in 2011 — I got it right after the 4s made its debut. I don’t remember exactly what I paid, but I know it was less than the initial $199 price tag.
And back then, I thought that was a completely asinine amount of money to pay for a phone. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I had more money in my pocket than brains in my head, so I bought it just the same.
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Anthropic will fight US ‘supply chain risk’ designation in court

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Anthropic confirmed it has been designated a ‘supply chain risk’ by the US administration, and said it has no choice but to challenge in the courts.

Despite ongoing talks between Anthropic and the US Department of Defense, Anthropic confirmed last night it had received a letter from defense secretary Pete Hegseth confirming the ‘supply chain risk’ designation that had been threatened.

“Yesterday (March 4) Anthropic received a letter from the Department of [Defense] confirming that we have been designated as a supply chain risk to America’s national security,” wrote co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei last night in an official statement. “We do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court.”

Amodei was quick to point out that “even supposing it was legally sound”, the limited application of the designation means the “vast majority” of its customers will be unaffected by the move. He said the restriction clearly only applied to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the US defense department, “not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts”.

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“The Department’s letter has a narrow scope, and this is because the relevant statute is narrow, too,” wrote Amodei. “It exists to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier.”

As with previous statements, Amodei strikes a conciliatory tone, saying Anthropic is committed to US national security and will offer continuing support from its engineers to ensure a smooth transition from Claude “for as long as we are permitted to do so”.

Anthropic drew the ire of the US administration after a standoff with the Pentagon, where Anthropic refused to change its safeguards related to using its AI for fully autonomous weapons, or for mass surveillance of US citizens.

With many in Silicon Valley supporting its relatively principled stand, and general users sending it to the top of the US Apple charts in recent days for free downloads – beating OpenAI’s ChatGPT for the first time – its flagship Claude.ai and Claude Code apps went down for around three hours on 2 March due to “unprecedented demand”.

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Claude Cowork in particular was already becoming the darling of AI enthusiasts in the professional world, and Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Anthropic was on track to generate annual revenue of almost $20bn, more than double its run rate from late 2025, signalling the rapid growth at the AI company which is today valued at around $380bn.

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Tinder settles age discrimination lawsuit for $60 million, see if you qualify for a payout

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According to the plaintiff, Tinder charged users aged 29 and older more for premium subscriptions such as Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold, while offering cheaper rates for the same services to users in their teens and 20s. The lawsuit claimed the tiered pricing model violated multiple California laws, including the…
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Cognizant TriZetto breach exposes health data of 3.4 million patients

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Cognizant TriZetto breach exposes health data of 3.4 million patients

TriZetto Provider Solutions, a healthcare IT company that develops software and services used by health insurers and healthcare providers, has suffered a data breach that exposed the sensitive information of over 3.4 million people.

The firm, which has been operating under the Cognizant umbrella since 2014, disclosed that it detected suspicious activity on a web portal on October 2, 2025, and launched an investigation with the help of external cybersecurity experts.

The investigation revealed that unauthorized access began nearly a year before, on November 19, 2024.

During the exposure period, the threat actors accessed records relating to insurance eligibility verification transactions, which are part of the process providers use to confirm a patient’s insurance coverage before treatment.

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The types of data that have been exposed vary per individual, and may include one or more of the following:

  • Full names
  • Physical address
  • Date of birth
  • Social Security number
  • Health insurance member number
  • Medicare beneficiary identifier
  • Provider name
  • Health insurer name
  • Demographic, health, and insurance information

Affected providers were alerted on December 9, 2025, but customer notification started in early February 2026. According to a filing Maine’s Attorney General submitted today, the number of exposed individuals is 3,433,965.

TriZetto says that payment card, bank account, or other financial information was not exposed in this incident.

Also, the company is not aware of any cases where cybercriminals have attempted to misuse this information.

TriZetto says it has taken steps to strengthen cybersecurity on its systems and informed law enforcement authorities of the incident.

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Notification recipients are offered free 12-month coverage of credit monitoring and identity protection services from Kroll to help mitigate risks arising from compromised data.

BleepingComputer has contacted TriZetto to learn more about the nature of the security breach and why the firm delayed notifications to consumers for several months, but we have not received a response by publication time.

No ransomware groups have taken responsibility for the attack yet, and no data leaks linked to TriZetto have appeared on underground forums.

Cognizant itself was rumored to have suffered a Maze ransomware breach in 2020. In June 2025, Clorox sued the IT firm for gross negligence after it allegedly let Scattered Spider operatives into its network following a social engineering attack in September 2023.

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Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.

Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.

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The remake of one of the best Assassin’s Creed games is actually happening

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Ubisoft has finally confirmed what Assassin’s Creed fans have suspected for years: a remake of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is officially in the works.

The company revealed the project, titled Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced, in a new blog post outlining the future of the long-running series.

We don’t know much about the game yet, but initial reports suggest that Resynced will be a full remake rather than a simple remaster, with upgraded visuals and gameplay improvements, bringing one of the best AC games into the modern age.

It’s also suggested that new story content will be added to flesh out the world around Edward Kenway’s life – at the expense of the modern day gameplay, which has apparently been removed from the remake altogether. It’ll be interesting to see how this all works, given how the original game weaved parts of both storylines into the ending.

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We’ve known for quite some time that Ubisoft has been thinking about breathing life into the 2013 game, but this was more or less confirmed when the name surfaced on a European ratings board listing late last year.

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We don’t yet have a release date for the game, but we know that an unannounced game was due to arrive before the end of the current financial year. Of course, Ubisoft delayed seven games earlier this year – and Black Flag is expected to be one of them.

Whether or not we see the game before the end of 2026 remains to be seen, but for now we’ll keep our “spyglass on the horizon”.

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