Tech
Supply-chain attack using invisible code hits GitHub and other repositories
The invisible code is rendered with Public Use Areas (sometimes called Public Use Access), which are ranges in the Unicode specification for special characters reserved for private use in defining emojis, flags, and other symbols. The code points represent every letter of the US alphabet when fed to computers, but their output is completely invisible to humans. People reviewing code or using static analysis tools see only whitespace or blank lines. To a JavaScript interpreter, the code points translate into executable code.
The invisible Unicode characters were devised decades ago and then largely forgotten. That is, until 2024, when hackers began using the characters to conceal malicious prompts fed to AI engines. While the text was invisible to humans and text scanners, LLMs had little trouble reading them and following the malicious instructions they conveyed. AI engines have since devised guardrails that are designed to restrict usage of the characters, but such defenses are periodically overridden.
Since then, the Unicode technique has been used in more traditional malware attacks. In one of the packages Aikido analyzed in Friday’s post, the attackers encoded a malicious payload using the invisible characters. Inspection of the code shows nothing. During the JavaScript runtime, however, a small decoder extracts the real bytes and passes them to the eval() function.
const s = v => [...v].map(w => (
w = w.codePointAt(0),
w >= 0xFE00 && w <= 0xFE0F ? w - 0xFE00 :
w >= 0xE0100 && w <= 0xE01EF ? w - 0xE0100 + 16 : null
)).filter(n => n !== null);
eval(Buffer.from(s(``)).toString('utf-8'));“The backtick string passed to s() looks empty in every viewer, but it’s packed with invisible characters that, once decoded, produce a full malicious payload,” Aikido explained. “In past incidents, that decoded payload fetched and executed a second-stage script using Solana as a delivery channel, capable of stealing tokens, credentials, and secrets.”
Since finding the new round of packages on GitHub, the researchers have found similar ones on npm and the VS Code marketplace. Aikido said the 151 packages detected are likely a small fraction spread across the campaign because many have been deleted since first being uploaded.
The best way to protect against the scourge of supply-chain attacks is to carefully inspect packages and their dependencies before incorporating them into projects. This includes scrutinizing package names and searching for typos. If suspicions about LLM use are correct, malicious packages may increasingly appear to be legitimate, particularly when invisible unicode characters are encoding malicious payloads.
A dependable television does not have to cost a fortune, and this latest Spring Sale discount on a popular Hisense model shows how affordable a full-size living room screen can be.
The Hisense 40-inch 40E4QTUK FHD LED TV is now £151.05, down from its usual £209 retail price, making this 40-inch smart television a much more accessible upgrade for everyday viewing in the Spring Deal Days event.
Now at its best price ever in Amazon’s Spring Sale, Hisense’s 40‑inch LED TV delivers impressive value on a dependable everyday screen.
Hisense’s 40-inch LED TV just dropped to its best price yet in Amazon’s Spring Sale
This Hisense LED TV focuses on delivering solid picture quality and easy streaming access without pushing buyers toward the much higher prices usually attached to modern smart televisions.
Its 40-inch Full HD display also offers a 1080p resolution that works particularly well for everyday streaming, regular broadcast channels, and casual gaming where crisp detail still matters even without a 4K panel.
Direct Lit LED technology places a grid of LEDs behind the display panel, helping produce more consistent brightness and deeper blacks across the screen rather than relying on edge lighting alone.
That approach helps maintain clear contrast, whether you are watching films in the evening or daytime television in a bright living room where weaker panels can sometimes look washed out.
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Where the 40E4QTUK TV becomes especially practical is in its built-in Freely platform, which lets you browse live television channels and on-demand content through one simple interface.
Instead of switching between separate devices or inputs, you can access streaming services like Disney+, Netflix, and YouTube directly from the television while also browsing traditional channels.
Dolby Audio support helps round out the experience by delivering clearer dialogue and more balanced sound from the built-in speakers, which can make films and sports broadcasts feel more immersive.
For £151.05, the Hisense 40-inch 40E4QTUK FHD LED TV makes a compelling pick for anyone who wants a dependable smart television with strong everyday performance without stepping into the much higher prices of larger premium models.
If you are weighing up other options before committing, our best budget TV buying guide rounds up the standout models across every price range, helping you see how this deal compares with the strongest televisions available right now in this category.
SQUIRREL_PLAYLIST_10148964
When you’re buying a new car, there are a lot of hidden costs to think about. Alongside the purchase price, you’ll need to consider maintenance, fuel, taxes, and insurance. Out of all those costs, insurance can give unprepared drivers a particularly nasty surprise, since some cars command outrageous insurance premiums. However, at the other end of the spectrum, some cars are consistently among the cheapest to insure. The Honda CR-V is one of those, with multiple studies confirming that it has some of the lowest average premiums of any new car.
Studies are split over whether or not it’s the absolute cheapest car to insure, but it’s consistently ranked within the top one or two models. According to Insure.com’s 2026 insurance premium study, the CR-V has the cheapest insurance premiums of any car on the market, with an average monthly cost of $161, or $1,932 annually. Meanwhile, CarEdge crowned the Mazda CX-5 the cheapest overall, with an annual cost of $1,947. However, it still ranked the CR-V in a close second place, with an average of $1,951.
A 2026 study by Bankrate that assessed the cost of full coverage claimed that the cheapest premiums were found with the Subaru Outback. The Subaru reportedly costs an average of $2,242 annually, while the CR-V again took the second-place spot with an average of $2,270. Regardless of whether or not it’s the absolute cheapest to insure, buyers will find the CR-V one of the safest bets overall for affordable insurance.
The Honda CR-V offers a lot more than cheap insurance
While budget-conscious buyers will undoubtedly appreciate the cheap premiums, it’s far from the only reason to buy a Honda CR-V. Both new and used models are appealing options thanks to their efficiency, practicality, and strong value retention, with the latter meaning buyers should get more of their original investment back when it comes time to upgrade. Many examples of the CR-V are also built in America, with the Indiana Auto Plant and the East Liberty Auto Plant in Ohio having produced the latest generation of the car since 2022.
The CR-V is available with a choice of either a gas or hybrid powertrain, and the CR-V Hybrid has a few key advantages over its pure-combustion counterpart. It offers superior low-end torque that can make a big difference when taking off, and it’s more efficient than the non-hybrid to boot. However, our reviewer found that the all-wheel drive car’s EPA-estimated rating of 37 mpg combined was very optimistic, with our real-world testing returning an average of 31 mpg. The front-wheel drive version should return slightly better figures, but drivers should still expect a real-world mpg figure that’s lower than the EPA’s 40 mpg combined estimate.
Apple shuttered its Grand Central Terminal store on March 13 for a surprise Alicia Keys concert, marking the start of 50th anniversary celebrations.
Alicia Keys in her Apple Vision Pro performance
Apple CEO Tim Cook showed up with several senior executives. They transformed one of Apple’s most iconic retail spots into a temporary live music venue.
The company invited select media members, creators, and guests while keeping the performer secret until Keys appeared on stage.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Tech
Logitech’s Brio 100 Webcam Delivers Daily Reliability By Offering Clear Video Without the Premium Cost
Daily video interactions have one essential requirement: good picture and sound. To be honest, most of us settle for our laptop cameras, which leave a lot to be desired in real-life circumstances. The Logitech Brio 100, priced at $25 (was $40), immediately raises the bar with its full 1080p resolution. Whether it’s a fast team meeting from a few feet away or some casual online gaming from the comfort of your workstation, faces appear natural, crisp, and all that.
Lighting may be a real challenge with video calls in home offices or streaming setups, but fortunately, the auto correction system keep your subjects looking illuminated without you having to mess with settings. The best part is that all of this happens whether you’re dealing with blinding afternoon daylight or just a gentle nighttime lamp.
In terms of sound, the built-in microphone handles spoken words expertly, without distorting them in common interior environments. On platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, conversations flow smoothly, and the loudness is sufficient to communicate across a regular room. Streamers who add a few basic overlays or chat overlays will be pleased to discover that the audio is fairly solid for entry-level broadcasts when crystal clear studio sound isn’t as vital as consistent reliability.
One common concern is privacy, particularly in shared flats or busy households, and the sliding cover on the lens addresses this with a pleasing click. With one simple motion, your view is fully hidden, providing you with some peace of mind before stepping away or having a sensitive talk. The cover stays in place while you use it, and there are no additional apps or processes to activate.
Attaching the camera takes only 2 seconds thanks to its handy clip, which is intended to suit most monitors or sit flat on a surface for more flexible perspectives. The design remains stable even on thinner laptop edges, and the fixed wire is long enough to extend across a regular desk without becoming tangled. Setting it up is as simple as plugging it in via USB and it’s ready to use on Windows, Mac, or Chrome.
One of the advantages of this camera is its wide compatibility, which means it’s ideal not only for business meetings but also for brief Nintendo Switch sessions or hobby streaming. If you need to modify things a little, there is some free software available to fine tune contrast or sharpness, but most people skip that step and enjoy solid results right away.
Have you ever sat in your Ford Mustang GT or better yet, your Mustang Dark Horse and thought: “I need a supercharger that has a bigger displacement than some entire car engines and gives my car more horsepower than some supercars.”
Well, Ford Racing Parts has just the kit for you. For $10,500, Ford will sell you a 3.0-liter Whipple supercharger kit for the 2024-2026 Ford Mustang GT and Dark Horse. You no longer have to worry about a sketchy build in your garage that might throw a rod through the side of the engine block or melt the intake, because this kit is also covered by a Ford Racing Parts three year/36,000-mile warranty (as long as the kit is installed by a certified technician or a Ford dealership).
With the kit, Ford says it will boost the horsepower to a pretty wild 810 and the torque to 615 pound-feet, if you use 93 octane fuel. Interestingly enough, the kit is not available in California.
Superchargers for everyone
Additionally, Ford offers a supercharger kit for 5.0-liter V8 equipped F-150s from the 2021 to 2026 model years. It is also a 3.0-liter Whipple supercharger. Ford notes that it will boost the power to “only” 700 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. It’s $10,500 as well and carries the same warranty. You will have the fastest Ford truck that isn’t a Raptor and doesn’t say “Shelby” on it by a significant margin.
Ford hasn’t given performance figures for the Mustang GT, Dark Horse, or F-150 supercharger kits. But for comparison, the “regular” 500 horsepower Dark Horse will do the 0-60 sprint in 3.7 seconds and run a 12-second quarter mile, so the supercharged version is likely quicker than that.
A turbocharger relies on exhaust gases to spin up what is essentially a compressor to dump air into the engine, a supercharger does the same thing, but instead uses a belt connected to the engine’s crankshaft to spin.
If you’ve ever squinted at your ROG Xbox Ally X’s screen and thought that it could be a little sharper, Xbox (and Microsoft) heard you, loud and clear. In April 2026, the handheld gaming PC will get a free software update that will make your games look better. No hardware updates or additional costs included.
Xbox will release a feature called Automatic Super Resolution or Auto SR — Microsoft’s AI-powered answer to Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR — which upscales video games from 720p up to 1080p or more (via Windows Central).
What does the Auto SR feature do?
The feature forces your Ally X to work smarter, not harder, delivering a performance boost of up to 30%. Unlike DLSS and FSR, Auto SR works at the operating system level, implying that developers won’t need to integrate it on a per-game basis. However, the feature still trails Nvidia’s DLSS in outright image quality.
No matter who the developer is or what the game is, Auto SR will simply work, well, mostly. For now, the feature supports DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games only. But why is it only available on the Xbox Ally X, and not the Xbox Ally?
So, why is it only coming to Ally X?
Well, the Ally X features AMD’s Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chipset, which, like the modern smartphones or CPUs, also includes a Neural Processing Unit, specifically designed for AI and machine learning workloads.
The feature seems to be relying on Ally X’s NPU to upscale the video games in real-time, without increasing the CPU’s load. Unfortunately, the base model doesn’t have one, which is why the feature is exclusive to the X variant.
One thing that worth pointing out — the April release is technically a preview, not a final, polished rollout. So while the 30% performance figure is exciting, real-world results may vary as Microsoft continues to refine it.
Understandably, concerns around online privacy have continued to grow, so it’s no surprise that more and more users are turning to professional data removal services. They want to regain control of their personal information and manage their online presence consciously.
In 2026, Incogni and Kanary are among the most talked-about options, but each comes with a different approach to the task.
This article will walk you through all the relevant differences between Incogni and Kanary so that you can wholeheartedly trust the right provider.
At a Glance: Incogni vs Kanary (2026)
| Aspect | Incogni | Kanary |
| Starting price | From $15.98 (or $7.99/month when billed annually) | From $9.99 |
| Removal model | Fully automated + recurring suppression cycles | Partially automated (tier-dependent) |
| Coverage | 420+ public and private brokers | 300+ harmful sites and overall Google exposure |
| Free option | 30-day money-back guarantee | Free plan (limited functionality), 14-day trial for paid plans, 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Verification | Deloitte Independent Limited Assurance Assessment, industry recognition, reviews by industry authorities | Reviews by industry authorities |
| Best for | Hands-off, deep, ongoing protection | Visibility & app-based monitoring |
| Family plans | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise option | Yes | Yes |
How They Remove Your Data
Incogni: Set-and-Forget Automation
Incogni is architectured to be a hands-off, background protection service.
Once you sign up and verify your identity, Incogni can act on your behalf and start sending removal requests to hundreds of data brokers. However, it doesn’t stop here; it continues to monitor the situation, discovering new sources with your data or resending removal requests to brokers that failed to respond.
It’s vital because some brokers refresh their databases and can re-list your data even months later. Incogni’s system stays on its toes, ready to act for you again. Unlimited plans also include unlimited custom removal requests from 2,000+ additional sites.
Moreover, Incogni is available in 34 countries.
For those wondering whether Incogni really works, the answer is yes, but the key is time. Many removals take weeks, sometimes longer; that’s why automation and follow-ups are essential.
Kanary: Guided Removal With Tier Differences
Kanary takes a different approach. It starts by scanning to find where your personal information exists online. Once it confirms exposure, it can generate removal requests and track responses. Many of these are handled automatically, but in certain cases, Kanary asks you to confirm or complete a request.
There are also significant differences across plans:
- Free plan: scans, finding, and removing leaks from the top databases, Google’s cache, and social media
- Professional plan: Kanary-managed scans of riskiest sites, up to 7 custom requests a week, reports
- Advanced plan: customizable
Kanary operates best for US citizens and residents, or if you have a US address.
Coverage Depth
Incogni
Incogni reports coverage of 420+ brokers and 2,000+ sites with the Unlimited plans. These include public people-search websites and private databases not visible on Google, like:
- Marketing directories
- Recruitment data vendors
- Risk and financial data brokers
This broad reach is important as much personal information gets traded across private databases you never see.
Incogni focuses on both visible and hidden data sources.
Kanary
Kanary covers 300+ sites and databases that include top data brokers, Google’s cache, and social media.
Its biggest strength is scanning public listings and searchable exposure. It also monitors some social media and identity exposure risks and can fix weak privacy settings.
Kanary’s coverage is solid for visible data. Only with a customizable Advanced plan do you get features like breach or dark web monitoring.
Credibility & Recognition
Incogni
Incogni has undergone a Deloitte Independent Limited Assurance assessment, which concluded that all its removal processes work as promised. This adds credibility and reassurance in an industry handling sensitive data, especially since such third-party verification is still extremely rare (if not unique) among data removal service providers.
The company has also received Editors’ Choice awards from PCMag and PCWorld, two major tech publications, as well as multiple positive reviews from industry authorities like TechRadar and Cybernews.
Kanary
Kanary has no public third-party assessment like Incogni. However, it has been reviewed positively by major tech publications, such as TechRadar, PCMag, and other platforms writing about online security. These reviews often highlight Kanary’s ease-of-use and clarity.
Kanary also emphasizes transparency in its product design, guiding its users through all the steps.
User Feedback & Reputation
Incogni
Incogni maintains an “Excellent” rating on Trustpilot with 4.4/5 stars based on over 2,000 reviews. Many reviews note successful removals, a very clear dashboard, helpful and efficient customer support, and ongoing data suppression.
There are some users who complain that removals can take time, though it’s normal in the industry, given broker response times.
Overall, feedback confirms that Incogni works – gradually but meaningfully.
Kanary
Kanary doesn’t have an active Trustpilot listing. The only source of user reviews is displayed on Kanary’s website in the form of testimonials in the Kanary Reviews section.
These short opinions highlight positive experiences with exposure monitoring, progress updates, and the straightforwardness of the whole platform. Many users appreciate the visibility offered at every step of the process.
While we don’t undermine these testimonials, it’s important to remember that they are hosted on the company’s own site. They can provide some helpful insight, but don’t offer the same level of reliability found on independent platforms.
Pricing & Value
Incogni
Incogni’s plans start at $7.99/month when billed annually. If billed monthly, it’s $15.98/month. Higher-tier plans add family coverage and priority handling, but all the features needed for continuous, broad protection are already available with the cheapest plan.
There is no free version, but the company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee to provide its users with a risk-free testing period.
Incogni also offers customizable business plans through Ironwall by Incogni.
Kanary
For users on a budget, Kanary offers a free tier with limited features. It may be a good idea if you’re new to this and want to explore exposure monitoring.
Its paid plans start at $9.99/month, regardless of whether you pay annually or monthly.
There’s also a customizable Advanced plan as well as family and enterprise options.
Ease-of-Use & Support
Incogni
Incogni is built for simplicity. Its dashboard is clean, easy to navigate, and mostly hands-off – you can use it to track progress, but it doesn’t require your engagement to work smoothly. Once you verify your identity, most users report that they don’t need to interact with the platform frequently. Reviews also mention that it’s intuitive and straightforward, especially for non-technical people.
Incogni offers multiple contact channels:
- Email support – available to all users (responses come within 24 hours)
- Live chat – available to all subscribers 24/7
- Phone support available to Unlimited subscribers 24/7
- Knowledge Base
Customer feedback notes that Incogni’s customer support is responsive, professional, and to the point.
Kanary
Kanary’s platform is all about guided visibility. Its dashboard clearly shows you where your data appears and how risky this exposure is, which helps users understand the situation and what’s being done – many of them appreciate that.
Kanary also offers a mobile app, though the functionalities between it and the website differ. It still is convenient, as it allows you to monitor exposures and removal statuses on the go (if you have such a need).
Kanary’s only support option is email. It promises to have an agent respond within 24 hours. Dedicated support comes solely with the Advanced plan.
Kanary also supports community support with its online forums and the Kanary Discord.
Users note, however, that differences in response times are visible across plan levels.
Strengths & Limitations
Incogni
| Strengths | Limitations |
| Broad broker coverage | No free tier |
| Full automation | Phone support only available with Unlimited plans |
| Wide availability | |
| Recurring removal cycles | |
| Independent Deloitte assurance | |
| Industry recognition |
Kanary
| Strengths | Limitations |
| Free plan | Narrow automated coverage |
| Clear visibility of exposures | Higher premium pricing |
| Mobile app | No third-party verification |
| Personal privacy advisors with some higher tiers | User engagement required |
| US users only |
Incogni vs Kanary: Which Makes More Sense in 2026?
Both services are legitimate and may be effective when used consistently.
Kanary is well-suited for users who want visibility and control or a free starting option.
Incogni is better for those who need broader coverage, a hands-off system, and ongoing suppression.
When comparing overall, Incogni currently offers the most comprehensive and long-lasting approach. Kanary remains a good option for those on a budget or valuing engagement.
FAQ
Kanary specializes in finding visible exposures on niche sites like forums or Twitch chats. Incogni primarily targets commercial data brokers and commercial databases.
Incogni is designed for full automation with minimal user input after setup. Kanary is a guided experience that often requires you to manually approve specific removals or verify broker requests.
Incogni works across North America and Europe. Kanary is almost exclusively focused on US-based users with a US address history.
from the maintaining-civility-and-gameplay-flow dept
The power of the latest generation of AI systems is such that previously impractical applications are not just possible, but scalable. For example, moving beyond basic early AI text translation tools, it is now possible to use live translation to communicate in another language in real time. For many people that will be a real boon, especially when they are traveling. But here’s something that is likely to prove more controversial: real-time rephrasing of profanity within chat. It’s a new AI-powered feature from Roblox that is designed to “keep gameplay fluid while maintaining civility within chat”:
Roblox is leveraging AI to automatically rephrase profanity. Rather than displaying only hashmarks, filtered text will be translated into more respectful language that remains closer to the user’s original intent. For example, a message that violates Roblox’s profanity policies, such as “Hurry TF up!” would previously have appeared as “####” within experience chat. That will now be rephrased to “Hurry up!” This new layer is designed to maintain civility by rephrasing the language and replacing “stop signs” with real-time guidance.
Specifically:
When a message violates Roblox’s profanity policy, everyone in the chat is notified that the text has been rephrased to keep things civil. While rephrasing reduces some of the disruption in the chat, Roblox’s multilayered safety system remains in effect for more serious behavior. Rephrasing is available exclusively for in-experience chat between age-checked users in similar age groups and is supported in all languages currently available through Roblox’s automatic translation tools.
Alongside this new AI-based capability, Roblox is also tweaking its text filtering system:
Early results from Roblox’s testing show significant improvements in detecting leet-speak, or letters replaced with numbers or symbols, and more sophisticated attempts to bypass filters.
Parents may applaud real-time rephrasing as a way for the service to nudge younger users away from bad language in their interaction with others, without stopping them playing altogether. But it creates a dangerous proof of concept that others may build on, particularly in jurisdictions that want stricter controls on what people say online.
It’s easy to imagine situations where Chinese AI systems, for example, rephrase people’s language on social media in real time to promote “social harmony”. Not only the style but even the content’s details could be subtly changed away from controversy towards conformity. It would be possible for rephrasing to be visible only to others, so the person making a comment might not even be aware that their words were being subverted in this way. Something similar is already happening with Chinese AI chatbots that censor their own answers, without acknowledging that fact. As Chinese AI companies become increasingly important players in the online world, this kind of covert rephrasing by them — and others — is another issue people will need to watch out for in our brave new AI world.
Follow me @glynmoody on Bluesky and on Mastodon.
Filed Under: ai, chat, chatbots, china, civility, filters, gameplay, leet-speak, profanity
Companies: roblox
As well as owning a surprisingly large range of other tire brands, Michelin also makes a broad range of top-rated tires that are sold under its own brand. One Michelin tire model that gets consistently good reviews is the Pilot Sport 5. It’s an ultra-high performance summer tire, and as well as being impressive on a dry road, it’s also highly rated in wet conditions. However, recent testing data gathered by AutoBild and published by TyreReviews shows that it might not be the very best tire for anyone looking for maximum braking performance.
The 2026 study compared a wide range of 245/45 R19 tires that were fitted to a BMW 5 Series, with the magazine testing their stopping distance in both wet and dry conditions to get a more rounded picture of their performance. The Michelin Pilot Sport 5 tires did perform well in the study, earning a ninth place finish out of 50 tested tires.
However, their stopping distances proved to be a little longer than the very top finishers. From 62 mph, it took the Michelin tires 34.4 meters (112.9 feet) to bring the BMW test vehicle to a stop in dry conditions. A wet conditions test recorded a stopping distance of 27.7 meters (90.9 feet) from 50 mph to standstill.
Several other big brands beat Michelin in the test
Rival performance tire models such as the Hankook Ventus Evo, Nexen N’Fera Sport SU2, and Kumho Ecsta Sport PS72 all needed a shorter distance to stop the car in both wet and dry conditions than the Michelin tires. They took the second, third, and fourth spots in the overall rankings, respectively. However, the first place spot was taken by an unlikely candidate.
Performing exceptionally well in both the wet and dry conditions was the Sport Master tire model by Chinese tire maker Linglong, making it the overall first place finisher in the mass tire test. It posted the third smallest stopping distance in the dry conditions test, and the smallest stopping distance in the wet conditions test. Unlike the other top performers in the study, Linglong isn’t a big name in the U.S., although it has been distributing tires through its North American division for more than two decades.
Linglong manufactures tires in both Thailand and Serbia, although the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency blocked the import of Linglong tires made in its Serbian factory in December 2025. According to the agency’s statement, this was due to allegations of forced labor in its production process.
Outside of the AutoBild braking test, overall user reviews about the quality of Linglong tires are less than stellar, and plenty of owners say it’s worth avoiding the brand altogether. Given the alleged quality and ethical issues associated with Linglong tires, the Hankook, Nexen, and Kumho models are arguably better choices overall, since they should still prove very effective when braking in both wet and dry conditions.
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!
All legged robots deployed “in the wild” to date were given a body plan that was predefined by human designers and could not be redefined in situ. The manual and permanent nature of this process has resulted in very few species of agile terrestrial robots beyond familiar four-limbed forms. Here, we introduce highly athletic modular building blocks and show how they enable the automatic design and rapid assembly of novel agile robots that can “hit the ground running” in unstructured outdoor environments.
[ Northwestern UniversityCenter for Robotics and Biosystems ] [ Paper ] via [ Gizmodo ]
If you were going to develop the ideal urban delivery robot more or less from scratch, it would be this.
[ RIVR ]
Don’t get me wrong, there are some clever things going on here, but I’m still having a lot of trouble seeing where the unique, sustainable value is for a humanoid robot performing these sorts of tasks.
[ Figure ]
One of those things that you don’t really think about as a human, but is actually pretty important.
[ Paper ] via [ ETH Zurich ]
We propose TRIP-Bag (Teleoperation, Recording, Intelligence in a Portable Bag), a portable, puppeteer-style teleoperation system fully contained within a commercial suitcase, as a practical solution for collecting high-fidelity manipulation data across varied settings.
[ KIMLAB ]
We propose an open-vocabulary semantic exploration system that enables robots to maintain consistent maps and efficiently locate (unseen) objects in semi-static real-world environments using LLM-guided reasoning.
[ TUM ]
That’s it folks, we have no need for real pandas anymore—if we ever did in the first place. Be honest, what has a panda done for you lately?
[ MagicLab ]
RoboGuard is a general-purpose guardrail for ensuring the safety of LLM-enabled robots. RoboGuard is configured offline with high-level safety rules and a robot description, reasons about how these safety rules are best applied in robot’s context, then synthesizes a plan that maximally follows user preferences while ensuring safety.
[ RoboGuard ]
In this demonstration, a small team responds to a (simulated) radiation contamination leak at a real nuclear reactor facility. The team deploys their reconfigurable robot to accompany them through the facility. As the station is suddenly plunged into darkness, the robot’s camera is hot-swapped to thermal so that it can continue on. Upon reaching the approximate location of the contamination, the team installs a Compton gamma-ray camera and pan-tilt illuminating device. The robot autonomously steps forward, locates the radiation source, and points it out with the illuminator.
[ Paper ]
On March 6th, 2025, the Robomechanics Lab at CMU was flooded with 4 feet of black water (i.e. mixed with sewage). We lost most of the robots in the lab, and as a tribute my students put together this “In Memoriam” video. It includes some previously unreleased robots and video clips.
[ Carnegie Mellon University Robomechanics Lab ]
There haven’t been a lot of successful education robots, but here’s one of them.
[ Sphero ]
The opening keynote from the 2025 Silicon Valley Humanoids Summit: “Insights Into Disney’s Robotic Character Platform,” by Moritz Baecher, Director, Zurich Lab, Disney Research.
[ Humanoids Summit ]
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