Robotics Special: Waymo heads across the pond

Welcome back, Superhuman. As most smartphone companies race to integrate AI into their phones, Chinese company Honor is two steps ahead of the curve — the smartphone maker has unveiled plans to pack a robot in your pocket. Meanwhile, Waymo is gearing up for its most ambitious challenge yet.

WHAT’S NEXT

The most important news and breakthroughs in robotics this week

1. Waymo to take its robotaxis across the pond: The company announced that it's bringing its autonomous taxi service to London in 2026. The expansion represents Waymo's high-stakes bet that the UK will fast-track autonomous vehicle regulations ahead of other European markets, while testing whether its tech can navigate London's medieval street layouts, left-side driving, and notoriously aggressive taxi culture. If it’s successful, the move could potentially unlock the broader European market.

2. Honor shakes up traditional smartphone design with new “robot phone”: The Chinese smartphone maker is developing a new "robot phone" featuring an AI-connected camera that unfolds from the back of the device on a mechanical arm, though most details are still under wraps. It’s part of Honor's broader $10B, five-year strategy to transform into an AI device company, joining other Chinese manufacturers like Roborock, who are adding mechanical components to static consumer electronics.

3. Apple eyes manufacturing in Vietnam for its robotic effort: The iPhone maker is reportedly developing a tabletop robot capable of moving around workspaces, alongside a new smart home hub, all to be manufactured in Vietnam as part of its China diversification strategy. While the smart home products are slated for next year, the tabletop robot faces engineering challenges pushing its release to 2027, with a price tag expected in the "several-hundred-dollar range".

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ROBOTS IN ACTION

How robots are transforming the world around us

👬 Bot Buddy: Robotics startup Cartwheel is developing a humanoid assistant with "genuinely human" movements, designed as both a functional home helper and an emotional companion. The startup plans to unveil a prototype this December, with potential applications extending from household tasks to healthcare settings and university research.

🔭 Eyes Up: Starfront Observatories’ properties in rural Rockwood now house over 550 robotic telescopes, where amateur astronomers pay as little as $99 monthly to park their equipment and control it via high-speed internet connections from their homes. The model has exploded in just 18 months, enabling city dwellers to capture stunning deep-space photography that would be impossible from their light-polluted backyards.

🧱 Brick Blitz: Australian firm FBR Limited has completed testing of its upgraded Hadrian robot, which can place 285 blocks per hour (with peak performance of 360 blocks per hour). The $5.1M robot joins a growing ecosystem of construction robots aiming to address labor shortages and ramp up building timelines across residential and commercial projects.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Everything else you need to know this week

Here are the biggest developments in the robotics space that you should know about:

• Unitree's G1 humanoid has gone viral once again, demonstrating advanced Kung-fu moves and precise backflips in a new video.

• Coco Robotics has tapped UCLA professor Bolei Zhou to lead a new physical AI research lab designed to advance its last-mile robotic delivery fleet.

• Revolute Robotics has picked up $1.9M in funding to expand its hybrid aerial-terrestrial robot for inspection, security, and defense capabilities.

• Morgan Stanley is bullish on Chinese companies Inovance and Geekplus as China's market sprints toward $108B by 2028.

• Lightyear Robotics has dropped the M1, a wheeled-legged robot featuring a parallel joint drive module for a 40% efficiency boost over traditional designs.

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ROBOT OF THE WEEK

A robot that caught our eye this week

Santa Claus is coming to town, but not in the way you might expect.

Hong Kong's MangDang Technology has dropped HeySanta, an AI-powered Santa robot that talks, can recall conversations, and displays emoji expressions through its digital eyes. The 12.8-inch robot uses gen AI to get smarter the more kids interact with it, and features block programming so children can customize it to sing songs or tell stories.

Check it out on Kickstarter.

ROBO REEL

Watch: Shape-shifting drone changes shape mid-flight, goes viral on X

Forget everything you know about what drones can and can't do.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have built Dragon, a shape-shifting aerial robot that can morph mid-flight to grab objects and manipulate them like a robotic arm. The modular drone uses four pairs of ducted fans connected by actuated joints, allowing it to reconfigure itself on the fly and carry payloads over 3 kilograms. Its navigation system automatically calculates the most efficient shape for each task.

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Until next time,

Zain and the Superhuman AI team