Video Friday: Robots Are Everywhere at CES 2026

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, VIENNAEnjoy today’s videos! We’re excited to announce the product version of our Atlas® robot. This enterprise-grade humanoid robot offers impressive strength and range of motion, precise manipulation, and intelligent adaptability—designed to power the new industrial revolution. [ Boston Dynamics ]I appreciate the creativity and technical innovation here, but realistically, if you’ve got more than one floor in your ..

IEEE Spectrum > Robotics

The Download: the case for AI slop, and helping CRISPR fulfill its promise

This is today’s edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How I learned to stop worrying and love AI slop —Caiwei Chen If I were to locate the moment AI slop broke through into popular consciousness, I’d pick the video of rabbits bouncing…

MIT Technology Review The Download: the case for AI slop, and helping CRISPR fulfill its promise

A new CRISPR startup is betting regulators will ease up on gene-editing

Here at MIT Technology Review we’ve been writing about the gene-editing technology CRISPR since 2013, calling it the biggest biotech breakthrough of the century. Yet so far, there’s been only one gene-editing drug approved. It’s been used commercially on only about 40 patients, all with sickle-cell disease. It’s becoming clear that the impact of CRISPR…

MIT Technology Review A new CRISPR startup is betting regulators will ease up on gene-editing

AI Coding Assistants Are Getting Worse

In recent months, I’ve noticed a troubling trend with AI coding assistants. After two years of steady improvements, over the course of 2025, most of the core models reached a quality plateau, and more recently, seem to be in decline. A task that might have taken five hours assisted by AI, and perhaps ten hours without it, is now more commonly taking seven or eight hours, or even longer. It’s reached the point where I am sometimes going back and using older versions of large language models (LLMs).I use LLM-generated code extensively in my role as CEO of Carrington Labs, a provider of predictive-analytics risk models for lenders. My team has a sandbox where we create, deploy, and run AI-g..

IEEE Spectrum > Computing

How AI Accelerates PMUT Design for Biomedical Ultrasonic Applications

This whitepaper provides MEMS engineers, biomedical device developers, and multiphysics simulation specialists with a practical AI-accelerated workflow for optimizing piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs), enabling you to explore complex design trade-offs between sensitivity and bandwidth while achieving validated performance improvements in minutes instead of days using standard cloud infrastructure.What you will learn about:MultiphysicsAI combines cloud-based FEM simulation with neural surrogates to transform PMUT design from trial-and-error iteration into systematic inverse optimizationTraining on 10,000 randomized geometries produces AI surrogates with 1% mean error ..

IEEE Spectrum > Artificial Intelligence

America’s new dietary guidelines ignore decades of scientific research

The new year has barely begun, but the first days of 2026 have brought big news for health. On Monday, the US’s federal health agency upended its recommendations for routine childhood vaccinations—a move that health associations worry puts children at unnecessary risk of preventable disease. There was more news from the federal government on Wednesday,…

MIT Technology Review America’s new dietary guidelines ignore decades of scientific research

An AI approach for single-image-based 3D character animation with preserved proportions

In Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 Conference Papers, a research team affiliated with UNIST reports a new AI technology that can animate 3D characters to mimic the exact movements shown in a single 2D image, all while preserving natural proportions and avoiding distortions. This development could reduce the barriers to creating 3D content for the metaverse, animation and gaming industries.

Phys.org > Computer Sciences An AI approach for single-image-based 3D character animation with preserved proportions

Decoding black box AI with human-readable data descriptions and influence

Artificial intelligence (AI), particularly deep learning models, are often considered black boxes because their decision-making processes remain difficult to interpret. These models can accurately identify objects—such as recognizing a bird in a photo—but understanding exactly how they arrive at these conclusions is a significant challenge. Until now, most interpretability efforts have focused on analyzing the internal structures of the models themselves.

Phys.org > Computer Sciences Decoding black box AI with human-readable data descriptions and influence

Deploying a hybrid approach to Web3 in the AI era

When the concept of “Web 3.0” first emerged about a decade ago the idea was clear: Create a more user-controlled internet that lets you do everything you can now, except without servers or intermediaries to manage the flow of information. Where Web2, which emerged in the early 2000s, relies on centralized systems to store data…

MIT Technology Review Deploying a hybrid approach to Web3 in the AI era