TECH NEWS
In Brief 4:14 PM PDT · August 31, 2026 Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has expanded its fifth growth fund to $8.5 billion. That means the firm added another $1.75 billion since the fund launched in January with $6.75 billion. The firm’s announcement comes just days
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I've spent 20 years designing machines and the processes that build them, first in China, then in the United States. In that time, I've watched three or four waves of "the future of manufacturing" arrive with a keynote and leave with a shrug. Lights-out
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Historically, there have been two key metrics by which robot pool cleaners are measured: suction power and battery life. More recently, smart navigation, cameras and sensors — let’s call it AI — have become more integrated and have shifted the balance of power in what we consider the most important aspects
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Labor Day deals are here, though some hot gadgets are getting more expensive in September. by Cameron Faulkner Aug 31, 2026, 3:31 PM UTC Image: The Verge Cameron Faulkner is an editor covering deals and gaming hardware. He joined in 2018, and after a two-year stint at Polygon, he
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Training someone to operate an excavator isn't as simple as handing them the keys and pointing them toward a pile of dirt. Modern excavators are controlled with multiple joysticks that simultaneously manipulate the boom, stick, bucket, and cab, requiring operators to build a mental model that translates hand
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Pollen Robotics has unveiled a bipedal robot called Microduck, at an introductory price of $399 before taxes and shipping. The Bordeaux company is owned by the AI platform Hugging Face. Its new machine has one eye and 15 motors, stands 25cm tall, and weighs under 800g. Preorders opened on Thursday.
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Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. A hot potato: Spot, the robotic quadruped from Boston Dynamics, has been used in numerous professions over the years, but its most controversial application could be on the way. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
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Announced during Computex 2026, Nvidia's RTX Spark is billed as "a new beginning" for gaming laptops, productivity laptops, and small form factor PCs. Described as a "Superchip", it's an SoC that seeks to combine the company's AI technologies and its
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Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. WTF?! A man has won a legal battle against his wife by using footage from a robot vacuum to prove she was having an affair, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Because he secretly
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Elon Musk isn’t one to sit out a tech trend. In November 2023, he launched Grok, an AI chatbot created by his artificial intelligence startup, xAI. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI before departing in 2018, created Grok to compete with ChatGPT,Claude, Perplexity and Google’s Gemini. But he gave
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It all started with some exasperated emails. Back in 2009, a group of researchers began venting their frustration with the programming languages designed to help scientists and other researchers perform complex mathematical operations and statistical simulations without learning how to code. These programming languages were rigid and slow. If scientists
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In July and August, Washington tightened restrictions on foreign-made advanced robotic systems and imposed steep tariffs on imported drones and their components, both moves citing national-security concerns. The drone tariffs take effect in September, with additional component tariffs following in 2027. These moves are part of a broader U.S.
