News from the front.

Every Sunday. Headlines from the clanker frontier. One essay. One shareable. One call to action.

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★ DISPATCH · Sep 20, 2026

$300 Million for the Floor Without Barriers

Agility Robotics put Digit 5 in front of the press this week. The company says the new humanoid can work next to people with no physical barriers. It can lift 50 pounds

★ DISPATCH · Sep 13, 2026

XPeng’s Robot Walked Off the Production Line on its Own

XPeng switched on a production line in Guangzhou this week. The company says more than 80 percent of the core processes on that line run without human hands. The first IRON humanoid

★ DISPATCH · Sep 6, 2026

$3.5 Billion for the Brain, but Figure’s Tin Man Still Needs to prove he can Work

Figure AI signed a multi-year deal this week for $3.5 billion in compute, with intent to push past $6 billion. Up to 100,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs. First machines

★ DISPATCH · Aug 30, 2026

They Are Their Own Best Customers

On August 26 in Seoul, Hyundai’s chief executive put numbers on a plan the company has talked around for a year. A robotics factory in the United States. Production in 2028.

★ DISPATCH · Aug 23, 2026

Faster Than Bolt

The second World Humanoid Robot Games opened in Beijing last Saturday. More than two thousand humanoid robots entered from sixteen countries. On the opening day a machine from the Beijing Humanoid Robot

★ DISPATCH · Aug 16, 2026

The Gap Still Remains

Capital keeps arriving. Model updates keep arriving. Manufacturing claims keep arriving. Verified readiness does not. In the first half of 2026 alone, investors put more than four billion dollars into humanoid robotics

★ DISPATCH · Aug 9, 2026

The public put a price on humanoids, what does this mean for our future?

This week the open market put its first real price on a humanoid company. The amount of money people were willing to put down says more than any demo stage would. On

★ DISPATCH · Aug 2, 2026

So Wait For The Study?

Monday morning in Sacramento, California decides whether a worker gets any warning before the machine takes the desk. The people fighting it say wait for the study. On Monday morning, in a

★ DISPATCH · Jul 26, 2026

Amazon refines AI budget, what is the cost?

Amazon named its AI budget this week. It did not account for the people it cut to pay for it. On July 22, Amazon told some of the people who build its

★ DISPATCH · Jul 19, 2026

They Only Admit It Under Oath

Oracle blamed AI in their SEC filing. New York State asked for the same information for a year and only got a blank page in return. On June 22, Oracle filed its

★ DISPATCH · Jul 12, 2026

THEY NEVER ASKED YOU.

William Shi runs a company called Agibot, one of the Chinese firms racing to put humanoid robots on factory floors. Asked recently about the jobs his machines are built to take, he

★ DISPATCH · Jul 10, 2026

FIFTY COBOTS CLOCK IN AT FACTORY ZERO

The UAW says GM's new robots are doing union work. The grievances are filed. James Cotton is the president of UAW Local 22, and he represents the people who build