1X Technologie’s new humanoid Robot NEO is seriously impressive

1X Technologies just unveiled NEO Beta, a humanoid robot designed to be your personal home assistant, and they're gearing up for pilot deployments in select homes this year.

 By the CogX R&I team

September 05, 2024

What's the big deal? NEO isn't just another smart home gadget. This 5'5", 66 lb robot can reportedly walk, run, climb stairs, and even carry up to 44 lbs.

Sounds too good to be true? Some online sceptics certainly think so. One user on X said, "That's def a dude in a suit". Another commented, "This is a person in a morph suit... we're not even close to this yet"

The robot race is getting crowded:

• GXO Logistics is conducting a proof-of-concept program with Apptronik Inc. to test the Apollo humanoid robot for warehouse use.

• Figure AI's humanoid is being put through its paces by BMW.

•  Even Elon Musk claimed Tesla’s Optimus will eventually cost under $20,000

  
  

So when can I get my robot butler? Sadly, we're still a ways off from seeing these in every home. Humanoid robotics startups have raised over $4.2 billion through June, according to Crunchbase. 1X alone snagged $100 million in January. But the tech is still in the early stages of development, and it's unclear how soon – or even if – these robots will ever be ready for widespread home use

Now read the rest of the CogX Newsletter

Can AI-generated images be copyrighted?

By the CogX R&I team

Content creation with the help of computers is nothing new. What has changed is the extent to which machines can now contribute to our creative process.

However, as AI-generated content proliferates across various industries, the question of who—or what—deserves credit for these creations is becoming increasingly complex.

For example, if an artist performs significant creative work on an AI-generated piece, the human-generated portion could be seen as original and therefore eligible for copyright protection — but beyond that, things get murky.

A critical issue then becomes defining what exactly qualifies as "significant creative work". Is it the careful selection of elements? The way they’re arranged? Or perhaps it’s the application of filters and effects that give the piece its final polish?

… want to keep reading? Check out the full OpEd here on the CogX Blog

A Hollywood studio in your pocket?

Minimax Image generated from MiniMax under prompt: An astronaut rides on top of a T-rex in a floating retro diner.

Runway Gen-3 Image generated from Runway Gen-3 under prompt: An astronaut rides on top of a T-rex in a floating retro diner.

Platform: Developed by a Chinese startup backed by Alibaba and Tencent.   Strengths: Specialises in generating hyper-realistic human movements, particularly hand movements, which are challenging for other AI tools. Strong at producing cinematic scenes with detailed environments, such as futuristic cities and natural landscapes. Limitations: Currently limited to 6-second clips, with future updates expected to extend this to 10 seconds.

Platform: Developed by Runway, a leading AI video platform.   Strengths: Offers rapid generation of 10-second videos with the ability to use an input image as the first or last frame. Provides structured prompts to guide users in creating more realistic and dynamic video content. Available in both Turbo and Alpha models. Limitations: Some users may experience refusals or failed generations when using predefined prompts, likely due to strict AI moderation.

Running games without a game engine?
Google researchers have successfully run the iconic game Doom on a self-generating AI model. This innovative approach, which leverages a custom Stable Diffusion model, demonstrates the potential of AI to create interactive games from prompts.

Also in the news

Over 200 million people use chat GPT weekly: This according to a recent report by OpenAI. The impressive growth is likely fueled by the recent release of new features, improved accessibility, and increased enterprise adoption.

Magic AI Unveils LTM-2-mini: A foundation model boasting an ultra-long context window of 100 million tokens. This impressive capability allows the model to handle complex programming tasks and spot errors in lengthy code strings with exceptional accuracy.

Alibaba has introduced Qwen2-VL: A cutting-edge vision-language model capable of analysing videos over 20 minutes long. This advanced AI model excels at visual understanding, video comprehension, and multilingual text-image processing.

An AI wingman for dating apps: Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, and Grindr are all developing chatbots designed to assist users with everything from crafting better chat-up lines to building more engaging profiles.

In case you missed it

Deep robotics trained one of their X30 robot dogs to be ‘shy’ of humans: