Rowan Cheung(@rowancheung)

Interview with Demis interview also now live: https://t.co/jjmkz3q2o1

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:20:01 GMT

Interview with Demis interview also now live: x.com/rowancheung/st…

Rowan Cheung@rowancheung

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says we’re in the ‘foothills of the singularity’

I sat down with him to talk about what that means, curing every disease, and human meaning post-AGI:

00 Intro
45 What Demis is most excited about at I/O
46 Have AGI timelines shifted?
30 What's still missing before AGI
50 AI curing every disease 
19 What diseases get cured first?
50 What Demis works on after AGI
48 Human meaning after AGI
50 The human skills that get more valuable
19 What's underhyped in AI right now

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Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says we’re in the ‘foothills of the singularity’ I sat down with...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 26 May 2026 16:16:09 GMT

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says we’re in the ‘foothills of the singularity’

I sat down with him to talk about what that means, curing every disease, and human meaning post-AGI:

00 Intro
45 What Demis is most excited about at I/O
46 Have AGI timelines shifted?
30 What's still missing before AGI
50 AI curing every disease 
19 What diseases get cured first?
50 What Demis works on after AGI
48 Human meaning after AGI
50 The human skills that get more valuable
19 What's underhyped in AI right now

Your browser does not support the video tag.

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Full interview with Sundar is now live! https://t.co/JRcqOxCZo6

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 21 May 2026 17:42:01 GMT

Full interview with Sundar is now live! x.com/rowancheung/st…

Rowan Cheung@rowancheung

Google just revealed Omni, personalized cross-device intelligence, and Spark agents at I/O 2025.

I sat down with CEO Sundar Pichai to figure out what comes next:

46 Omni: "Nano Banana for video"
59 The future of YouTube
04 Advice for AI skeptics
33 Why your mom should switch to Gemini
13 Google's vision for personalized intelligence
02 What AI looks like in 3 years 
08 What tasks AI agents won't replace
58 Sundar's advice for an 18-year-old
33 Would Sundar still go to college today?

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Google just revealed Omni, personalized cross-device intelligence, and Spark agents at I/O 2025. I ...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 21 May 2026 15:58:57 GMT

Google just revealed Omni, personalized cross-device intelligence, and Spark agents at I/O 2025.

I sat down with CEO Sundar Pichai to figure out what comes next:

46 Omni: "Nano Banana for video"
59 The future of YouTube
04 Advice for AI skeptics
33 Why your mom should switch to Gemini
13 Google's vision for personalized intelligence
02 What AI looks like in 3 years 
08 What tasks AI agents won't replace
58 Sundar's advice for an 18-year-old
33 Would Sundar still go to college today?

Your browser does not support the video tag.

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Behind the scenes with Sundar Pichai and Demis Hassabis, two of the most important people in AI We ...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 20 May 2026 17:37:36 GMT

Behind the scenes with Sundar Pichai and Demis Hassabis, two of the most important people in AI

We covered timelines to curing every disease, AGI bottlenecks, democratizing AI healthcare, and the future of AI-driven media (ft. Omni)

Can't wait to share!

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Source via Meta: https://t.co/l22aISUzys I break down stories like this every day in my free newsle...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:18:21 GMT

Source via Meta: about.fb.com/news/2026/04/p…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Meta is planning to power its AI data centers with solar energy beamed from space. If it works, sol...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 04 May 2026 15:18:18 GMT

Meta is planning to power its AI data centers with solar energy beamed from space.

If it works, solar farms could produce power 24/7 without batteries or backup generators.

The company behind it all is Overview Energy -- they want to launch 1,000 satellites into orbit, 22,000 miles above the equator, where sunlight is constant.

For context, Meta's data centers used over 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity last year. Enough to power 1.7 million American homes for a year.

Each satellite collects solar energy, converts it into a wide beam of near-infrared light, and aims it at existing solar farms on the ground.

The farms convert the light into electricity, just like they do with sunlight.

Unlike high-power lasers or microwave beams, this infrared light is safe enough to stare directly into.

Solar farms normally sit idle at night, so this system fixes that... from space. Really fascinating tech.

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By the way, if you want to work with me but don't think the above role is the perfect fit, I'm als...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:29:43 GMT

By the way, if you want to work with me but don't think the above role is the *perfect* fit, I'm also hiring 4 other roles:

> Head of Content
> Head of Sales
> Ad Creative Strategist
> Branded Content Editor

Check it out: https://t.co/9p7JAwm06i

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More about the role + application link: https://t.co/Ce1gYepsZl

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:26:06 GMT

More about the role + application link: jobs.therundown.ai/jobs/444554950…

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I'm hiring someone to help me build the "Reddit for AI use cases." People are dying to hear from RE...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:24:57 GMT

I'm hiring someone to help me build the "Reddit for AI use cases."

People are dying to hear from REAL people actually doing REAL work with AI.

They don't care about how execs, influencers, or hype chasers are 'using AI'.

A few months ago, we launched our Community Use Cases feature in The Rundown: At the end of every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

We didn't think much of it, just a cool way to highlight the community.

Well, it became one of the biggest hits the newsletter has ever had.

Now I get daily messages asking us to expand it... so we are.

The plan: build Reddit for AI use cases.

We have the most active and engaged AI-interested audience in the world, with millions of daily readers. Your job is to figure out how they're actually using AI, then incentivize them to share it.

Basically, the friend everyone texts when they hear about a new AI thing... but you're building an entire community of them.

Here's what I'm looking for:

> Someone who thrives in scrappy environments with great communication skills
> Has built online communities at scale before
> Energized by the idea of interviewing thousands of real people about how AI is actually changing their work

This is NOT an easy role. You'll interview thousands of people, gather data points, and dig into their real AI struggles. 

If that sounds fun rather than overwhelming, you're probably who I'm looking for.

Link below to apply!

Rowan Cheung@rowancheung

I'm HIRING 5 more people to help me build the future of AI media.

The Rundown is closing in on 3M active readers, and the demand is far outpacing what we can handle.

$2,000 referral bonus if you help us find someone we hire full-time.

Open roles:

> Head of Content -- lead the editorial team that reaches millions every day
> Head of Sales -- run a scrappy sales team and revenue strategy across our media properties
> Community Lead -- turn our 3M+ readership into the "Reddit for AI use cases"
> Ad Creative Strategist -- research and ship ad creatives that hook the next million AI-curious readers
> Branded Content Editor -- turn brands into stories our readers actually want to read

What we're looking for among all roles:

> Deep AI curiosity (you've already replaced part of your workflow with agents)
> Unreasonably biased toward action
> Taste sharp enough to spot great work (and AI slop)

All roles are fully remote. Link below to apply!

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Research paper: https://t.co/7owhoOMXvm Original video : https://t.co/8REsqmOUW4 I break down stor...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:16:18 GMT

Research paper: pnas.org/doi/abs/10.107…

Original video : youtube.com/watch?v=jli0jP…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Scientists just built a robot smaller than the width of a human hair (!) It has no motor, no comput...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:16:15 GMT

Scientists just built a robot smaller than the width of a human hair (!)

It has no motor, no computer and no battery

It's a 3D-printed, flexible chain of microscopic segments that, after being hit with an electric field, started swimming through liquid like a snake.

Try to block its path? It twists around the obstacle, as if it can sense what's in its way.

But the strangest thing about it all is that the behavior isn't programmed. It emerges from the physics of the structure itself.

The entire robot is 5 micrometers long (for context: a human hair is 70).

The researchers think this could one day deliver drugs directly to tumors or infections inside the human body.

Sometimes the simplest designs produce the most lifelike behavior.

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Join us or refer the most exceptional person you know: https://t.co/NGblORJYkF

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:14:34 GMT

Join us or refer the most exceptional person you know: jobs.therundown.ai/companies/the-…

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I'm HIRING 5 more people to help me build the future of AI media. The Rundown is closing in on 3M a...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:11:34 GMT

I'm HIRING 5 more people to help me build the future of AI media.

The Rundown is closing in on 3M active readers, and the demand is far outpacing what we can handle.

$2,000 referral bonus if you help us find someone we hire full-time.

Open roles:

> Head of Content -- lead the editorial team that reaches millions every day
> Head of Sales -- run a scrappy sales team and revenue strategy across our media properties
> Community Lead -- turn our 3M+ readership into the "Reddit for AI use cases"
> Ad Creative Strategist -- research and ship ad creatives that hook the next million AI-curious readers
> Branded Content Editor -- turn brands into stories our readers actually want to read

What we're looking for among all roles:

> Deep AI curiosity (you've already replaced part of your workflow with agents)
> Unreasonably biased toward action
> Taste sharp enough to spot great work (and AI slop)

All roles are fully remote. Link below to apply!

Rowan Cheung@rowancheung

I'm HIRING 7 exceptional people and paying a $2,000 referral bonus for each

We’ve bootstrapped The Rundown to $10M+ annual revenue and need to scale faster

We’re tackling one of the biggest problems of the decade: helping 1B workers turn AI into a superpower

Open roles:

-Mobile Developer
-GM, AI Univeristy
-Head of Growth
-Strategic Partnerships Lead
-Product Marketing
-Platform Designer
-Thumbnail Designer

We move faster than any company you've worked at. Competitive comp with performance-based scaling as we grow

Every role requires deep taste and AI fluency. You'll be expected to command an army of AI agents working underneath you.

Fully remote. Apply with the link below.

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Source: https://t.co/seoEc6Kpu4 I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Kee...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:12:32 GMT

Source: news.mit.edu/2026/new-type-…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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MIT researchers just replicated human muscles with AI-controlled fibers. Inside each fiber is a sea...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:12:30 GMT

MIT researchers just replicated human muscles with AI-controlled fibers.

Inside each fiber is a sealed tube of electrically charged liquid and a tiny electric pump.

When the pump activates, one side contracts while the other relaxes, just as your biceps and triceps do when you bend your arm.

How it works:

> The pump injects electrical charge into the fluid
> This creates ions that drag the liquid along with them
> No motors, no external pumps, completely silent

Because they're fibers, they bundle together just like real muscles, scaling up force by adding more strands.

In demos, these fibers were strong enough to bend a robotic arm and curl a dumbbell... but gentle enough to shake someone's hand.

From prosthetics to exoskeletons to industrial robots, this is what happens when engineers stop building around motors and start building around biology.

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Source: https://t.co/93uwLKlnUB I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Kee...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:13:35 GMT

Source: spectrum.ieee.org/boston-dynamic…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Boston Dynamics just gave its robot dog a brain that reasons about the physical world. Google DeepM...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:13:32 GMT

Boston Dynamics just gave its robot dog a brain that reasons about the physical world.

Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics model is now running inside Spot, the four-legged robot already deployed at thousands of facilities worldwide.

The upgrade centers on something called embodied reasoning.

Basically, instead of following rigid instructions, Spot now interprets what it sees and makes decisions on its own.

One standout example: Spot can now look at a pressure gauge, zoom in on the needle, calculate the intervals between tick marks, and deliver an accurate reading. All autonomously.

The model also introduces:

> Multi-view reasoning, combining feeds from multiple cameras to understand its environment even when objects are blocked from one angle

> Built-in success detection, so Spot knows when it's failed and decides whether to retry or move on

That last part is a key requirement for true autonomy.

Most companies building AI-powered robots are still stuck in the demo phase. Boston Dynamics is one of the few with actual paying customers... which means thousands of Spots collecting real-world data that feeds back into making the AI smarter.

That flywheel is hard to compete with.

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Research paper link: https://t.co/hU71XsNNUv I break down stories like this every day in my free ne...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:14:23 GMT

Research paper link: nature.com/articles/s4192…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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MIT engineers built an AI wristband that controls robots by reading your hand muscles. It works by ...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 15:14:21 GMT

MIT engineers built an AI wristband that controls robots by reading your hand muscles.

It works by using an ultrasound to capture images of the muscles and tendons in your wrist.

An AI algorithm then translates those images into the exact position of all 5 fingers, tracking 22 different ways your hand can bend, twist, and extend.

In demos, wearers directed a robotic hand to play piano just by moving their own fingers.

To put the complexity in perspective, it takes:

> 34 muscles
> 27 joints
> 100+ tendons
...Just to scroll your phone

This device captures it all from a band the size of a smartwatch.

They tested across 8 volunteers with different hand sizes, tracking everything from sign language letters to holding scissors.

The team is now collecting data from hundreds more users to train robots in surgical procedures.

Something like this could one day become the universal remote for robots and virtual worlds, and we're way closer than most people expect.

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Research paper link: https://t.co/E0cbG7laMZ I break down stories like this every day in my free ne...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:12:38 GMT

Research paper link: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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This robot can be torn apart and still keeps moving. Northwestern researchers built modular robot l...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:12:35 GMT

This robot can be torn apart and still keeps moving.

Northwestern researchers built modular robot legs that each operate as fully independent machines:

> Own battery
> Own motor
> Own sensors
> Own brain

A single module can jump, roll, and turn on its own.

Bolt a few together and they become entirely new species of robot that can walk, flip, and sprint across outdoor terrain.

Some move like lizards, others drag themselves forward like seals.

Every behavior was learned in simulation and transferred to the real world with zero fine-tuning.

The goal is to mass-produce these parts so anyone can snap them together like Lego bricks, building robots on-site in disaster zones or hazardous environments, customized to whatever the situation needs.

Wild!

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Research paper link: https://t.co/XPbDNPcU6m I break down stories like this every day in my free ne...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:13:38 GMT

Research paper link: cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Microsoft's AI can now detect cancer from a $10 tissue sample. For context, every time tumor cells ...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:13:35 GMT

Microsoft's AI can now detect cancer from a $10 tissue sample.

For context, every time tumor cells are tested, doctors create a basic microscope slide to study tissue up close.

These slides show cell shapes and structures, but they can't reveal which immune cells are actually fighting the cancer.

That deeper picture is critical for knowing if a patient will respond to immunotherapy... But the advanced imaging needed costs THOUSANDS.

So Microsoft built GigaTIME -- an AI system that generates advanced imaging from the cheap slides hospitals already collect.

The system was trained on 40 million cancer cells, then applied to over 14,000 patients across 51 hospitals spanning 24 cancer types.

The AI found over 1,200 hidden connections between immune cell behavior and tumor growth that researchers couldn't find before... because the data simply didn't exist at this scale.

When validated against 10,000 additional patients from a completely separate database, the results held up.

The model is now open source, so any hospital worldwide can use it on samples they already have.

I think this is one of the most impactful AI papers I've seen this year!

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I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:17:33 GMT

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Meta's new AI can predict your brain better than a brain scan. TRIBE v2 is a foundation model train...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:17:30 GMT

Meta's new AI can predict your brain better than a brain scan.

TRIBE v2 is a foundation model trained on 1,000+ hours of brain imaging data from 720 people.

You feed it a video, sound clip, or text, and it predicts:

> Which brain regions light up
> How strongly
> And in what order

When tested on people it had never seen, the model's predictions were actually more accurate than most real brain scans (which get distorted by heartbeats, breathing, and movement).

Researchers then replicated decades of classic neuroscience experiments entirely inside the software.

No scanner, no human subjects.

The model correctly identified the brain's face recognition center, language network, and emotional processing regions on its own.

But look at what else Meta has been building:

> Ray-Ban smart glasses that see and hear what you do
> A wristband that reads nerve signals
> And now a model that predicts how your brain responds to any piece of content

There's no evidence these are all connected... but Meta now has a complete picture of attention, from the stimulus to the neural response.

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I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:17:01 GMT

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Halter now manages nearly 650,000 cows, and is currently raising at a $2B valuation. Half the world...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:16:58 GMT

Halter now manages nearly 650,000 cows, and is currently raising at a $2B valuation.

Half the world's habitable land is farmland. This is AI being applied to one of the oldest industries on earth and I think we're going to see a lot more of this.

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An AI cow collar just created a billion-dollar company. Farmers draw boundaries on a phone app, and...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:16:37 GMT

An AI cow collar just created a billion-dollar company.

Farmers draw boundaries on a phone app, and the collars guide cows using sound and vibration.

It works by collecting over 6,000 data points per min, feeding ML models that track grazing patterns, predict disease, and detect peak breeding times.

And they call it the "Cowgorithm."

It saves farmers 20-40 hours of labor per week and has already replaced over 800,000 km of physical fencing.

The collars are also solar-powered and built with bulletproof glass to survive daily wear from 1,000-pound animals.

The founder grew up on a New Zealand dairy farm where his parents started work at 4am and often worked 100+ hours a week. He built Halter to solve the problems he watched growing up.

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Github link: https://t.co/vZ7ygd0IVT

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:35:58 GMT

Github link: void-model.github.io

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Researchers at Netflix just released a new AI model It erases objects from video, then rewrites the...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 13:26:23 GMT

Researchers at Netflix just released a new AI model

It erases objects from video, then rewrites the physics of the entire scene as if that object never existed

It's called VOID (Video Object and Interaction Deletion)

Current inpainting tools simply paint over the gap left by an object's removal, but they ignore the chain of events that would inevitably follow.

For example:
> If you remove a car from a crash scene with a basic AI tool, and the other car still looks like it collides with something invisible
> But VOID understands that once the car is gone, the other one would keep moving forward without impact

The output is still rough and limited to a few seconds of footage, but with Netflix's entire content library to train on... this tech has a very clear path to improve.

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All predictions are now live on Flood Hub for free: https://t.co/OQhcCP7ubp I break down stories li...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:13:19 GMT

All predictions are now live on Flood Hub for free: sites.research.google/floods/l/30.26…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Google's new AI can predict flash floods 24 hours before they strike. How it works: > Uses Gemini ...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:13:17 GMT

Google's new AI can predict flash floods 24 hours before they strike.

How it works:

> Uses Gemini to extract confirmed flood locations and times from global news

> Builds a dataset of past events that never formally existed.

> That dataset feeds a neural network

> The neural network combines real-time weather forecasts with local terrain, soil absorption rates, and urban density

> Can flag at-risk areas with results that match the accuracy of America's National Weather Service

> Can do this in countries that have almost no flood monitoring infrastructure at all

Flash floods kill more than 5,000 people every year, but most victims never see them coming.

A 12-hour warning alone can reduce flash flood damage by 60%.

...For billions of people without any early warning system, this could be the difference between life and death.

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Source: https://t.co/5mjehWMRgI I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Kee...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:15:32 GMT

Source: zzk273.github.io/LATENT/

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Researchers just taught a robot to play tennis. From just clips of a few amateur players performing...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:15:29 GMT

Researchers just taught a robot to play tennis.

From just clips of a few amateur players performing basic forehands, backhands, and shuffles...

...a robot learned one of the fastest, most coordinated physical skills there is.

Insane!

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Source: https://t.co/JUwoUsmGQx I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Kee...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:15:22 GMT

Source: technologyreview.com/2026/03/10/113…

I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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Every Pokémon Go player unknowingly trained future robots. Over the years, players photographed 30 ...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:15:20 GMT

Every Pokémon Go player unknowingly trained future robots.

Over the years, players photographed 30 billion images from cities around the world.

And now that data is teaching delivery robots to navigate streets.

Niantic (company behind Pokémon Go), spun out an AI company called Niantic Spatial that's turning years of player data into a visual positioning system for machines.

When 500 million people installed the game and pointed their phones at buildings, landmarks, and street corners, they were also capturing detailed location data that normal GPS can't match:

> GPS signals bounce off skyscrapers and lose accuracy by up to 50 meters in dense cities.

> That's a dealbreaker for sidewalk delivery robots that need to stop at exactly the right point.

> Niantic Spatial trained a model on those 30 billion images to pinpoint a robot's exact location based on what its cameras see, not satellite signals.

> Delivery startup Coco Robotics is the first partner, using the system to guide thousands of robots across LA, Chicago, and Miami.

Don't think anyone thought they were training robots when they were chasing Pikachu during COVID.

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More info @orcahand if you want to learn more, or even get one for yourself :-) https://t.co/6GpH9yH...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:12:23 GMT

More info @orcahand if you want to learn more, or even get one for yourself :-) orcahand.com/hardware

P.S. I break down stories like this every day in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

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This robotic hand can be 3D printed by anyone and assembled in under 8 hours. Researchers at ETH Zu...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:12:20 GMT

This robotic hand can be 3D printed by anyone and assembled in under 8 hours.

Researchers at ETH Zurich created the Orca hand, fully open-sourced with artificial bones and tendons.

For context, advanced robotic hands cost over $100,000 and require constant maintenance...

Orca costs under $2,000. 50x less (!)

A self-calibration system maps every motor to every joint, eliminating the manual tuning that tendon-driven hands usually need.

Each fingertip has built-in tactile sensors covered by silicone skin.

The hand can actually feel when it touches something, giving it feedback to grip objects without crushing them or letting them slip.

It can hold over 20 lbs, learn tasks by watching human demonstrations, and transfer skills trained in simulation directly to the real world.

The team proved its durability by having it pick up and place a cube over 2,000 times across 7 hours with no human intervention.

The full design files and source code are open source, so any robotics lab in the world can start building one today.

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I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:13:23 GMT

I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

Source: eu-startups.com/2026/02/with-o…

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This robotic hand can weave itself together in minutes. Allonic developed a process that "braids" r...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:13:20 GMT

This robotic hand can weave itself together in minutes.

Allonic developed a process that "braids" robot bodies around a 3D-printed skeleton in a single automated step.

The tech draws from the textile industry, using braided fibers instead of traditional mechanical joints and bearings.

Their braiding system grows tendon-driven structures directly onto skeletal cores, creating flexible yet durable parts without screws or assembly.

One finger only needs 4 skeletal elements. Then thousands of braided fibers wrap around them to handle force and articulation.

The software converts designs directly into machine code that runs the braiding process.

But what matters is that robotic hands like this can cost up to $30,000, ~20-30% of a humanoid robot's total price.

Allonic's braiding process could crush those costs while enabling custom designs at scale.

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I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:16:08 GMT

I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

Source: theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/m…

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A surgeon just removed a man's prostate ...and he was 1,500 miles away. From an office in London, D...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:16:05 GMT

A surgeon just removed a man's prostate ...and he was 1,500 miles away.

From an office in London, Dr. Prokar Dasgupta controlled a 4-armed robot at a hospital in Spain.

The robot was fitted with a 3D camera and connected to London via fiber optic cable with a backup 5G connection (lag was just 0.06 seconds).

The story is wild:

> 62-year-old Paul Buxton had expected to fly to England and wait months on the NHS list.

> Instead, the surgeon came to him... through a fiber optic cable.

> Dasgupta is already scheduled to perform the procedure again on March 14th, with around 20,000 surgeons watching live.

Access to care is going to look so different in the future.

For context, in many low-income countries, there are fewer than 1 trained surgeon per 100,000 people.

The US alone is projected to face a shortage of up to 20,000 surgical specialists by 2036.

...Remote surgery doesn't just make medical care more convenient, it may be the only way some patients ever receive it one day.

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I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:11:26 GMT

I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

Source: nature.com/articles/s4146…

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South Korean researchers built a paper-thin robot that squeezes through 3mm gaps and lifts 70x (!) i...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:11:23 GMT

South Korean researchers built a paper-thin robot that squeezes through 3mm gaps and lifts 70x (!) its weight.

The flexible robotic "sheet" mimicks myosin, the protein that powers muscle contractions in your body.

Inside the sheet are dozens of microscopic air chambers stacked in layers.

When air flows through them in a specific sequence, tiny feet move like muscles pushing and returning.

Each foot repeats a simple push-and-return motion, allowing the robot to travel long distances with small movements.

In demos, it navigated through a pipe with just 3 millimeters of clearance while carrying a camera 23x heavier than itself.

The team also attached it to a standard 2-finger gripper, instantly giving it the ability to rotate and reposition objects mid-air without moving the arm.

One day this could be used in minimally invasive surgery, allowing robots to navigate through the body's smallest passages.

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I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:15:21 GMT

I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Robotics in 5 min a day: therundown.ai/subscribe

Source: SWARM Biotactics linkedin.com/posts/s-wilhel…

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NATO is testing live cockroaches as AI-powered spy drones. Incredible AI engineering, but also some...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:15:18 GMT

NATO is testing live cockroaches as AI-powered spy drones.

Incredible AI engineering, but also something I kinda wish I hadn't learned about:

> Swarm Bio-tactics wired real cockroaches with electronic backpacks containing AI hardware, radios, cameras, and microphones.

> Cockroaches are steered by sending electrical signals directly into the insect's nervous system

> They can crawl through rubble, tunnels, and spaces where drones can't fly, and troops shouldn't go, transmitting data back the entire time.

> Within one year, they went from concept to field-validated systems with paying NATO customers, including the German military.

The qualities that make them useful for military recon (small, silent, nearly undetectable) are exactly what make them creepy.

...International laws weren't written with cyborg insects in mind.

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I break down stories like every day this in my free newsletter. Keep up with the latest in AI/Roboti...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:13:21 GMT

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Source: wired.com/story/say-good…

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Fun fact: The first transatlantic internet cable is being pulled off the ocean floor right now. Alm...

Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:13:18 GMT

Fun fact: The first transatlantic internet cable is being pulled off the ocean floor right now.

Almost no one knows it's happening.

TAT-8 went live in 1988. First fiber-optic cable to connect Europe and the US.

Isaac Asimov called it a "maiden voyage across the sea on a beam of light."

The engineers behind it genuinely believed it might be the last transatlantic cable the world would ever need. The tech was so far ahead of copper they thought global bandwidth was solved.

But it filled to capacity within 18 months.

That forced the industry to immediately start laying more cables, a race between demand and infrastructure that still hasn't stopped.

After developing a fault too expensive to fix, the cable was retired in 2002. It's been sitting on the seabed ever since.

Now a small crew aboard this ship is dragging it back up.

Meanwhile, Meta announced Project Waterworth last year, a 50,000 kilometer cable stretching across 5 continents, partly to feed the data demands of AI.

...The entire global internet runs on cables like this, built and maintained by a few thousand people working in places most of us will never see.

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