Davis Wilson:

This Kickboxing Robot Is Just $6,000 and Could Be the Humanoid Breakthrough We’ve Been Waiting For

The race to put a humanoid robot in every home is accelerating, and the $5,900 Unitree R1 robot might just sprint to the front of the pack.

Unitree unveiled the pint-sized but "powerful" android on Friday with a new YouTube video and then followed with more details on an official product page on their website.

In the video, the Unitree R1 Intelligent Companion showcases its remarkable movement skills, which include cartwheels, handstands, boxing, kickboxing moves, and even running down a hill. The robot also comes equipped with binocular vision backed by LLM image and voice identification capabilities.

As for what $5,900 might get you, the R1 is about four feet tall and weighs roughly 55 lbs, so it's the size of a child. It features the aforementioned binocular camera, a 4-microphone array, speakers, an 8-core CPU and GPU (no word on whose silicon, but Unitree has been partnering with Nvidia), 26 joints, and hands that look as if they may be permanently fixed into fists. There's a removable battery that promises one hour of activity.

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James Altucher:

OpenAI Could Drop GPT-5 in August, Report Says

On Thursday, The Verge reported that ChatGPT 5 from OpenAI will be arriving in August. We were already expecting a summer launch, but big models are often subject to delays.

We don't know much officially yet, except that GPT-5 is actively being tested. On July 23, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat down with podcaster Theo Von, and he brought up GPT-5 repeatedly, saying, "5.0 I think is going to be great."

Currently, ChatGPT users can toggle between different models, from GPT-4 to advanced reasoning models. OpenAI also has tools like Sora, for video generation, and Operator, a web-based AI agent.

However, Tech Radar points to rumors from early testers that GPT-5 will combine these various tools into a single interface, which would let you generate images, conduct deep research, or write code.

With each new model, OpenAI expands ChatGPT's context window. That term refers to how much data a model can "remember" when responding to a prompt. ChatGPT developers and users are actively calling for larger context windows (the exact size varies by model), and we'd be shocked if this wasn't a part of GPT-5.

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Ray Blanco:

MIT’s Sucker Fish-Inspired Device Sticks Inside Your Gut To Deliver Drugs Efficiently

There's a type of ocean fish called the Remora that has an oval slatted disc on the top of its head which it uses like a suction cup to stick to sharks and other larger marine creatures.

This curious family of fish develops mutualistic arrangements with host animals in order to stay safe in treacherous waters, while also keeping ectoparasites at bay.

But it's that suction cup-like organ that's inspired Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers to create a capsule-sized platform that can stick to a wide range of surfaces when submerged in water or even acidic conditions.

That means it can be fitted to oral medications meant for long-term drug delivery in your digestive tract, and even to aquatic robots for underwater research.

This bioinspired device, dubbed MUSAS (short for Mechanical Underwater Soft Adhesion System) doesn't use any power or batteries. It consists of a stainless steel 'backbone' that supports silicone rubber and temperature-responsive smart materials shaped into rows of little angled plates called lamellae – similar to the remora's plunger-like disc.

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