logo
Meet the human-like robot on its first day of work

Meet the human-like robot on its first day of work

Sky News18-03-2025

A humanoid machine called Apollo has just taken a tentative, slightly jerky, but significant step forward in the robot revolution.
The 5'8" tall robot performed the first public demonstration in a real-world setting of a real-world task - in this case assembling an engine part - entirely autonomously.
Clicking two parts together with a twist of its servo-controlled wrists, and handing it to a human colleague is a basic task. But it's also an important moment in the much-hyped world of human-like robot development.
"This is a really big day for us," says Jeff Cardenas, chief executive of Apptronik, the US company behind Apollo.
"We're excited to show this off, excited for the public to see the robot live and in person."
Mercedes-Benz has announced a multimillion-pound investment in Apptronik and is trialling a handful of the humanoid robots at its factory in Berlin and another in Hungary.
Investors and industrial firms - particularly car makers with long experience of using robots in manufacturing - have been closely following the development of human-like robots.
The costs of small, lightweight components have fallen as artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and computer vision technology have led to rapid advances in the field of robots that can emulate human movement and tasks.
But despite a rising number of increasingly impressive-looking cyborgs being unveiled by tech companies in the US and Asia, few have taken their first steps out of the lab.
The Apollo robot looks small and underpowered surrounded by the huge robotic arms that weld, bolt and inspect Mercedes' latest cars at the Berlin-Marienfelde plant.
But hosting a robot with a human "form-factor" is more than just a photo opportunity, according to Mercedes-Benz.
"There's one big advantage," says Jorg Burzer, head of production and supply chain management at the German car maker.
"A humanoid robot is flexible, so you can basically introduce it to an assembly line or internal logistics or quality inspection... you can basically move it from one place to another."
Introducing a new assembly line, or upgrading an old one with traditional robotic arms is a major investment.
A robot that can be adapted to a range of tasks and work alongside humans would avoid that investment.
With hands and feet like ours, they can operate tools and work in the same workspaces as people.
Apollo can lift more than 25kg and potentially perform repetitive tasks that are, in the words of humanoid robot developers, too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans.
The purpose of the trial is to establish which tasks humanoid robots can usefully do and help improve the machine learning and dexterity required to do more.
"We want to try to find out what is really possible," says Mr Burzer.
"It's also very important to test how a humanoid robot can be integrated in running production together with our colleagues working here every day."
Texas-based Apptronik is reluctant to make claims as bold as some of their rivals.
"Everyone's ready for a robot to come into their home and do all of their laundry and all the things that they don't want to do. But it's very early on," says Mr Cardenas.
"Take the analogy of the shift to the personal computer. We're in the early '80s so at the very beginning."
Investors seem to believe in a robot-dominated future. One recent forecast sees the humanoid market growing 20-fold in the next eight years, with predictions of a population of tens of millions of the machines by 2050.
One major hurdle is the AI brains behind them.
Apptronik admits a truly "general purpose" robot capable of functioning outside a predictable and controlled environment like a factory won't be possible until computer intelligence can understand the real world like we do.
So-called "world models" are very much a work in progress for AI developers.
So the important questions, like when humanoid robots will steal our jobs, or whether they will go rogue and rise up against us can wait... for a little while at least.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Deloitte promotes five Glasgow staff to partner level
Deloitte promotes five Glasgow staff to partner level

Glasgow Times

time3 hours ago

  • Glasgow Times

Deloitte promotes five Glasgow staff to partner level

Deloitte has announced seven new partners in Scotland, including five Glasgow-based staff members, as part of a nationwide round of 60 partner promotions in 2025. Glasgow's newly promoted partners are Jennifer Donnachie, Laura MacDougall, Lyndsay MacGregor, Marc McNulty, and Paul Cowley. Deloitte said the team brings a "wealth of experience" to their new roles, with Mr Cowley marking 28 years at the firm. Ms Donnachie and Ms MacGregor started their careers at the firm as graduates in the Tax team, while Ms MacDougall and Mr Cowley followed the Audit & Assurance route. Read more: Major London contract gives jobs boost for Glasgow engineering firm Across Scotland, Patrick Werner in Edinburgh and Sarah McGavin in Aberdeen have also been promoted. The promotions span a number of areas, including Deloitte's Tax & Legal, Audit & Assurance, and Technology & Transformation businesses. Overall, 495 people have been promoted within Deloitte's Scottish practice this year, including 13 who have been appointed to director. New Deloitte partners Sarah McGavin, Laura MacDougall, and Patrick Werner with Angela Mitchel - practice senior partner for Scotland and Northern Ireland, (Image: Supplied) Read more: Viral Glasgow food stall 'expecting' as team set to open exciting new restaurant Angela Mitchell, practice senior partner for Scotland and Northern Ireland, said: "I'd like to extend my congratulations to this year's partners on their well-earned promotions. "These appointments reflect their expertise, commitment, and leadership, and it is particularly encouraging to see so many of our new partners have started their careers as graduates, highlighting the firm's focus on developing talent from within. "I'd also like to acknowledge all of our people who have been promoted across our Scottish offices this year, including those who have stepped up to director. "Their achievements reflect the depth of talent we are proud to nurture across the business. "As we continue to grow our presence across Scotland, we remain focused on developing the talent and leadership that will shape the future of our business." The announcement follows the recent appointments of Hazel Gray and David Mitchell as senior partners for Aberdeen and Glasgow respectively.

Tesla's self-driving future under threat from China's auto, tech giants
Tesla's self-driving future under threat from China's auto, tech giants

Reuters

time3 hours ago

  • Reuters

Tesla's self-driving future under threat from China's auto, tech giants

AUSTIN, Texas June 10 (Reuters) - Chinese electric-vehicle makers led by BYD beat Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab in the competition to produce affordable electric vehicles. Now, many of those same fierce competitors are pulling into the passing lane in the global race to produce self-driving cars. BYD shook up China's smart-EV industry earlier this year by offering its 'God's Eye' driver-assistance package for free, undercutting the technology Tesla sells for nearly $9,000 in China. 'With God's Eye, Tesla's strategy starts to fall apart,' said Shenzhen-based BYD investor Taylor Ogan, an American who has owned several Teslas and driven BYD cars with God's Eye, which he called more capable than Tesla's 'Full Self-Driving' (FSD). It's not just BYD ( opens new tab. Other Chinese auto and tech companies are offering affordable EVs with FSD-like technology for a relative pittance. China's Leapmotor and Xpeng, for instance, offer systems capable of highway and urban driving in $20,000 vehicles. A slew of Chinese firms are chasing the same technology, an industry push backed by China's government. BYD's assisted-driving hardware costs are far lower than Tesla's, according to analyses performed for Reuters by companies that dismantle and analyze vehicles for automakers. The comparisons, which have not been previously reported, show that BYD's costs to procure components and build a system with radar and lidar are about the same as Tesla's FSD, which doesn't have such sensors. That undercuts Tesla's unusual technological approach, which aims to save costs by nixing such sensors and relying solely on cameras and artificial intelligence. The rising competition from Chinese smart-EV players is among the chief problems confronting Tesla CEO Elon Musk after his rocky tenure as a Trump administration advisor as he refocuses on his business empire - as Tesla vehicle sales are tanking globally. The stakes are made higher by a moment-of-truth challenge this month in Tesla's home base of Austin, Texas, where it plans to launch a robotaxi trial with 10 or 20 vehicles after a decade of Musk's unfulfilled promises to deliver self-driving Teslas. Tesla did not respond when reached for comment about its Chinese competitors. Previously, Musk has described Chinese car companies as the most competitive in the world. Chinese competition was one factor driving Tesla's strategic pivot away from mass-market EVs last year, when Reuters reported it had killed plans to build an all-new EV expected to cost $25,000. Musk has since staked Tesla's future instead on self-driving robotaxis, the hopes for which now underpin the vast majority of the automaker's stock-market value of roughly $1 trillion. Now Tesla faces the same stiff competition on vehicle autonomy from many of the same Chinese automakers who undercut its affordable-EV plans. Adding to the challenge are tech firms including Chinese smartphone giant Huawei, which supplies autonomous-driving technology to major Chinese automakers. Short of full autonomy, today's driver-assistance systems offer a critical competitive edge in China, the world's largest car market, where Tesla sales are falling amid a protracted price war among scores of homegrown EV brands. Tesla is further handicapped by China's regulations preventing it from using data collected by Tesla cars in China to train the artificial intelligence underpinning FSD. Tesla has been negotiating with Chinese officials, so far without success, to get permission to transfer such data back to the United States for analysis. Tesla's competitors in China do benefit from subsidies and other forms of policy support from Beijing for advanced assisted driving technology. Their advantages also stem from another consequential factor: cut-throat smart-EV competition that has characterized their industry over the past decade. The resulting EV boom created economies of scale and the industry's tendency to forgo some profit margins to expand new technologies' market penetration quickly, leading to lower manufacturing costs. BYD investor Ogan, of Shenzhen-based Snow Bull Capital, has a front-row seat to China's autonomous-tech battleground. He recently drove several BYD models equipped with God's Eye, he said, and didn't have to take over driving in any of them while traveling the congested streets of Shenzhen, a bustling southern China megalopolis of 18 million people. Another notable smart-EV player in China is Huawei, experts say. Huawei lends its technology and branding to a half dozen automakers including heavyweights Chery, SAIC and Changan, and has lower-profile partnerships with more than a dozen other carmakers, Huawei representatives said. Reuters journalists rode in an Aito M9 — a luxury electric SUV from Seres with Huawei driver-assistance technology — as it navigated Shenzhen roadways in April. With a driver's hands off the wheel, the vehicle exited a highway seamlessly into a congested urban zone, where the M9 proceeded cautiously and slowed to a crawl as a construction worker appeared like he might walk into the roadway. At one point the vehicle turned right and slowly drifted left to avoid two men unloading boxes from a parked truck. The vehicle then parallel parked itself at Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters. Huawei was among several Chinese companies, including automakers Zeekr, Changan and Xpeng, that touted progress towards fully-autonomous cars at April's Shanghai auto show, even as Beijing announced a new marketing crackdown on terms such as 'smart' and 'intelligent' driving in the wake of a deadly crash in a Xiaomi vehicle involving driver-assistance technology. Huawei said it's ready to undergo a new validation regime being developed by Chinese regulators to certify so-called Level 3 driving systems, meaning they are capable enough to allow drivers to look away unless notified by the system to take over. Zeekr, a luxury brand of China auto giant Geely, also plans to soon sell cars with Level 3 systems. Tesla has yet to release such an "unsupervised" version of FSD because its technology needs more training to operate without a driver's hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Tesla plans to launch self-driving robotaxis in Austin this month. Little is known about its plans. The company has said it aims to initially deploy between 10 and 20 fare-collecting driverless robotaxis in restricted geographic areas of the city, which Tesla has not publicly identified. Chinese EV makers are moving quickly to develop driver-assistance systems in a market where car-buyers are demanding them at a faster pace than in other regions, analysts say. Their ability to do so at lower costs poses the biggest threat to Tesla's new autonomy-based business model. BYD buyers can get an FSD-comparable version of God's Eye as a standard feature in cars priced at about $30,000. The cheapest FSD-equipped Tesla in China is a Model 3 selling for about $41,500. According to an analysis by A2MAC1, a Paris-based tear-down firm that benchmarks components, the mid-level God's Eye version most comparable to Tesla's FSD runs on an Nvidia computing chip with data collected through 12 cameras, five radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and one lidar sensor, at a cost of $2,105. That compares to $2,360 for Tesla's FSD, which uses cameras without sensors and two AI chips, the firm estimates. Cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors are 40% cheaper in China than comparable devices in Europe and the United States, A2MAC1 estimates. Lidar sensors cost about 20% less, the firm says. Sensor costs have fallen because China's EV boom created economies of scale, said A2MAC1 engineer Elena Zhelondz. The fierce competition also pushed carmakers and suppliers to accept lower profits on driver-assistance equipment, she said. BYD's 22% gross margin will likely fall as it gives away God's Eye but it will benefit from a vehicle-sales boost, said Chris McNally, head of global automotive and mobility research for advisory firm Evercore. Falling behind the Chinese brands on driver-assistance technology would compound Tesla's challenges in China, where it's already losing market share to rivals including BYD, which sells an entry-level EV for less than $10,000. The growing scale of BYD and others could also provide a technological advantage: Racking up more miles on China roads helps train the AI technology needed to perfect automated-driving systems. BYD has a 'clear and ongoing market-share driving advantage' over Tesla in gathering such on-road data to refine God's Eye, Evercore's McNally said, adding that advantage might only increase as offering God's Eye for free helps sell more BYD vehicles. BYD's scale also helps lower costs by providing uncommon leverage over suppliers. In November, a BYD executive in charge of passenger-vehicle operations wrote to suppliers telling them that the automaker sold 4.2 million vehicles last year (more than double the number of Teslas sold) because of 'technical innovation, economies of scale, and a low-cost supply chain.' The executive noted the new year would likely bring more growth, but also fiercer competition. Without specifically mentioning God's Eye, he ended the letter by asking the suppliers for an across-the-board 10% price cut on all parts and systems starting on January 1, calling the new year a final 'knockout round.'

5 Liverpool stars at risk of exit once Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez arrive
5 Liverpool stars at risk of exit once Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez arrive

Daily Mirror

time4 hours ago

  • Daily Mirror

5 Liverpool stars at risk of exit once Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez arrive

Florian Wirtz could set Liverpool back around £118m if he arrives at Anfield this summer and the club's spending could hit around £200m at this early stage, meaning they will be forced to sanction some outgoings Liverpool will be forced to balance the books this summer should they complete lucrative deals for Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez, who are the club's top transfer targets. The Reds are being quoted around £118million by Bayer Leverkusen for German playmaker Wirtz in what is set to be the most expensive deal in Premier League history. Bournemouth left-back Kerkez, meanwhile, should set Liverpool back around £45m, which would take their summer spending to almost than £200m on three players after completing a move for Jeremie Frimpong. ‌ Liverpool will need to make sure they remain within the Premier League's PSR financial rules and therefore Arne Slot will have to sanction a handful of exits. ‌ After winning the Premier League, it makes sense for the Dutchman to trim his squad slightly and freshen it up. There are a handful of players whose futures are uncertain at Anfield and could be on the chopping block. Mirror Football has taken a look at five players who could be on their way out of Liverpool once they have started splashing the cash this summer. Harvey Elliott The midfielder has become a clear candidate for the exit door at Liverpool after he recently spoke out to confirm he wants to play regularly and doesn't want to "waste years of his career" on the subs bench. Elliott played just 18 times in the Premier League last season as Liverpool romped to the title, with 16 of those coming as a substitute. But should Wirtz arrive at Anfield, that could further limit his opportunities and Liverpool will know that selling Elliott would stand them in good stead as far as PSR is concerned because he is a home grown player. ‌ Elliott said: "It's just a situation that me and the team have to have a conversation about because I'm coming into an age now where I'm 22, I'm going to be 23 next season," said Elliott when asked if he is considering leaving Liverpool. "I don't really want to be wasting years on my career because it's a short career. You don't know what's going to happen. I need to reflect. I need to see if I'm content in doing what I'm doing and how can I improve as a player because that's the most important thing. "I just want to improve and be the best possible version of myself. If that's to go somewhere else, then it's a decision that I'm going to have to make and I just need to see what happens. Nothing makes me want to leave. I love the club, I love the fans, the team. I support them as well. But most importantly, it's just about what's best for my career." ‌ Federico Chiesa The Italian has barely played for Liverpool since joining from Juventus for £10m last summer, with injuries significantly halting his progress. In fact, Chiesa started just four times in all competitions and featured only 14 times in total - scoring twice - as he struggled to make an impact for Slot. Chiesa looks way down the pecking order at Anfield and there are also still doubts over his fitness levels after experiencing a number of setbacks and the Daily Mail have claimed he is considering moving back to Italy. ‌ The player himself admitted he would sit down with his agent and family to discuss his future but said he "wouldn't mind" staying with Liverpool despite enduring "frustration" with his situation. He told Corrirere dello Sport: "The year is over. But it's an experience I would do again. Soon I will sit down at the table with the club, Fali (Ramadani, his agent) and my family to find the best solution. I wouldn't mind staying in Liverpool at all. ‌ "In the autumn Liverpool were going three times as fast as the others, an incredible intensity. At the beginning I felt the frustration… The desire to play was there, I put it aside, I understood the situation." Darwin Nunez Since joining Liverpool for £85m in 2022, Nunez has been something of a 'nearly man' - always chipping in with goals but never becoming the main man at Liverpool. There was so much hope for the Uruguayan after he arrived from Benfica off the back of netting 34 times from 41 appearances. ‌ The forward can pop up with an important goal and clearly has talent but he is yet to justify his huge price tag and continues to be only a squad player under Slot. This season he only started eight times in the Premier League but it was in the cup competitions where he made his mark as he chipped in with seven goals across the season - down from 18 in 2023-24. ‌ Nunez is now being linked with a move away after being linked with Arsenal and even Manchester United, while Saudi Pro League clubs are also believed to be weighing up a move. With Luis Diaz appearing to be the first choice striker at Liverpool, Foot Mercato have claimed Al-Hilal are among those monitoring the player. Kostas Tsimikas With Kerkez coming in, it wouldn't make logical sense for Liverpool to have three left-backs, so you'd bank on one of the other two leaving the club. ‌ While Andy Robertson has appeared to fall out of favour under Slot in the last season, he remains the more experienced option who has been with Liverpool for eight seasons. Tsimikas will be the more frustrated player if - after he began to finally challenge Robertson at left-back - Kerkez comes in and replaces him immediately, therefore he could be looking to leave in the near future. ‌ Various reports have claimed Liverpool don't see Tsimikas as their main left-back long term and that he could be used as one of the players to make way for more financial leeway. He has played 114 games for Liverpool in total and clocked 28 appearances in the 2024-25 campaign but when the Reds search for players to shift, Tsimikas should be high up on the list. Joe Gomez Gomez nearly left Liverpool for Newcastle last season before the Magpies pulled the plug on the deal and was hoping for new lease of life after Slot took over from Jurgen Klopp. ‌ But Gomez had a hugely frustrating campaign that was hampered by hamstring injuries - which forced him to miss a total of 28 games. He hasn't played since February and only managed a total of 17 appearances in all competitions. ‌ Now, Slot could be ready to cash in on the injury-prone defender if an offer comes in for him this summer. According to the Liverpool Echo, Gomez is facing a "transfer crossroads" moment and it would not be a surprise if he left the club after ten years on Merseyside.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store