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Watch Sony’s elite ping-pong robot beat top-ranked players

2026-04-22T14:41:37-04:00

Ace is the first robot that can beat the best human players while following the official rules of table tennis. | Image: Sony AI

Humans have been building ping-pong playing robots for decades, such as Omron's FORPHEUS that challenged amateur competitors at CES 2017. What sets Ace apart from the rest is that the robot, which was developed by Sony's AI division, is the first that can hold its own against top-ranked human players and occasionally even beat them in matches that follow the official rules of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

AI is already capable of besting humans at games like Chess and Go, but physical games pose a much greater challenge as robots have to be engineered to match the speed and responsiveness of the human mind and body. To b …

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Humanoid ‘Lightning’ robot smashes the half-marathon record

2026-04-20T12:03:52-04:00

The autonomous “Lightning” robot finished the race in under an hour. | Photo: VCG / Getty Images

An autonomous scarlet robot named "Lightning" finished a 13-mile race in Beijing on Sunday in just 50 minutes and 26 seconds, less than half the time of last year's fastest robot, which took two hours and 40 minutes. As Reuters reports, Du Xiaodi, one of the engineers who developed Lightning at smartphone company Honor, said the robot "was in development for a year, fitted with legs 90 to 95 cm (35 to 37 inches) long to mimic elite human runners and liquid cooling technology used in its smartphones."

Lightning not only won the half-marathon, beating all 12,000 human runners, but also beat the human world record of 57 minutes and 20 seconds …

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Ecovacs’ new robovac spots and pretreats dried stains using powerful jets

2026-04-14T11:25:31-04:00

The robovac sprays a mixture of water and cleaning solution to loosen stains. | Image: Ecovacs

Ecovacs announced a new addition to its Deebot line of autonomous cleaners with a new feature that could make the robovac better at cleaning floors in a single pass. The Deebot X12 OmniCyclone uses cameras and AI to identify dried stains on floors, such as muddy paw prints or spilled soda. Before cleaning the stain with its roller mop, the X12 blasts a mixture of water and cleaning solution in the bot's path to soften tricky messes, making them easier to scrub away.

The Deebot X12 OmniCyclone is available starting today for $1,499 through the company's online store and Amazon. That price includes the robovac's OMNI Station dock, which empti …

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I met Olaf — the Frozen robot who might be the future of Disney Parks

2026-03-20T20:10:33-04:00

Olaf, a Disney Imagineering robot that will greet guests at Disney parks. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

You know Olaf. Before KPop Demon Hunters, before the Wicked movies, it was Disney's Frozen that blasted show tunes like "Let It Go" and "Into the Unknown" into our lives. My little girls loved belting those tunes.

So when I met Olaf, the Disney Imagineering robot, I kept thinking: I can't wait for my kids to meet him too.

It's a weird thought, really, because this Olaf isn't a "he" and can't carry on a conversation. Why do I keep thinking "I met him" when he's largely a remote-controlled puppet teleoperated by a Steam Deck gaming handheld?

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Is this the best robot Disney's ever made? Frozen's snowman Olaf will soon greet guests …

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Dyson’s new stain-spotting AI robovac is now available

2026-04-08T12:09:22-04:00

Dyson’s bringing the lasers from its handheld vacuums to its new autonomous cleaner. | Image: Dyson

Dyson's latest autonomous robot vacuum cleaner first debuted during IFA 2025 in Berlin last September. The Spot+Scrub Ai Robot is the company's follow-up to its 360 Vis Nav robovac launched in 2023 with upgrades that include a new self-cleaning roller mop, a multifunction dock, and lasers that can identify stains. It's available now through Dyson's physical stores and website, Amazon, and Best Buy for $1,199 - which is the same price as its less capable predecessor.

Dyson has abandoned the vision-based navigation system used on its earlier robovacs for lidar on the Spot+Scrub. It works alongside AI to recognize and avoid obstacles like soc …

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Nosh Robotics’ $1,500 robot chef doesn’t need any help with dinner

2026-03-10T17:20:26-04:00

Anyone who finds themselves wishing they could spend less time on meal prep might have a solution in the form of the recently-launched Nosh One from Nosh Robotics, an AI kitchen appliance that can autonomously cook for you.

All users need to do is load their ingredients into the robot's tray then select a recipe. The Nosh One adds the ingredients into its pot at the appropriate time, stirs everything, uses AI to monitor the ingredients with a built-in camera, and completes the meal without needing any intervention along the way. Nosh's app notifies users when the meal is ready. They can also use the app to view and edit recipes and schedul …

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iRobot’s Roomba Mini can clean where its larger robovacs can’t reach

2026-03-10T18:29:54-04:00

iRobot has announced its first new robot since the company filed for bankruptcy last December and was later acquired by China's Picea Robotics. At just 9.5-inches in diameter, the new Roomba Mini is half the size of iRobot's entry-level 105 series robovacs that launched last March, allowing the vacuum to access and clean spaces that are too narrow for larger robots.

The Roomba Mini was originally developed for smaller Japanese homes, but iRobot is expanding its availability to the United Kingdom where it's now available for £379, and the rest of Europe for €399. Color options include back, pink, white, and mint. The company currently has n …

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This phone starts fires on purpose

2026-03-06T08:30:15-05:00

Until now, most mobile phone companies have worked to ensure their phones won't start fires. (Occasional Samsung devices excepted, of course.) But this week at Mobile World Congress, we found a company that dared to go in a different direction. Oukitel's WP63 rugged smartphone includes a built-in fire starter, and this is what it looks like:

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Dominic Preston joins Nilay to explain the existence of this particular mobile device, as well as wrap up all the weird and wonderful gadgets he and the team saw at MWC. There was also a "robot phone" that dances to (and so far, only to) "Believer" by Imagin …

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Honor’s Robot Phone is a bad robot, an interesting camera, and maybe your friend

2026-03-08T11:47:30-04:00

The friend-shaped phone.

After over four months of teasing, I've finally been able to see Honor's Robot Phone in action. And after all that, it looks pretty legit - just so long as you weren't actually expecting a robot.

The Robot Phone could more accurately be called the Gimbal Phone, though I suspect the company's marketing department would disagree. Its big hardware innovation is a 200-megapixel camera mounted on a gimbal arm, which unfolds from the back of the phone when you need it, and retracts behind a cover when you don't.

It unlocks a set of camera features much like you'd find in a DJI Osmo Pocket. There's improved stabilization thanks to the gimbal, mea …

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Honor claims its Robot Phone will launch later this year

2026-03-04T10:02:34-05:00

I saw the camera arm unfold from this demo phone, though it didn’t do much else.

Honor has revealed more details of its so-called Robot Phone at MWC 2026, and finally showed a working unit in action alongside a dancing humanoid robot. Specs are still thin on the ground, but the company has confirmed it plans to release the phone in the second half of this year - though I've been told that will only be in China.

The Robot Phone doesn't quite live up to the name - really it's a smartphone with a gimbal-stabilized camera arm crammed into the back. Honor has now revealed that the main camera will have a 200-megapixel sensor, and is built into what it says is the smallest 4DoF gimbal system in the industry, though those are …

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