Astribot says its $18,000 humanoid is now on sale in the US. On 30 September, at the IROS robotics conference in Pittsburgh, Astribot showed its compact T1 humanoid in North America for the first time, with US pricing starting at $18,000 and orders open now, the company says. Founded in Shenzhen in December 2022, Astribot also builds the S1 research humanoid and its own AI models, including Lumo-2, which the company says ran T1's booth demo of packing items into a backpack on its own. T1 rolls on a wheeled base, according to coverage of its China launch, and Astribot lists it at about 1.55 metres tall with up to 5 kg of payload per arm. The company pitches it to developers, with an operating system open to outside apps and over-the-air updates. The same robot launched in China in May from around $14,000, according to Xinhua, which puts the US starting price roughly $4,000 higher on a rough comparison. The bigger picture: a sub-$20,000 humanoid built for developers widens who can afford to build on one. It also arrives under tighter US rules, since the FCC added new models of foreign-made mobile robots, such as humanoids, to its Covered List in July. This is a trade-show debut and a price list, with US customers, unit volumes, the configuration behind the $18,000 and T1's status under the FCC rules still to be disclosed. The proof to watch is the first T1 delivered to a US lab.

The insane landscape of modern drone warfare. Including "dragon drones" dropping molten iron (thermite) onto structures and trenches.

China is getting closer to turning rocket launches into a process that begins on the ground before reaching the sky. The “天弓” or “Heavenly Bow” project uses a superconducting electromagnetic track to accelerate the rocket to high speeds before its engines ignite, reducing the fuel needed during the most difficult stage of launch, while increasing payload capacity and lowering the cost of reaching orbit. China has already conducted real tests of the technology in Sichuan and is working to adapt the Ceres-2 rocket to the system, with the goal of attempting the first electromagnetic-assisted orbital launch by 2028.