The State Department has enlisted Starlink, the satellite internet service run by the Elon Musk company SpaceX, to support its staff in Jamaica in the event that Hurricane Melissa, a category 5 storm that made landfall Tuesday, disrupts communications on the island nation, the agency says.
We have pre-provisioned Starlink in Jamaica and will use it for communications if necessary, a spokesperson for the agency said Tuesday night. If the damage is as bad as expected, the agency is likely to use the service for live service in Jamaica, another State Department official told Fast Company.On-location agency staff are likely to use Starshield — a version of the Starlink service tailored for national-security applications — at the embassy, the second official says. The consumer service Starlink might be used by smaller teams who may need to travel within the country, the person added.
The move shows how critical satellite-based internet has become in natural disasters, particularly when ground-based communications services go offline. And it also demonstrates just how much the U.S. government has come to rely on technology made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s technology, which now includes everything from rocket launch services to consumer satellite internet.
The State Department is one of a growing number of US government agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security, now using Starlink for a variety of purposes as varied as videocalling, real-time data support, and research in Antarctica.
As SpaceX has ramped up sales of Starlink to the government, it has also built Starshield, a national-security-related service used within the Defense Department. The State Department has bought both services, deploying the SpaceX technology at several embassies.
(The relationship between the two services has been murky. A Starlink outage earlier this summer also took Starshield offline.)
Relatedly, SpaceX often offers free Starlink services during emergencies. When asked what the company was doing to prepare for Hurricane Melissa, the companys media team directed Fast Company to an announcement explaining that people in Jamaica and the Bahamas could receive free service until the end of November. Customers who had already set up accounts, even those that were paused or suspended, will automatically receive a free credit, while those hoping to sign up for the first time can create a support ticket, the company says.
While Starlink service can be a life-saving tool during an emergency, critics have raised concerns about the U.S. governments growing dependence on the technology — as well as on Musks influence on SpaceX. Earlier this year, for instance, Musk ordered that some Starlink terminals used by Ukrainian forces be taken offline amid their attempt to retake territory from Russia, Reuters reported.
NASA wants to reopen competition on its moon lander, a multi-billion-dollar contract for a new space vehicle that will help support one of Americas most ambitious missions yet: going back to the moon — and for good.
The space agencys decision to reopen the contract for the Artemis mission moon lander renews competition between SpaceX, which had previously won the award, and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezoss space startup. But it also sets off a competition between Texas and Washington, the two companies respective home states. Politicians long fought over American space spending, as Fast Company explained a while back. But its not clear where they stand, at least for now.
Several congressional offices that would be impacted by the space agency opening up the contract did not respond to a request for comment, including the office of Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn (the Texas delegation), as well as the Republican and Democratic sides of the Commerce Committee, whose portfolio includes space issues.
A spokesperson for Rep. Vincente Gonzalez, the congressman who represents Starbase, Texas where SpaceX is testing its heavy launch vehicle Starship didnt respond to a request for comment. The office of Sen. Maria Cantwell, who represents Washington and frequently touts Blue Origin, also did not respond.
Congressional delegations have previously advocated for Artemis contracts to come to their states. Back when SpaceX first won the lunar lander contract, Cantwell pushed for NASA to give a second company a lunar contract, including through legislation. Even amid doubts with SpaceX, Cruz, who represents SpaceX homestate Texas, has said its too late for the U.S. to leave Starship behind.
The size of a small building, Starship is the platform that Elon Musk thinks will bring humanity to Mars. Its also the vehicle that, for several years, NASA has been planning to use for an earlier phase of the Artemis program. (The Artemis 3 mission that SpaceX is supposed to work on, currently scheduled for late 2027, will involve a weekslong stay on the lunar surface, though NASA has ambitions for returning to the moon in later years, including to build a lunar base camp).
The challenge is that Starship a key part of this plan has suffered failures during several recent test flights. And now, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is complaining that SpaceX is behind schedule. A NASA panel said as much in September.
Blue Origin still has a lot catching up to do. The company has yet to build a similarly large low Earth orbit satellite network, or to send manned space missions into orbit. (The company has accomplished suborbital flights). But Blue Origin has also won lunar lander work from NASA for the Artemis V mission, a later phase of the new moon program.
In the past, NASA has expressed interest in maintaining at least two options in order to ensure a regular cadence of Moon landings, a NASA official said when the government announced an award for Blue Origins lunar platform, which the company calls Blue Moon.
Theres also Lockheed Martin, which might also put its hat in the ring.
Of course, its unclear what might be going on between policymakers privately, or whether the rift between Elon Musk and the Trump administration has settled. Another factor is growing concern that the U.S. is falling behind China on lunar ambitions.
Secretary Duffy has also said that Trump wants some kind of lunar accomplishment before he leaves office. In the meantime, much of NASA is closed because of the government shutdown.
After Zohran Mamdani’s campaign aired a commercial that used a Knicks-style campaign logo that wrote out “Zohran” over an image of a basketball, the NBA team asked them to take it down.
The Mamdani ad, which aired during the New York Knicks’s opening game last week, shows black-and-white footage of a pick-up basketball game in a park as the narrator says “New York, this is our year.” There’s shots of Mamdani campaigning interspersed with the pick-up game, and the narrator says “Things can be different. Hope is back,” before the Knicks-style logo flashes on the screen over the sound of drums.
[Images: New York Knicks, Zohran for NYC]
The Knicks, whose owner donated last year to Mayor Eric Adams, weren’t happy with the knock-off logo and sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Mamdani campaign asking them to knock it off, according to The New York Post, which first reported the letter. The campaign says it will comply and pulled the ads on Friday.
The Mamdani campaign said it was adjusting the ad, and “while the Knicks might not be able to publicly support our campaign, were proud to publicly support our NY Knicks,” campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement.
But it’s not the first campaign to lean on the visual tropes of beloved brand to attempt to say something about hometown pride or a candidate’s values in a single image.
Before Mamdani’s Knicks logo, there’s been a history of branding knock-offs
In 2022, Tim Short, a Republican state legislative candidate used a logo designed to look like the Fox News logo, searchlights and all, but the searchlights were later taken off without explanation. That same year, Matt Jenkins, a Democrat and U.S. House candidate in New Jersey, was hit with a cease-and-desist letter from Wawa, after the convenience store chain noticed the similarities between the bird in his campaign’s logo and theirs.
Jenkins said in a social media post at the time that the design was intentional. “For a lot of people in our district, Wawa represents them. When we launched this race to replace Chris Smith, I wanted our logo to feel instantly familiar,” he wrote.
And that’s what these knock-off logos are meant to signal. By leaning on a familiar logo, they visually convey that a candidate is “one of us,” as if to say, this candidate is a Knicks/Fox News/Wawa/[enter brand name here] fan, just like you.
[Images: Cambell’s, Campbell for Congress]
Visual parody doesn’t equal a winning brand
Brands, though, are quick to distance themselves. After a U.S. House candidate in Michigan with the last name Campbell refused to comply with a cease-and-desist letter from the Campbell’s Company over the candidate’s logo designed like one of its soup cans, the company filed suit this month.
Claiming her actions “are not innocent parody but are designed to capitalize on Campbells iconic brand and associate one of the countrys most famous and enduring brands with her political campaign,” the company said her rip-off logo confused customers.
While campaigns can’t use knock-off logos without inviting potential legal action, that doesn’t mean some won’t try. By designing logos based on popular brands, campaigns hope some of that brand magic will rub off at the ballot box.
But would-be copycats, take note: While Mamdani, with his own distinctive campaign logo may well be an exception, other recent candidates who’ve used major brand logos haven’t fared well. In Georgia, Short’s short-lived Fox News logo didn’t help him win the Republican primary. Jenkins rebranded to a bird-less logo and lost. Sometimes it’s better to come up with your own idea.
Most climate reports are bleak. Temperatures are soaring. Sea levels are rising. Companies are missingor abandoningtheir emissions targets.
But a new report from the nonprofit Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit looks at the surprising amount of progress thats happened since the Paris climate agreement 10 years ago.
Renewable energy has grown faster than every major forecast predicted in 2015. Theres now four times as much solar power as the International Energy Agency expected 10 years ago. Last year alone, the world installed 553 gigawatts of solar powerroughly as much as 100 million U.S. homes usewhich is 1,500% more than the IEA had projected. Investors are now pouring twice as much into renewables as into fossil fuels.
One out of every five new cars sold is now an EV; a decade ago, that was one in 100. Even if growth flatlined now, the world is on track to reach 100 million EVs by 2028. Dozens of countries have net zero goals that are legally mandated, and comprehensive climate laws. Out of the worlds largest 2,000 companies, nearly 1,300 now have net zero goals in place. Ten years ago, the world was on track to hit a catastrophic 4 degrees of global warming by the end of the century. Now, projections have dropped to 2.6 degreesnot nearly enough, but a major step in the right direction.
Typical climate reports, like the U.N.s Emissions Gap Report, focus on how far off track the world is. They say the same thing every time, basically: that were not doing enough, says John Lang, net zero tracker lead at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. Thats one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that we have made unbelievable progress, and weve laid the foundations for structural, sustained emissions declines over the next few decades.
Ten years ago, projections about the growth of renewable energy were wrong in part because modelers underestimated how the scale of manufacturing in China could help drive costs down. Solar is now 66% cheaper than it was just a decade ago. In 2024, the cost of lithium-ion batteries fell by 20% in a single year. Globally, 91% of renewable energy projects are cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.
There are obvious challenges now, particularly the Trump administrations anti-climate push and supply chain bottlenecks from increased protectionism. Still, the markets more powerful than a man, Lang says. Renewable energy will continue to grow. In China, emissions have been dropping since March of last year. China is also exporting clean energy technology to other countries. In the U.S., 19 states representing half of the countrys GDP still have net zero targets in place.
The story since 2015 is essentially around innovation, and through constraints, we’re going to see more innovation, he says. So despite the protectionism, I don’t see this unstoppable momentum slowing down.
The world still has a very long way to go. The planet has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius, and were seeing the catastrophic impacts, from more severe hurricanes and wildfires to dying coral reefs. Theres little chance that we can avoid heating up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, one of the goals of the Paris agreement. But every tenth of a degree of warming matters, and theres still time to change the trajectory.
This decade was always going to be about laying foundations, says Lang. It’s not as quick as the IPCC would like us to go. But the reality is that this is hard. I always think of Emmanuel Kants quote, From the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight has ever been made. This is difficult stuff politically and culturally, and it is the biggest energy transition that humans may ever go through.
United Parcel Service posted third-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street’s expectations and gave details about its turnaround efforts, including approximately 48,000 job cuts.
Shares rose more than 7% in afternoon trading on Tuesday.
UPS earned $1.31 billion, or $1.55 per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30. The Atlanta-based company earned $1.99 billion, or $1.80 per share, a year earlier. Removing one-time costs, earnings were $1.74 per share.
That easily topped the $1.31 per share that analyst polled by Zacks Investment Research were calling for.
Revenue totaled $21.42 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s estimate of $20.84 billion.
UPS said in a regulatory filing that it has cut about 34,000 operational positions and closed daily operations at 93 leased and owned buildings during the first nine months of this year as part of its turnaround plan. The company also announced approximately 14,000 job cuts, mostly within management. It said that it is still looking to identify additional buildings to close.
In April, UPS announced that it was looking to slash about 20,000 jobs and close more than 70 facilities as it drastically reduces the number of Amazon shipments it handles. At the time, the company said that it anticipated closing 73 leased and owned buildings by the end of June. The company noted that it was still reviewing its network and might identify more buildings to be shuttered.
In January, UPS announced that it had reached a deal with Amazon, its biggest customer, to lower its volume by more than 50% by the second half of 2026.
During UPS fourth-quarter earnings conference call in January, CEO Carol Tomé said that the company had partnered with Amazon for almost 30 years and that when its contract came up this year, UPS decided to reassess the relationship.
UPS has realized cost savings of approximately $2.2 billion as of Sept. 30. It anticipates achieving $3.5 billion total year over year cost savings in 2025.
Michelle Chapman, AP business writer
ChatGPT wants to be your personal shopper.
PayPal announced Tuesday that its digital payment system will be integrated into ChatGPT, inviting anyone who uses it to shop directly from the chatbot. Starting next year, ChatGPT users will be able to check out with a click through a PayPal account and connect directly with the tens of millions of sellers who rely on PayPals payments system.
“By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases, PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said in a press release. PayPals shares rose on the news, which was announced on the same day as the companys quarterly earnings report.
PayPal is all-in on an AI-focused future of online retail. Beyond the new ChatGPT plans, the company is collaborating to create new AI shopping experiences with Google and partnering on free premium trials with AI search engine Perplexity.
Chriss said on Tuesdays earnings call, adding that the company was better positioned than it was two years ago. With differentiated competitive advantages, clear strategic direction and building execution momentum, we believe we are exceptionally well-placed to win into the future.
OpenAIs shopping mall
PayPal is the latest partner to join OpenAIs e-commerce vision, but it isnt the first. In September, ChatGPTs parent company revealed that it would integrate Shopify and Etsy directly in what it described as first steps toward agentic commerce through an instant checkout platform built with Stripe. ChatGPT doesnt just help you find what to buy, it also helps you buy it, OpenAI wrote in a blog post on the announcement.
The Etsy integration is already live, surfacing U.S. Etsy sellers directly in response to prompts in chat, like Find me blue and white teacups under $50. The Shopify partnership will bring major retailers into the mix, with products from brands like Glossier, SKIMS and Vuori woven into the chat. Earlier this month, it struck a similar deal with Walmart.
For OpenAI, aggressively gobbling up the market with ChatGPT has been the name of the game, not monetization. The build first, profit later method a Silicon Valley special has gone swimmingly for the AI company so far and it boasts more than 700 million weekly active users. OpenAI shot out of the gate with a buzzy free product, collecting loyal customers and funneling power users toward tiered premium subscriptions, though it actually loses money on some of those paid plans.
For OpenAI, e-commerce is a logical next step for revenue. Its also a direction that opens the door wide for advertising, which the company was one staunchly against but seems to be gravitating toward with recent hiring and its new corporate structure which was finalized this week.
On the consumer side, the plunge into AI-powered shopping is poised to steer people away from Google as a first port of call and toward tailored results shaped by AI queries. That behavior shift is just one more way that AI continues to creep into every aspect of digital life, reshaping every interaction and transaction we make in the process.
Apple suppliers Skyworks Solutions and Qorvo will merge in a cash-and-stock deal to create a radio chip company with an enterprise value of $22 billion.
Qorvo shareholders will receive $32.50 in cash and 0.96 of a Skyworks common share for each Qorvo share held at the close of the transaction, which is expected in early 2027, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals.
Activist investor Starboard Value, which owns about 8% of Qorvo, has already signed off on the deal. On a conference call with investors Tuesday, Skyworks said its biggest customers also expressed approval of the merger.
After closing, Skyworks shareholders will own roughly 63% of the combined company, with Qorvo shareholders owning the remaining 37%.
The companies which make radio frequency components and semiconductors for a broad array of technology including mobile phones, said that with demand growing, they will be better able compete with larger rivals as a single company.
Skyworks CEO Phil Brace will take the chief executive job at the combined company, while Qorvo CEO Bob Bruggeworth will join the board. Upon closing, the companys board will have eight directors from Skyworks and three from Qorvo.
Skyworks specializes in high-performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, while Qorvo provides connectivity and power solutions. The companies say combining will create a $5.1 billion mobile business.
Skyworks, based in Irvine, California, released its preliminary fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, beating Wall Street revenue and profit expectations.
Qorvo, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, posted preliminary results from its most recent quarter as well, which also came in ahead of Wall Street’s projections.
Two decades after a Republican-controlled Congress gave gun manufacturers immunity from being sued over crimes committed with their firearms, blue state Democrats upset about gun violence think theyve found a way to penetrate that legal shield.
Since 2021, 10 states have passed laws intended to make it easier to sue gunmakers and sellers.
The newest such law, in Connecticut, took effect this month. It opens firearms manufacturers and retailers up to lawsuits if they don’t take steps to prevent guns from getting into the hands of people banned from owning them, or who should be suspected of intending to use them to hurt themselves or others. Other states have allowed lawsuits against companies deemed to have created a public nuisance through the sale or marketing of firearms.
The legislation and flurry of lawsuits against gun companies that followed has outraged gun rights advocates, who accuse the states of trying to skirt the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
That law, which blocked a wave of similar lawsuits two decades ago, says gun companies operating legally cannot be held liable for violent acts committed by people misusing weapons.
They know these laws are unconstitutional. They know these laws violate the PLCAA, said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation. They dont care,” he said, adding that the real goal of the lawsuits was to harass the industry and drain it financially.
Gun control groups say the states have simply set clearer requirements for gun companies to ensure their products arent sold or used illegally.
These laws dont just open the courthouse doors to survivors. They also force the gun industry to operate more responsibly and, most importantly, can help prevent future tragedies, said Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance, a gun-violence prevention group founded after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Two decades of federal immunity
Congress adopted protections for the gun industry after lawsuits filed in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere attempted to hold the firearms industry responsible for violent crime.
Many of those suits argued that gun companies had knowingly oversupplied certain markets with cheap handguns and ignored signs that those weapons were being trafficked to places with strict gun controls.
The firearms industry and the National Rifle Association saw the lawsuits as unfair. As long as gun companies weren’t breaking rules around sales, they shouldn’t be held responsible for violence, they said.
President George W. Bush, a Republican, agreed and signed the shield law in 2005, saying it helped stem frivolous lawsuits.”
Our laws should punish criminals who use guns to commit crimes, not law-abiding manufacturers of lawful products, Bush said at the time.
A new approach
The legal protections Congress gave the gun industry aren’t absolute.
For example, a gunmaker that sells a faulty firearm can still be sued over dangerous defects. Another exception allows lawsuits against companies that knowingly violate laws regulating how firearms are sold and marketed.
When Congress drafted that exception, it cited the example of a shop that knowingly sold a gun to someone banned from owning one, such as a convicted felon.
The new state laws have sought to expand potential liability for gun companies by creating new rules for the industry. New York passed a law in 2021 requiring gun companies to create controls to prevent unlawful possession or use of their products. It also says they cannot knowingly or recklessly contribute to a condition that endangers public safety.
Any business operating in New York must adhere to our laws and if they dont, they are held accountable, said Democratic state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, the law’s chief proponent.
Several states and cities have used the new liability laws to sue Glock over the design of its pistols, saying it is too easy to convert them into automatic weapons.
Many of the new laws follow legal theories from a lawsuit filed against gunmaker Remington by families of Sandy Hook victims. The suit, which was settled for $73 million in 2022, argued that Remingtons marketing violated state consumer protection law.
Whats next?
Its too soon to say if courts will uphold the new state laws.
A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that New Yorks law wasnt expressly barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but that decision is not expected to be the last word. One of the judges, Dennis Jacobs, made it clear he believes the law is vulnerable to future legal challenges, calling it nothing short of an attempt to end-run PLCAA.
The U.S. Supreme Court, which is controlled 6-3 by Republican-nominated justices, hasn’t yet considered the state liability laws, but the gun industry was encouraged when the justices unanimously agreed in June to toss out a $10 billion lawsuit Mexico filed against top firearms manufacturers claiming their business practices fuel cartel violence.
Justice Elena Kagan, a Democratic nominee, wrote in her opinion how Congress passed PLCAA to halt lawsuits similar to the one filed by Mexico. She said Mexico had made no plausible argument that the companies knowingly helped gun trafficking.
The Court doubts Congress intended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not, she wrote.
Susan Haigh, Associated Press
Associated Press Writer Dave Collins contributed to this report.
A new internet theory about American politics and society just dropped. From anti-vaxxers to AI slop, everything can be explained by one simple idea: Everyone is twelve now.
In September, Bluesky user and musician Patrick Cosmos (@veryimportant.lawyer) posted, “working on a new unified theory of american reality i’m calling ‘everyone is twelve now.'”
He continued: “‘Im strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm’ of course you do. Youre twelve.
‘I dont want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal’ hell yeah homie youre twelve.
‘Maybe if theres crime we should just send the army’ bless your heart my twelve year old buddy.”
Its funny, but it also feels depressingly accurate. Its already being called “the most important political thread of our time. Or as another user wrote: making a pilgrimage to a post that will one day be studied in history books.
It took a few weeks for the theory to spread to X, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and other platforms, but once it did, it became the go-to comeback under conservative posts and government propaganda alike.
You wanna do a ride-along in the backseat of a big plane and cosplay being a pilot? Of course you do, youre twelve, user @jjellisart said in response to a video of Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, in a fighter jet.
You wanna dress up like a knight and play swords? Of course you do, youre twelve, he also posted to a Homeland Security propaganda post of medieval knights.
The meme even made its way into the political press corps after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt replied to a HuffPost reporters question about the location of Donald Trumps upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin with: Your mom did. One user quote-tweeted the exchange with: The Everyone is Twelve Now theory is rapidly gaining credibility, I fear.
So whats behind the apparent sudden collective regression?
According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level. That limited literacy makes it harder to understand complex and nuanced issues and easier to fall for oversimplified narratives peddled on social media.
As one Reddit user suggested: an ideology specially crafted to appeal to nostalgia kinda has to be childish. the world was never perfect, so to pretend it was you have to appeal to childlike innocence. Case in point: a glass bottle of Coca Cola balanced on the hood of a red Bronco as marketing material for the Department of Homeland Security.
It might also explain why government agencies like the DHS have leaned into childhood classic Pokémon references and viral TikTok trends as part of their social media strategy. In the context of the everyone is twelve theory, it suddenly makes a lot of sense
And once youve seen it, youll start spotting examples everywhere you look. Unless, of course, youre twelve.
With one sweeping gesture, Dar Sleeper hoists the humanoid robot off the ground. Bracing its back with one arm and its legs with the other, he gently carries it across the room and lowers it onto a sofa, where it lies in repose as if catching a quick nap.
It’s a slightly surreal scene, but it has a serious point. I am visiting the Palo Alto headquarters of 1X Technologies, and Sleeper, the company’s VP of growth, is demonstrating that Neo, its home robot, is a lightweight at a mere 66 pounds. That’s a crucial design feature, given that a weighty domestic bot could prove hazardous if it toppled over in the vicinity of a human, a pet, or just a pricey vase.
Soon, Neo will take on the ultimate proving ground for a home robot: actual homes. 1X is announcing that its taking preorders and plans to ship units to its earliest customers next year. The price is $20,000, or $499 per month as a subscription service, with a six-month minimum. Like a smartphone, the robot will come in multiple color optionstan, gray, and dark brown.
Wait, $20,000? There isnt much precedent for mainstream consumer products in that price range. Cars, of course. (The average price for a new one just topped $50,000.) Maybe boats? Even if you can come up with another example or two, its a short list.
Then again, 1X founder and CEO Bernd Brnichs goals for his robots involve attaining a degree of utility that few inventions ever have. He wants to teach Neo to handle every household task that people perform because they need to, not because they want to. Even if the time saved came in bits and piecesfive minutes of dishwasher unloading here, 15 minutes of laundry folding thereit would add up to many hours newly available for more rewarding pursuits.
[Photo: Courtesy 1X Technologies]
Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of Neos, which is the quantity Brnich talks about when outlining 1Xs long-term plans for manufacturing capacity. Potentially it’s the biggest thing ever, with respect to productivity increase across society, he tells me when I catch up with him via Zoom after my visit to the company.
Brnich is hardly the only entrepreneur spinning visions of a world in which humans coexist with teeming masses of robots modeled on them. Companies such as Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and Figure AI are all building humanoid bots of their own. So is Sleepers former employer, Tesla, whose Optimus robot has seemingly diverted much of Elon Musks attention away from boring old EVs. Most of the nascent categorys focus is on environments such as factories and warehouses, where robots might take on jobs that are dangerous or repetitiveno paychecks required. (1X is presently focused on the home but says it plans to offer humanoids for the workplace at a later date.)
Its not just robotics manufacturers that see a vast business in the making. Humanoid bots could fuel enormous growth in chips, foundational models, cloud services, and other elements of the AI economya wave of optimism 1X is already riding. In 2023, OpenAI led the companys $23.5 million Series A2 funding round; its Series B round the following year raised another $100 million. The company also has a strategic alliance with Nvidia, whose CEO, Jensen Huang, accepted a custom leather jacket from Neo during an onstage appearance last March.
By 2050, according to a May Morgan Stanley report, there could be more than a billion humanoid robots in service, with the vast majority in commercial and industrial settings. Only 80 million would be in homes, the report speculates. Still, thats roughly 80 million more humanoid home robots than exist today.
[Photo: Courtesy 1X Technologies]
For all the grandeur of 1Xs plan to transform how we spend our time, the company is up front that Neo is not yet ready to handle all the drudgery you might want to offload to a home robot. Some of the things it can do are only possible under the control of remote 1X employees, who can orchestrate its actions as if it were a marionette. That human assistance might be a stopgap, but it will also provide 1X with AI training data it can use to make Neo more autonomous over time.
My encounter with Neo at 1Xs office did as much to tamp down my impressions of its present form as ratchet them up. The robot gamely ambled about, with a gait that didnt closely resemble that of a human but was more limber than you might expect. It showed off its strength by hefting a restaurant-sized sack of rice. It also presented me with a chilled bottle of water, though the feat involved a mix of autonomy (walking to the refrigerator) and remote control (oening the fridge and fishing out the bottle), and took much longer than if I’d simply grabbed the water myself.
A demo of Neos sweeping skills went south when it turned out the cordless vacuum it was wielding had a dead battery. (A human house cleaner would have easily diagnosed and solved the problem.) And some uses 1X is citing for its robotsuch as setting birthday reminders and managing grocery listsdo not seem to call for $20,000 of advanced machinery.
For Neo to succeed, 1X wont just need to finish building out the robots skill set. It will also have to live up to expectations long steeped in cultural touchstones such as The Jetsons and Star Wars. As Sleeper puts it, “The ultimate North Star, in a lot of people’s minds, is Rosie the robot.” Brnich emphasizes that 1X isnt entirely sure how Neo will fit into homes, and the company is getting ready to sell them in part to help figure that out.
I don’t think there’s any way we could be as creative as the full set of our customers, he says. That’s one of the beauties of actually developing this in public.
Robots come home
Originally known as Halodi Robotics and founded by Brnich in Norway in 2014, 1X didnt set out to build a home humanoid right away. Its first robot, Eve, was designed for industrial applications, had grippers instead of hands, and rolled on two wheels. It looked a little like it was riding a built-in Segway.
As with anything dependent on generative AI, teaching robots to engage with the world requires vast amounts of training data. As 1X considered where to get that data, it came to see the home as rife with possibilities. That fact nudged it in the direction that eventually led to Neo.
A cup has the ability to give you more data than an entire industrial task, says Sleeper. Because that cup could be full. It could be empty. It could be half full. It could be on the kitchen table full, meaning you should leave it there because somebody’s probably drinking it. It can be empty on the coffee table, which means you should take it to the sink or put it in the dishwasher. It could be in the cupboard, meaning that that’s where you go to grab it to give it to somebody when they ask it for it.
Along with data, homes were also full of challenges that Eve had never been designed to overcome, such as climbing stairs to fetch a laundry basket. So when the company formally decided to pursue the home market, it realized it would need to build an all-new robot. Every lesson we’ve learned has moved us more and more in the direction of being very confident that the human form factor is the only form factor, says Sleeper.
Humanoids were hardly a new field of robotics research: Brnich says he drew inspiration from examples such as Hondas Asimo, a staple of trade-show demos early in this century. But he adds that The type of hardware that we’ve designed here, which is so lightweight and safe and capable, we couldn’t have done that 20 years ago.
Visiting 1Xs Palo Alto operation is certainly an evocative experience. Along with standard tech-company accoutrements such as HP 3-D printers cranking out prototype parts, its full of robotsfrom the Neo I watched in action to a row of decommissioned Eves sitting next to a staircase. One skinless Neo hangs from a hook in an area thrumming with human technicians: “It’s very Westworld in here,” says Sleeper.
Much of Neos innovation lies underneath its knit turtleneck jumpsuit. 1X created its own motors, which it says have five times more torque than any other in the world and help the robot lift up to 154 pounds and carry up to 50 pounds. It equipped the robot with a tendon-drive transmission system, intended to reduce weight while increasing safety and affordability. It engineered hands with 22 degrees of freedomonly five less than human onesand attached them to longer-than-human arms, since robots have no shoulder blades. The company even custom-designed its own batteries. Neo officially runs for four hours on a charge, though it can top off its own battery as necessaryYoull never really have to think about it, promises Sleeper.
[Photo: Courtesy 1X Technologies]
At 5 feet 6 inches, Neo is 2.5 inches taller than the average American woman and 3 inches shorter than the average man. Its physique is intentionally neither feminine nor masculine: “It was important that nobody be sexually attracted to it,” says Sleeper, suggesting scenarios I prefer not to contemplate any further. Owners will, however, be able to choose between female and male speaking voices. (For the record, Sleeper referred to Neo as “he” during our conversation, but said that opinions on its gender, if any, vary.)
Regardless of how capable Neos hardware may be, 1Xs AI platform will determine what it can actually do around a house. Its elements include machine vision, audio recognition, and an onboard LLM with memory that provides ongoing context. Melding all of them will allow the robot to listen for instructions, navigate its surroundings and the objects therein, and perform useful tasks.
The LLM will also power Neos personality. That will come out as people talk to it, which 1X thinks they may do quite a lot. Rather than mimicking human companionship, the company is aiming to make the robot a lovable, pet-like sidekickHobbes to the owners Calvin, Sleeper says.
All of this is where the experience that 1X plans to ship next year will be, at best, a first rough draft. The companys examples of jobs Neo will be able to perform autonomously on day one are modest: fetching items, greeting guests at the door, switching off the lights at night. It will handle these and other responsibilities by breaking them down into 10-second microtasks. At the moment, things get tricky if much more than three microtasks are involved.
1X expects its first customers to understand that theyre buying into a long-term proposition. As you continue to use your robot, you’ll get more updates, and your basic autonomy features will expand to be able to do more, says Sleeper. Your robot can always try something if you ask it to, like getting you a beer. And if it hasn’t learned how to do that yet efficiently, it will fail. Some people might hate it. But those arent the early users.
(Historical footnote: Delivering beer may be home robotics most enduring example of an exciting application. Its what a bot called Androbot did for Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell during an onstage demo at CES in 1983, to cheers from the audience.)
From the beginning, Neo will be able to go beyond basic autonomy through its remote-assistance feature. Called Chores, it will enable California-based 1X employees to see through Neos eyes and steer the robot through more elaborate processes. The company has anticipated privacy concerns over its bot becoming a roaming window into its customers homes: Chores sessions are only initiated if users explicitly ask for them, and can be terminated at any time. When theyre active, the LED ring around Neos ears will change from white to blue.
Remote-controlled robots made me think of the Tesla event held a year ago whose Optimus bartenders provoked amazement, at least at first. When it turned out theyd been puppeteered by off-site humans, the awe dissipated. Sleeper told me that 1X doesnt consider Chores to violate the fundamental idea of a home robot: We just think that there’s actually quite a lot of value to come from these expert operators being able to supplement and support your experience. As they do, the training data they generate may redound to the benefit of future Neo owners.
To err is humanoid
Brnich, who has been living with Neo at home for quite some time, professes not to be overly concerned with any flaws in the current experience, cheerfully calling them robotic slop. Maybe Neo didn’t put all of the glasses in the cabinet exactly in line, like this master Japanese butler, but it put them in there, he says by way of example. Okay, the shirt isn’t folded perfectly, but it’s folded pretty well, and I didn’t need to do it. I’m actually very happy.
But he also expects that Neo will quickly prove its worth to a fairly broad audience. How soon? By 2027, the purchase will be a no-brainer, he predicts.
Comparing home robots to smartphoneswhich have tended to get more powerful over time rather than much cheaperBrnich says that $20,000 may remain Neos price tag even after 1X can scale up production well beyond its current capacity of 25,000 U.S.-made robots a year. You just want to keep expanding the capabilities until you can not only do what humans can do, but you can also do a lot of things that we can’t, he explains.
A lot has to go right for these ambitions to play out, including 1X having access to the necessary capital. Last month, The Informations Wayne Ma, Natasha Mascarenhas, and Valida Pau reported that the company was seeking $1 billion in additional funding at a $10 billion valuation, dwarfing its previous numbers.
For now, 1X is still working on teaching Neo to tackle work that humans can literally do with their eyes closed. But when I ask Brnich if he considers the companys ultimate business model to lie in selling home robots or building services around them, he pushes back on the assumption that its a home robotics company at all.
Actually, I think of 1X mainly as an AGI company, he says. We want to solve intelligence and solve artificial labor across society. Digitally and physicallythe entire substrate. And you’re not going get there without robots. Now 1X has to prove that it will get there with them.
