Ready For Tomorrow #81

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Grab a coffee and let’s dive in.Optimus learns kung-fu, but the world is still safe

Elon Musk stirred up the internet again, this time showing the Optimus robot doing kung-fu moves. It sounds like a Jet Li action movie, but it’s really just a tech showcase of Tesla’s progress. Experts point out that the robot isn’t fully autonomous since its AI runs on pre-learned motion sequences, not independent decisions.

Fun fact: Tesla is combining the AI from its self-driving cars with the robot’s AI, which could speed up development for both systems and bring us closer to the moment when a robot will actually think before it moves.

For now, though, Optimus’ kung-fu looks more like a choreographed dance than a fight for world domination. It still lacks dexterity, endurance, and fine motor skills, but its agility and speed are becoming more and more impressive.

So if you still think robots are about to take over the world, remember that it’s going to take a while. For now, they still have trouble just picking up a coffee mug.

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Kinisi KR1 – a humanoid on wheels that runs the warehouse

At first glance, it looks like a regular humanoid robot, but instead of legs, it has a stable four-wheel base that lets it cruise around the warehouse at speeds of up to 14 km/h. This is Kinisi KR1, the new robot from Kinisi Robotics, built specifically for warehouses and logistics centers where speed, precision, and safety matter most.

The robot can pick, stack, and transport goods on its own, handling loads of 10 to 15 kg while staying gentle, not crushing, bumping, or dropping anything. It also runs offline, using local AI processing (Nvidia Jetson), so it doesn’t need the cloud or internet to learn and react to changes in its surroundings.

The best part is that KR1 learns by demonstration. You just show it what to do, and it repeats it with no coding or complex programming. That means you can put it to work without major infrastructure changes, and it’s ready to go almost right after delivery.

The robot runs for up to 8 hours on a single charge, has hot-swappable batteries, and returns to its docking station on its own. And if you’d rather test it without a big investment, you can rent it for about 4000 USD per month, including full service support.

Kinisi KR1 isn’t some futuristic toy. It’s a real warehouse assistant that combines the agility of a humanoid with the practicality of an AGV. It doesn’t take selfies or talk about the meaning of life, it just gets the job done.

A robot performed surgery from the inside

A major milestone just happened in medical robotics at the Mayo Clinic in the US. The EndoQuest ELS robot carried out the first fully robotic ESD procedure, an endoscopic removal of a 4 cm lesion in the colon. What makes it even more impressive is that the surgery was performed by a gastroenterologist, not a surgeon. That means a technology that once required years of experience and exceptional human precision is now becoming accessible to a wider group of doctors.

The EndoQuest ELS system combines a flexible endoscope with a miniature surgical robot. It operates inside the body, and its movable arms allow for incredibly precise cutting and manipulation in places traditional robots cannot reach. Thanks to local control and 3D imaging, the doctor can clearly see what the robot is doing, while the machine handles the most demanding part of the job.

The procedure was part of the PARADIGM clinical trials, conducted in five US medical centers including Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic. The goal is to find out if this kind of robotics can replace more invasive surgeries, such as colectomies, and shorten patient recovery times. Early results show that it might be possible.

This also addresses one of the biggest challenges in gastroenterology, the technical difficulty of ESD procedures, which until now required enormous skill and patience. If robots like ELS become the standard, access to advanced treatment methods could grow significantly.

Surgical robots are no longer futuristic gadgets. They are already working in real operating rooms. But before they fully take over the scalpel, they need to master something harder than precision cutting, earning the trust of doctors and patients.

Read more about it here!

Rethink Robotics shuts down... again

Rethink Robotics, the company once known for its cobots like Baxter and Sawyer, has announced another shutdown. After going bankrupt and being acquired in 2018 by the German HAHN Group, then rebranded under the United Robotics Group, the brand tried to make a comeback. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.

New products such as the Reacher robotic arm, the Ryder mobile robot, and the Riser manipulator never reached the expected sales numbers. Investors decided to pull their funding, and that decision sealed the company’s fate.

Rethink Robotics was a true pioneer in the field of collaborative robots, aiming to combine ease of use and safety with industrial performance. But technical limits like precision and repeatability, strong competition from more advanced solutions, and commercial struggles became barriers the company couldn’t overcome.

This story is a reminder that the robotics world isn’t all bright and easy. Innovation and a strong brand are not enough. To survive, a company needs real market fit, stable funding, scalability, and constant improvement.

The real question is, how much does “innovation” matter if no one wants or can afford to use it?

But Rethink is not alone

Another example is Guardian Agriculture, a startup that set out to revolutionize farming with autonomous drones. Their idea was simple and brilliant: replace tractors and crop-dusting planes with a fleet of drones that could work more precisely, cheaply, and without damaging the soil.

It sounded like the future. The company raised funding, built a solid team, started pilot projects, and seemed ready to take off. But now it has officially announced its shutdown. The reason is slow adoption of the technology by farmers, high operational costs, and the difficulty of scaling the business model.

This is another reminder that technology alone is not enough. Even the best idea needs a market that is ready to accept it. Guardian Agriculture did not fail because of a lack of vision, it failed because there was no space yet to make that vision real.

That’s all for today

Robots are kicking, cutting, and crashing out of business.

Take care this autumn week and keep your coffee mugs safe, they’re still learning how to grab those.

Cheers, Jacek