ONE BIG THING

$100M for this OpenAI-backed robot

If you saw a meme with this Black Mirror-ish Squid Game-y figure in your feed over the last week, you knew something was up.

The latest robot friend to grab the internet’s attention is the Neo Beta. It’s built by 1X Technologies, a company backed by Open AI and most recently raised a whopping $100 million in funding. It’s designed from the ground up as the company’s first foray into home robotics after a decade of building for factories. 

Neo is designed for general purposes, such as tasks around the home like cleaning, moving furniture, carrying objects, and even pouring a beverage. All of these tasks are performed autonomously using a built-in AI system. Neo stands at about the height of an average human, can lift double its weight (66 pounds, by the way), and can run up to speeds of 7.5 miles per hour. 

Understandably, one of the big questions about AI-powered humanoid robots is safety. The last thing humanity needs is a human-robot war akin to Terminator or, on a lesser scale, a robot giving you attitude. To this effect, the Neo bot has been specially designed to avoid posing a threat (that’s what they all say…). It’s considerably lighter and softer than other competitors. It’s clad in a jumpsuit-like material instead of metal or hard plastic and has cushions where human muscles would be.

1X plans to start deploying Neo bots in a few select homes this year, with a big focus on research and development before the company begins to open the technology to the general public. My only question is, when are we going to get a Wall-E-style robot?

Meet NEO

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT

Make your design ideas come to life

As AI continues to influence the creative world, design is becoming more accessible and versatile. Playground is a new app that takes this trend further, offering a space where anyone can create—from logos and t-shirts to social media posts and memes—with the help of AI.

Developed by Suhail Doshi, founder of product analytics tool Mixpanel, Playground aims to simplify the design process without sacrificing creativity.

The app is powered by Playground v3, a beta foundation model that enhances prompt understanding, artistic text generation, and photorealistic output. The goal isn’t to replace designers but to give them a tool that makes the design process more intuitive and flexible.

Once you sign up, you can quickly get started with one of the pre-built templates, or if you’re a seasoned designer, you can drop in your own assets. From there, the AI, Playground v3, helps generate text and images based on your input, which you can then easily customize through the app’s interface.

It’s got some pretty big backers, too, having secured $40 million in funding from Paul Graham and Garry Tan, the YC president, among a bunch of others.

Playground doesn’t intend to replace designers. Rather, it aims to leverage AI to help designers and non-designers quickly move from idea to finished product. So, if you’ve been wracking your brain trying to get a design done, maybe give AI a shot.

Check it out

AI IN THE HEADLINES

🗣️ Amazon Alexa updates will be powered by Anthropic's Claude.

💬 Android users can now chat with Gemini in the Gmail app. 

💻 According to reports, cheaper Copilot enabled PC’s are on the way.

💰 Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft are in talks to join OpenAI’s funding round.

🍎 Apple’s new iOS beta lets you remove objects from pictures with AI. 

🗳️ X updated Grok in response to election misinformation accusations.