Hyundai and Boston Dynamics Unveil Humanoid Robot Atlas At CES (nbcnews.com)
(Tuesday January 06, 2026 @05:00AM (BeauHD)
from the glimpse-into-the-future dept.)
- Reference: 0180521733
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/06/0420253/hyundai-and-boston-dynamics-unveil-humanoid-robot-atlas-at-ces
- Source link: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/hyundai-boston-dynamics-unveil-humanoid-robot-atlas-ces-rcna252483
At CES 2026 today, Hyundai and Boston Dynamics publicly [1]demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas , showing off fluid movement and announcing plans to deploy a production version in Hyundai's EV factory by 2028. NBC News reports:
> "For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage," said Boston Dynamics' Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom. It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company's general manager for humanoid robots.
>
> [...] Hyundai also announced a new partnership with Google's DeepMind, which will supply its artificial intelligence technology to Boston Dynamics robots. It's a return to a familiar partnership for Google, which bought Boston Dynamics in 2013 before selling it to Japanese tech giant SoftBank several years later. Hyundai acquired it from SoftBank in 2021. [...] At the end of Monday's live Atlas demonstration, which appeared flawless, the humanoid prototype swung its arms in a theatrical gesture to introduce a static model of the new product version of Atlas, which looked slightly different and was blue in color.
"I think the question comes back to what are the use cases and where is the applicability of the technology," said Alex Panas, a partner at consultancy McKinsey who helped lead a CES robotics panel that attracted hundreds of people earlier in the day. "In some cases, it may look more humanoid. In some cases, it may not."
Either way, Panas said, "the software, the chipsets, the communication, all the other pieces of the technology are coming together, and they will create new applications."
You can watch a video of the demonstration [2]on YouTube .
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/hyundai-boston-dynamics-unveil-humanoid-robot-atlas-ces-rcna252483
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eMSMiL7F2o&t=138s
> "For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage," said Boston Dynamics' Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom. It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company's general manager for humanoid robots.
>
> [...] Hyundai also announced a new partnership with Google's DeepMind, which will supply its artificial intelligence technology to Boston Dynamics robots. It's a return to a familiar partnership for Google, which bought Boston Dynamics in 2013 before selling it to Japanese tech giant SoftBank several years later. Hyundai acquired it from SoftBank in 2021. [...] At the end of Monday's live Atlas demonstration, which appeared flawless, the humanoid prototype swung its arms in a theatrical gesture to introduce a static model of the new product version of Atlas, which looked slightly different and was blue in color.
"I think the question comes back to what are the use cases and where is the applicability of the technology," said Alex Panas, a partner at consultancy McKinsey who helped lead a CES robotics panel that attracted hundreds of people earlier in the day. "In some cases, it may look more humanoid. In some cases, it may not."
Either way, Panas said, "the software, the chipsets, the communication, all the other pieces of the technology are coming together, and they will create new applications."
You can watch a video of the demonstration [2]on YouTube .
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/hyundai-boston-dynamics-unveil-humanoid-robot-atlas-ces-rcna252483
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eMSMiL7F2o&t=138s
Stops at 104F ? (Score:1)
by greytree ( 7124971 )
They say this robot stops working at 104F.
Wish I could.
Batteries will count for more for Hyundai (Score:4, Interesting)
by shilly ( 142940 )
While I’m sure this cool tech will matter to Hyundai, I think they’ll be much more positively affected by the two big battery announcements of the last few weeks: CATL launching production sodium batteries next year, and Donut launching production solid state batteries at CES.
hype (Score:2)
by tiananmen tank man ( 979067 )
we already have machines, what does making it a bipedal humanoid shape give?
Re: hype (Score:2)
by tiananmen tank man ( 979067 )
how is a "t-1000" better than "Johny five"?
Video from the start (Score:2)
by pahles ( 701275 )
Why give a link of the video more then two minutes in? [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eMSMiL7F2o
Not a robot. (Score:2)
by zephvark ( 1812804 )
What they have demonstrated is a remote-controlled toy. I'm sure it's charming.
Atlas? (Score:3)
Remember when Boston Dynamics unveiled Atlas some 10 years ago (or thereabouts)? It was remote controlled then, too.
What I want to know is: have the Korean researchers figured out how [1]opening doors [youtube.com] works?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOo8N9_iH0
Re: (Score:2)
Boston Dynamics robots looked really good a while ago, and I wonder what improvements they've actually been making over that time period.