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I met a lot of weird robots at CES — here are the most memorable | TechCrunch

I met a lot of weird robots at CES — here are the most memorable | TechCrunch

CES has always been a robot extravaganza, and this year’s event saw the announcement of a number of important robotics developments, including the new, production-ready debut of Atlas, the humanoid from Boston Dynamics. Then there were all the robots on the showroom floor, where bots often serve as good marketing for the companies involved. If they don’t always give a totally accurate representation of where commercial deployment is at the moment, they do give visitors a peek at where it might be headed. And, of course, they sure are fun to look at. I spent a decent amount of time perusing the bots on display this week. Here are some of the most memorable ones I encountered.

The ping pong player

The movie Marty Supreme just came out a month ago, so I guess it’s only appropriate that there was a ping-pong-playing robot at this year’s convention. The Chinese robotics firm Sharpa had rigged up a full-bodied bot to play some competitive table tennis against one of the firm’s staff. When I stopped by the Sharpa booth, the robot was losing to its human competitor, 5-9, and I would not characterize the game that was occurring as particularly fast-paced. Still, the spectacle of seeing a robot play ping pong was impressive enough on its own, and I’m sure I have known some humans whose paddle skills were basically equivalent to (or slightly worse than) the bot’s. A Sharpa rep told me that the company’s main product is its robotic hand, and that the full-bodied bot had been debuted at CES to demonstrate the hand’s dexterity.

The boxer

One of the exhibits that drew the largest crowds involved robots from the Chinese company EngineAI, which is developing humanoid robots. The bots, dubbed the T800 (a nod to the Terminator franchise), were in a mock boxing ring and were styled as fighting machines. That said, I never saw any of the bots actually hit each other. Instead, they would sort of shadowbox near each other, never actually making contact. They were also a little unpredictable. One kept walking out of the ring and into the audience, which naturally got a rise out of onlookers. At another point, one of the bots tripped over its own feet and then face-planted on the floor, where it lay for awhile before it decided to get up again. So, not exactly a Mike Tyson situation, but the machines still managed to evoke a spooky kind of humanoid behavior that made for high-quality entertainment. I overheard an observer quip: “That’s too much like Robocop.”

The dancer

Dancing robots have long been a staple at CES, and this year was no different. This year, the dance-move torch was carried by bots from Unitree, a major Chinese robotics manufacturer that has been scrutinized for potential ties to the Chinese military. Unitree has made a number of impressive announcements about its product base, including a humanoid bot that can supposedly run at speeds of up to 11 mph. I didn’t see any evidence of anything nefarious at Unitree’s booth this week—just a lot of bots that were feeling the groove.

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The convenience store clerk

I stopped by the booth for Galbot, another Chinese company that says it is focused on multi-modal large language models and general purpose robotics. Galbot’s booth had been styled to look like a convenience store, and its bot appeared to have been synched with a menu app. A customer would come to the booth, select an item from the menu, and then the bot would go and fetch the selected merch for them. After I chose Sour Patch Kids, the bot dutifully retrieved a box off the shelf for me. According to the company’s website, the robot has been deployed in a number of real-world settings, including as an assistant at Chinese pharmacies.

The housekeeper

Creating a machine that can fold laundry has long been one of the core ambitions of the commercial robotics community. The ability to pick up a T-shirt and fold it is considered a fundamental test of automated competence. For that reason, I was fairly impressed by the display over at Dyna Robotics, a firm that develops advanced manipulation models for automated tasks. There, a pair of robotic arms could be seen efficiently folding laundry and placing it in a pile. A Dyna representative told me that the firm had already established partnerships with a number of hotels, gyms, and factories.

One of those businesses, the rep told me, is Monster Laundry, based in Sacramento, California. Monster integrated Dyna’s shirt-folding robot into its operations late last year and now describes itself as the “first laundry center in North America to debut a state-of-the-art robotic folding system from Dyna.” 

Dyna also has some impressive backing. It concluded an $120 million Series A fundraising round in September that included funding from Nvidia’s NVentures, as well as from Amazon, LG, Salesforce, and Samsung.

The butler

I also stopped by LG’s section of CES to take a look at its new home robot, CLOid. It was cute but was not the fastest bot on the block. You can read my full review of that experience here.

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#met #lot #weird #robots #CES #memorable #TechCrunch

These days, new versions of AI chatbots don’t just launch; they’re unshackled and released to the public following government scrutiny. OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 models were – like Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and Fable – apparently too powerful to just launch; but now, after some tinkering, they’re available to you, dear customer.

In practice, it simply means that the new GPT-5.6 models are very powerful and smarter than before. In its introductory post, OpenAI shared a bunch of graphs showing just how much better GPT-5.6 is than the competition, whilst using fewer tokens and generally costing less.

OK, great. But GPT-5.6 is not just one model; it comes in three distinct flavors: Sol, Terra, and Luna. So what do different kinds of users get, what should they pay for, and which models should they (mostly) use? Let’s dive in.

Free users get (almost) nothing

Sorry; if you’re not a paying customer, you’ll have to make do with OpenAI’s previous flagship model, GPT-5.5. Any sort of access to GPT-5.6 models requires a subscription of some sort. Fortunately, GPT-5.5 is still quite capable at most tasks, but if you want the best of the best, you’ll have to cough up the dough.

There’s an exception to this: Free and Go users can access GPT-5.6 through ChatGPT Work. More on that below.

If you’re a Plus or Business user, you can only get Sol (the most powerful model) at medium and higher effort settings. There’s another, higher level of performance called Sol Pro, but that’s only available for Pro and Enterprise users.

In terms of availability per one million tokens, the prices are: $5 input and $30 output for Sol. $2.5 input and $15 output for Terra, and $1 input and $6 output for Luna.

Sol, Terra, or Luna?

Why are there three models in the first place? Well, OpenAI always had a multi-tier model; for example, previously users were able to choose a “mini” version of the main model to get results done cheaper. Now, the model has been split into three tiers.

If you’re a paying customer, you’re free to use all three. But you know how it is in the world of LLMs: If you pick the smartest one, your usage limits will get hit faster (yes, there are always usage limits, even if you throw a ton of money at OpenAI).

In the simplest sense, GPT-5.6 Sol is the smartest model, Terra is in between (with roughly GPT-5.5 level of performance), and Luna is the cheapest, fastest, but also least capable of the bunch.

The breakdown is as follows: Terra is a “balanced” model for everyday work. That’s the one you should be asking most of your questions. Don’t underestimate it, though, as OpenAI claims it performs better than Anthropic’s Fable 5 in some cases.

Luna is cost-efficient, and should be used for easy, non crucial everyday tasks; think recipes and movie recommendations. Again, OpenAI says it outperforms Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 in some cases, so it’s not a slouch, either.

Sol should be reserved for coding, deep research, planning, and cybersecurity: The most demanding tasks. Of course it comes at a (literal) cost: While OpenAI claims it spends less tokens than Anthropic’s Fable 5, Sol will still hit usage limits a lot faster than the other variants.

Fun fact: If you ask GPT-5.5 about any of this, right now, it’ll give you completely wrong answers. Hopefully OpenAI will fix this soon.

Wait, what’s this ChatGPT Work thing, then?

Oh yeah, OpenAI also launched ChatGPT Work, which is a new agent in ChatGPT that can access and take actions on your apps and files, and work in the background until a task is finished. It’s powered by Codex (OpenAI’s software engineering agent) and GPT-5.6. Think about it as your buddy that will go through your emails and files, browse the web, fetch the relevant data, and create that presentation your boss wants before the day is done.

ChatGPT Work is rolling out to Pro, Enterprise and Edu users first on web and mobile; this will be expanded to Plus and Business users “over the next few days.”

On the desktop, Work is available for everyone, including Free users.

Oh, and one more thing: The fact that ChatGPT Work has a built-in browser also means that OpenAI is sunsetting its standalone web browser, Atlas. Sorry.

How about GPT Live?

GPT Live is a new version of ChatGPT Voice and it will show up when you start talking to ChatGPT.

We’ve covered this in more depth here, but the bottom line is that GPT Live can listen and speak at the same time, allowing it to keep up a more realistic conversation.

Wrapping it all up

The new GPT-5.6 model is smart. It comes in three flavors: Luna, Terra, and Sol, with Sol being the most capable variant, Luna the most affordable one, and Terra somewhere in the middle. You can currently only get them on paid tiers, unless you’re using ChatGPT Work on desktop. And ChatGPT Voice has also gotten smarter with GPT-Live underneath, a model that can listen and speak at the same time.

#GPT5.6 #Sol #Terra #Luna">GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna are here. See which one’s best for you.
                                                            These days, new versions of AI chatbots don’t just launch; they’re unshackled and released to the public following government scrutiny. OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 models were – like Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and Fable – apparently too powerful to just launch; but now, after some tinkering, they’re available to you, dear customer.In practice, it simply means that the new GPT-5.6 models are very powerful and smarter than before. In its introductory post, OpenAI shared a bunch of graphs showing just how much better GPT-5.6 is than the competition, whilst using fewer tokens and generally costing less. 


OK, great. But GPT-5.6 is not just one model; it comes in three distinct flavors: Sol, Terra, and Luna. So what do different kinds of users get, what should they pay for, and which models should they (mostly) use? Let’s dive in. 
Free users get (almost) nothingSorry; if you’re not a paying customer, you’ll have to make do with OpenAI’s previous flagship model, GPT-5.5. Any sort of access to GPT-5.6 models requires a subscription of some sort. Fortunately, GPT-5.5 is still quite capable at most tasks, but if you want the best of the best, you’ll have to cough up the dough. There’s an exception to this: Free and Go users can access GPT-5.6 through ChatGPT Work. More on that below. If you’re a Plus or Business user, you can only get Sol (the most powerful model) at medium and higher effort settings. There’s another, higher level of performance called Sol Pro, but that’s only available for Pro and Enterprise users. In terms of availability per one million tokens, the prices are:  input and  output for Sol. .5 input and  output for Terra, and  input and  output for Luna. 
        SEE ALSO:
        
            Visa is connecting with ChatGPT to let AI agents automatically make purchases
            
        
    
Sol, Terra, or Luna?Why are there three models in the first place? Well, OpenAI always had a multi-tier model; for example, previously users were able to choose a “mini” version of the main model to get results done cheaper. Now, the model has been split into three tiers. If you’re a paying customer, you’re free to use all three. But you know how it is in the world of LLMs: If you pick the smartest one, your usage limits will get hit faster (yes, there are always usage limits, even if you throw a ton of money at OpenAI). 
        
            Mashable Light Speed
        
        
    
In the simplest sense, GPT-5.6 Sol is the smartest model, Terra is in between (with roughly GPT-5.5 level of performance), and Luna is the cheapest, fastest, but also least capable of the bunch. The breakdown is as follows: Terra is a “balanced” model for everyday work. That’s the one you should be asking most of your questions. Don’t underestimate it, though, as OpenAI claims it performs better than Anthropic’s Fable 5 in some cases. Luna is cost-efficient, and should be used for easy, non crucial everyday tasks; think recipes and movie recommendations. Again, OpenAI says it outperforms Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 in some cases, so it’s not a slouch, either.Sol should be reserved for coding, deep research, planning, and cybersecurity: The most demanding tasks. Of course it comes at a (literal) cost: While OpenAI claims it spends less tokens than Anthropic’s Fable 5, Sol will still hit usage limits a lot faster than the other variants. Fun fact: If you ask GPT-5.5 about any of this, right now, it’ll give you completely wrong answers. Hopefully OpenAI will fix this soon.Wait, what’s this ChatGPT Work thing, then?Oh yeah, OpenAI also launched ChatGPT Work, which is a new agent in ChatGPT that can access and take actions on your apps and files, and work in the background until a task is finished. It’s powered by Codex (OpenAI’s software engineering agent) and GPT-5.6. Think about it as your buddy that will go through your emails and files, browse the web, fetch the relevant data, and create that presentation your boss wants before the day is done. 



ChatGPT Work is rolling out to Pro, Enterprise and Edu users first on web and mobile; this will be expanded to Plus and Business users “over the next few days.”On the desktop, Work is available for everyone, including Free users. Oh, and one more thing: The fact that ChatGPT Work has a built-in browser also means that OpenAI is sunsetting its standalone web browser, Atlas. Sorry. How about GPT Live?GPT Live is a new version of ChatGPT Voice and it will show up when you start talking to ChatGPT. 


We’ve covered this in more depth here, but the bottom line is that GPT Live can listen and speak at the same time, allowing it to keep up a more realistic conversation.Wrapping it all upThe new GPT-5.6 model is smart. It comes in three flavors: Luna, Terra, and Sol, with Sol being the most capable variant, Luna the most affordable one, and Terra somewhere in the middle. You can currently only get them on paid tiers, unless you’re using ChatGPT Work on desktop. And ChatGPT Voice has also gotten smarter with GPT-Live underneath, a model that can listen and speak at the same time.

                    
                                            
                            
    
        Topics
                    Artificial Intelligence
                    OpenAI
            

                        
                                    #GPT5.6 #Sol #Terra #Luna

Fable – apparently too powerful to just launch; but now, after some tinkering, they’re available to you, dear customer.

In practice, it simply means that the new GPT-5.6 models are very powerful and smarter than before. In its introductory post, OpenAI shared a bunch of graphs showing just how much better GPT-5.6 is than the competition, whilst using fewer tokens and generally costing less.

OK, great. But GPT-5.6 is not just one model; it comes in three distinct flavors: Sol, Terra, and Luna. So what do different kinds of users get, what should they pay for, and which models should they (mostly) use? Let’s dive in.

Free users get (almost) nothing

Sorry; if you’re not a paying customer, you’ll have to make do with OpenAI’s previous flagship model, GPT-5.5. Any sort of access to GPT-5.6 models requires a subscription of some sort. Fortunately, GPT-5.5 is still quite capable at most tasks, but if you want the best of the best, you’ll have to cough up the dough.

There’s an exception to this: Free and Go users can access GPT-5.6 through ChatGPT Work. More on that below.

If you’re a Plus or Business user, you can only get Sol (the most powerful model) at medium and higher effort settings. There’s another, higher level of performance called Sol Pro, but that’s only available for Pro and Enterprise users.

In terms of availability per one million tokens, the prices are: $5 input and $30 output for Sol. $2.5 input and $15 output for Terra, and $1 input and $6 output for Luna.

Sol, Terra, or Luna?

Why are there three models in the first place? Well, OpenAI always had a multi-tier model; for example, previously users were able to choose a “mini” version of the main model to get results done cheaper. Now, the model has been split into three tiers.

If you’re a paying customer, you’re free to use all three. But you know how it is in the world of LLMs: If you pick the smartest one, your usage limits will get hit faster (yes, there are always usage limits, even if you throw a ton of money at OpenAI).

In the simplest sense, GPT-5.6 Sol is the smartest model, Terra is in between (with roughly GPT-5.5 level of performance), and Luna is the cheapest, fastest, but also least capable of the bunch.

The breakdown is as follows: Terra is a “balanced” model for everyday work. That’s the one you should be asking most of your questions. Don’t underestimate it, though, as OpenAI claims it performs better than Anthropic’s Fable 5 in some cases.

Luna is cost-efficient, and should be used for easy, non crucial everyday tasks; think recipes and movie recommendations. Again, OpenAI says it outperforms Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 in some cases, so it’s not a slouch, either.

Sol should be reserved for coding, deep research, planning, and cybersecurity: The most demanding tasks. Of course it comes at a (literal) cost: While OpenAI claims it spends less tokens than Anthropic’s Fable 5, Sol will still hit usage limits a lot faster than the other variants.

Fun fact: If you ask GPT-5.5 about any of this, right now, it’ll give you completely wrong answers. Hopefully OpenAI will fix this soon.

Wait, what’s this ChatGPT Work thing, then?

Oh yeah, OpenAI also launched ChatGPT Work, which is a new agent in ChatGPT that can access and take actions on your apps and files, and work in the background until a task is finished. It’s powered by Codex (OpenAI’s software engineering agent) and GPT-5.6. Think about it as your buddy that will go through your emails and files, browse the web, fetch the relevant data, and create that presentation your boss wants before the day is done.

ChatGPT Work is rolling out to Pro, Enterprise and Edu users first on web and mobile; this will be expanded to Plus and Business users “over the next few days.”

On the desktop, Work is available for everyone, including Free users.

Oh, and one more thing: The fact that ChatGPT Work has a built-in browser also means that OpenAI is sunsetting its standalone web browser, Atlas. Sorry.

How about GPT Live?

GPT Live is a new version of ChatGPT Voice and it will show up when you start talking to ChatGPT.

We’ve covered this in more depth here, but the bottom line is that GPT Live can listen and speak at the same time, allowing it to keep up a more realistic conversation.

Wrapping it all up

The new GPT-5.6 model is smart. It comes in three flavors: Luna, Terra, and Sol, with Sol being the most capable variant, Luna the most affordable one, and Terra somewhere in the middle. You can currently only get them on paid tiers, unless you’re using ChatGPT Work on desktop. And ChatGPT Voice has also gotten smarter with GPT-Live underneath, a model that can listen and speak at the same time.

#GPT5.6 #Sol #Terra #Luna">GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna are here. See which one’s best for you.

These days, new versions of AI chatbots don’t just launch; they’re unshackled and released to the public following government scrutiny. OpenAI’s new GPT-5.6 models were – like Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and Fable – apparently too powerful to just launch; but now, after some tinkering, they’re available to you, dear customer.

In practice, it simply means that the new GPT-5.6 models are very powerful and smarter than before. In its introductory post, OpenAI shared a bunch of graphs showing just how much better GPT-5.6 is than the competition, whilst using fewer tokens and generally costing less.

OK, great. But GPT-5.6 is not just one model; it comes in three distinct flavors: Sol, Terra, and Luna. So what do different kinds of users get, what should they pay for, and which models should they (mostly) use? Let’s dive in.

Free users get (almost) nothing

Sorry; if you’re not a paying customer, you’ll have to make do with OpenAI’s previous flagship model, GPT-5.5. Any sort of access to GPT-5.6 models requires a subscription of some sort. Fortunately, GPT-5.5 is still quite capable at most tasks, but if you want the best of the best, you’ll have to cough up the dough.

There’s an exception to this: Free and Go users can access GPT-5.6 through ChatGPT Work. More on that below.

If you’re a Plus or Business user, you can only get Sol (the most powerful model) at medium and higher effort settings. There’s another, higher level of performance called Sol Pro, but that’s only available for Pro and Enterprise users.

In terms of availability per one million tokens, the prices are: $5 input and $30 output for Sol. $2.5 input and $15 output for Terra, and $1 input and $6 output for Luna.

Sol, Terra, or Luna?

Why are there three models in the first place? Well, OpenAI always had a multi-tier model; for example, previously users were able to choose a “mini” version of the main model to get results done cheaper. Now, the model has been split into three tiers.

If you’re a paying customer, you’re free to use all three. But you know how it is in the world of LLMs: If you pick the smartest one, your usage limits will get hit faster (yes, there are always usage limits, even if you throw a ton of money at OpenAI).

In the simplest sense, GPT-5.6 Sol is the smartest model, Terra is in between (with roughly GPT-5.5 level of performance), and Luna is the cheapest, fastest, but also least capable of the bunch.

The breakdown is as follows: Terra is a “balanced” model for everyday work. That’s the one you should be asking most of your questions. Don’t underestimate it, though, as OpenAI claims it performs better than Anthropic’s Fable 5 in some cases.

Luna is cost-efficient, and should be used for easy, non crucial everyday tasks; think recipes and movie recommendations. Again, OpenAI says it outperforms Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 in some cases, so it’s not a slouch, either.

Sol should be reserved for coding, deep research, planning, and cybersecurity: The most demanding tasks. Of course it comes at a (literal) cost: While OpenAI claims it spends less tokens than Anthropic’s Fable 5, Sol will still hit usage limits a lot faster than the other variants.

Fun fact: If you ask GPT-5.5 about any of this, right now, it’ll give you completely wrong answers. Hopefully OpenAI will fix this soon.

Wait, what’s this ChatGPT Work thing, then?

Oh yeah, OpenAI also launched ChatGPT Work, which is a new agent in ChatGPT that can access and take actions on your apps and files, and work in the background until a task is finished. It’s powered by Codex (OpenAI’s software engineering agent) and GPT-5.6. Think about it as your buddy that will go through your emails and files, browse the web, fetch the relevant data, and create that presentation your boss wants before the day is done.

ChatGPT Work is rolling out to Pro, Enterprise and Edu users first on web and mobile; this will be expanded to Plus and Business users “over the next few days.”

On the desktop, Work is available for everyone, including Free users.

Oh, and one more thing: The fact that ChatGPT Work has a built-in browser also means that OpenAI is sunsetting its standalone web browser, Atlas. Sorry.

How about GPT Live?

GPT Live is a new version of ChatGPT Voice and it will show up when you start talking to ChatGPT.

We’ve covered this in more depth here, but the bottom line is that GPT Live can listen and speak at the same time, allowing it to keep up a more realistic conversation.

Wrapping it all up

The new GPT-5.6 model is smart. It comes in three flavors: Luna, Terra, and Sol, with Sol being the most capable variant, Luna the most affordable one, and Terra somewhere in the middle. You can currently only get them on paid tiers, unless you’re using ChatGPT Work on desktop. And ChatGPT Voice has also gotten smarter with GPT-Live underneath, a model that can listen and speak at the same time.

#GPT5.6 #Sol #Terra #Luna

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