US-China
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The FCC Banned Robot Vacuums. Judged as Physical-AI Policy Rather Than Appliance Policy, It Is the Right Call.
The FCC has confirmed robot vacuums fall under its Covered List, blocking new models from Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi, Narwal and a now Chinese-owned iRobot. Continue reading
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China’s Open-Weight Lead Exposes America’s Real AI Gap: Substrate, Not Capability
Qwen has nearly doubled Llama in cumulative downloads and takes 69 percent of new fine-tunes worldwide. Continue reading
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The FCC Did Not Ban Robots. It Made U.S. Market Access Conditional on American Parts — and That May Bind Domestic Makers Too
The FCC added foreign-produced mobile robots and connected power inverters to its Covered List on July 28, 2026. Continue reading
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What Is AI Distillation, and Why Did a 2015 Machine Learning Technique Become a National Security Fight in One Week?
Distillation is a standard, decade-old training method. In July 2026 it drew White House accusations, Treasury sanctions threats, and an open letter from two dozen tech firms. A neutral analysis separating what has been documented from what has only been asserted — including the timeline objection that researchers say undercuts the central claim. Continue reading
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China Just Hit Humanoid Factory Scale Before the US Did. Here’s What That Actually Means
On May 29, a Chinese factory in Shenzhen began shipping a full-size humanoid robot every 15 minutes. The story is not who built the most impressive robot. Continue reading