Robotics
Unitree G1 EDU humanoid carries two root RCE chains, one over Bluetooth
Olivier Laflamme disclosed two independent root remote-code-execution chains against the Unitree G1 EDU research humanoid. CVE-2026-76639 is a network-adjacent path through the robot's chat_go service and a bashrunner helper; CVE-2026-76640 reaches root on the Locomotion PC — the board that runs the robot's gait and balance control — over Bluetooth Low Energy, requiring only radio proximity rather than network access. The G1 is one of the most widely deployed humanoid platforms in university and startup labs, which makes a proximity-triggered root path on the locomotion controller a physical-safety issue as much as a software one.
Two Unitree G1 EDU Humanoid Robot Flaws Enable Root RCE, One Starts Over Bluetooth
Quantum Computing
IBM ships Qiskit Fermions 0.1.0 for structure-preserving fermionic transpilation
IBM Quantum released Qiskit Fermions v0.1.0, an open-source add-on for expressing fermionic operators, building domain-specific fermionic circuits, and optimizing their mapping onto qubit hardware. The stated target is the compilation gap in quantum chemistry and lattice-model simulation, where generic transpilation discards the structure of the underlying interacting-particle system. Built on a Rust core with Python and C bindings; no benchmark comparisons against existing mappings were published with the release.
Holographic map ties bulk topological order to boundary mixed-state order
Writing in PRX Quantum, Lu, Liu, Gopalakrishnan and You construct a duality between topological order in a bulk system and mixed-state order on its boundary, mapping open quantum systems onto topological order one dimension higher. The framework gives a systematic handle on strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking — a decoherence-driven transition with no closed-system analogue — and on nonequilibrium phases of noisy quantum matter, which matters for classifying what survives in a quantum device before error correction is applied.
Holographic Duality Between Bulk Topological Order and Boundary Mixed-State Order
AI & ML
OpenAI ends model supply to Cursor after SpaceX acquisition
OpenAI said it will wind down the contract under which it provides models to the Cursor coding environment, citing Cursor's acquisition by SpaceX. It is a rare case of a frontier lab cutting off a major distribution partner over ownership rather than usage terms, and it leaves one of the most-used AI coding tools re-routing a significant share of its inference to other providers. OpenAI did not state a wind-down date or affected user count.
OpenAI runs an eight-week startup accelerator with Thailand's science ministry
OpenAI and Thailand's MHESI opened an eight-week accelerator for 10 startups working in health, wellness and education, aimed at moving AI prototypes toward deployable products. It follows the pattern of OpenAI's other government-partnered national programmes; no funding amount, equity terms, or selection criteria were disclosed.
Robotics
Meta is piloting robots for data-center technician work
Ars Technica reports on Meta's effort to put robots to work inside its data centers, testing them on tasks that technicians handle today — hardware swaps, inspection, and other repetitive floor work. The interest is structural rather than novelty: data-center buildout for AI training is outrunning the supply of technicians, and rack maintenance is one of the few physical-labour settings that is structured, indoors, and uniform enough for current manipulation policies. No deployment scale or success rates were disclosed.
Pollen Robotics puts a 780 g open-source walking robot on pre-order at $399
IEEE Spectrum's Video Friday leads with Microduck from Pollen Robotics — recently swept up in NVIDIA's $12.9 billion acquisition of its parent — a 25 cm, 780 g biped with 15 degrees of freedom, a front camera, an 8x8 LiDAR, two IMUs, microphones, speaker, NFC and wireless, priced at $399 with shipping promised before Christmas. Out of the box it walks, sits, crouches, roller-skates, picks up objects with an articulated beak, and recovers from falls; the software stack is fully open source. The same roundup covers NYU's scale-invariant ScaFi swimming robot and a 54 g jumping robot published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics.