Robots run a half marathon, slowly

It looks like humanoid robots have a long way to go before catching up with human runners. Beijing’s E-Town tech hub hosted what it described as the first world’s first humanoid half-marathon on Saturday, with 21 humanoid robots competing alongside thousands of humans. Bloomberg reports that the winning robot, Tiangong Ultra, was built by the government-backed research institute X-Humanoid and finished the race in two hours and 40 minutes. This would not be an impressive time for a human — the race’s winning male runner finished in one hour and two minutes, and it’s normal for casual runners to complete a half-marathon in (brag alert) under two hours. Tiangong Ultra needed human assistance to win — specifically a human who ran ahead with a signaling device on his back, enabling the robot to imitate his movements. (Most other robots were remote controlled, with human operators running beside them.) Tiangong robot won the Beijing half marathon with a time of 2 hours 40 minutes – more ... Read full article.