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Robots have long been seen as a bad bet for Silicon Valley investors too complicated, capital-intensive, and boring, honestly, says venture capitalist Modar Alaoui. But the commercial boom in artificial intelligence has lit a spark under long-simmering visions to build humanoid robots that can move their mechanical bodies like humans and do things that people do. Alaoui, founder of the Humanoids Summit, gathered more than 2,000 people this week, including top robotics engineers from Disney, Google, and dozens of startups, to showcase their technology and debate what it will take to accelerate a nascent industry. Alaoui says many researchers now believe humanoids or some other kind of physical embodiment of AI are going to become the norm.” The question is really just how long it will take, he said. Disney’s contribution to the field, a walking robotic version of Frozen character Olaf, will be roaming on its own through Disneyland theme parks in Hong Kong and Paris early next year. Entertaining and highly complex robots that resemble a human or a snowman are already here, but the timeline for general purpose robots that are a productive member of a workplace or household is farther away. Even at a conference designed to build enthusiasm for the technology, held at a Computer History Museum that’s a temple to Silicon Valley’s previous breakthroughs, skepticism remained high that truly humanlike robots will take root anytime soon. The humanoid space has a very, very big hill to climb, said Cosima du Pasquier, co-founder of Haptica Robotics, which works to give robots a sense of touch. There’s a lot of research that still needs to be solved. The Stanford University postdoctoral researcher came to the conference in Mountain View, California, just a week after incorporating her startup. The first customers are really the people here, she said. Researchers at the consultancy McKinsey & Company have counted about 50 companies around the world that have raised at least $100 million to develop humanoids, led by about 20 in China and 15 in North America. China is leading in part due to government incentives for component production and robot adoption and a mandate last year to have a humanoid ecosystem established by 2025, said McKinsey partner Ani Kelkar. Displays by Chinese firms dominated the expo section of this week’s summit, held Thursday and Friday. The conference’s most prevalent humanoids were those made by China’s Unitree, in part because researchers in the U.S. buy the relatively cheap model to test their own software. In the U.S., the advent of generative AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini has jolted the decades-old robotics industry in different ways. Investor excitement has poured money into ambitious startups aiming to build hardware that will bring a physical presence to the latest AI. But it’s not just crossover hype the same technical advances that made AI chatbots so good at language have played a role in teaching robots how to get better at performing tasks. Paired with computer vision, robots powered by visual-language models are trained to learn about their surroundings. One of the most prominent skeptics is robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of Roomba vacuum maker iRobot who wrote in September that todays humanoid robots will not learn how to be dexterous despite the hundreds of millions, or perhaps many billions of dollars, being donated by VCs and major tech companies to pay for their training. Brooks didn’t attend but his essay was frequently mentioned. Also missing was anyone speaking for Tesla CEO Elon Musks development of a humanoid called Optimus, a project that the billionaire is designing to be extremely capable and sold in high volumes. Musk said three years ago that people can probably buy an Optimus within three to five years. The conference’s organizer, Alaoui, founder and general partner of ALM Ventures, previously worked on driver attention systems for the automotive industry and sees parallels between humanoids and the early years of self-driving cars. Near the entrance to the summit venue, just blocks from Google’s headquarters, is a museum exhibit showing Google’s bubble-shaped 2014 prototype of a self-driving car. Eleven years later, robotaxis operated by Google affiliate Waymo are constantly plying the streets nearby. Some robots with human elements are already being tested in workplaces. Oregon-based Agility Robotics announced shortly before the conference that it is bringing its tote-carrying warehouse robot Digit to a Texas distribution facility run by Mercado Libre, the Latin American e-commerce giant. Much like the Olaf robot, it has inverted legs that are more birdlike than human. Industrial robots performing single tasks are already commonplace in car assembly and other manufacturing. They work with a level of speed and precision thats difficult for todays humanoids or humans themselves to match. The head of a robotics trade group founded in 1974 is now lobbying the U.S. government to develop a stronger national strategy to advance the development of homegrown robots, be they humanoids or otherwise. We have a lot of strong technology, we have the AI expertise here in the U.S., said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, after touring the expo. So I think it remains to be seen who is the ultimate leader in this. But right now, China has certainly a lot more momentum on humanoids. Matt O’Brien, AP technology writer Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
Roughly 75 million Americans will receive a 2.8% boost to their income in 2026, thanks to the upcoming cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments. But other changes afoot to the program will affect people who are still working, without a glint of retirement yet in their eyes. The annual COLA update, as its known, is often the main change to Social Security we hear about because its a useful gauge to see how your pay increase compares. But because workers pay into the system, some of the annual changes also affect your paycheck. Heres what to know. HIGHER INCOMES TO BE TAXED As part of its annual inflation-related update to the program, the Social Security Administration also adjusts the taxable maximum for wagesthe primary source of funding for this program. While these changes affect high earners, it could mean that youll see some more money taken from your paycheck in taxes. Employees are taxed 6.2% of their earnings up to a certain limit for Social Security, while employers are required to chip in the same amount. In 2026, people earning up to $184,500 will pay Social Security taxes, up from 176,100 in 2025. HIGHER EARNING LIMITS FOR COLLECTING BENEFITS While many people may think of Social Security as a program thats reserved solely for retirees, you can continue working while simultaneously receiving these benefits. And the federal agency has likewise increased the amount of income that people can earn before benefits are withheld. You can start receiving Social Security as early as 62 and in 2026, you can earn up to $24,480 without having any of these benefits withheld. For earnings beyond this amount, $1 in benefits will be deducted for every $2 earned. This earnings limit increased from $23,400 in 2025. Meanwhile, people who will reach full retirement age in 2026a few months short of 67then you can earn up to $65,160 in earnings before your benefits are withheld. Beyond that amount, $1 in benefits will be deducted for every $3 earned. That amount has increased from $62,160 in 2025. This may sound unfair, but withheld benefits come back to you lateryoull receive larger monthly Social Security checks once you reach full retirement age, though claiming Social Security before full retirement age will reduce your monthly benefits for life. PART-TIME WORK CREDITS In order to eventually collect Social Security benefits, you must accrue a minimum 40 work credits in your lifetimeroughly equivalent to 10 years of work. But the amount of benefit you will be paid each month depends on your highest 35 years of earnings. For people who work especially part-time roles, it could become a little bit more challenging to earn those work credits starting in 2026. Thats because the value of each work credit is increasing from $1,810 to $1,890, which means that you need a total annual income of $7,560 to be eligible for the maximum of four credits. CHANGES FOR RETIREES Not surprisingly, the biggest changes to Social Security will affect those people who are collecting benefits. Whats new in 2026 may or may not be welcomed news. Take the COLA increase, for example. While its slightly above a 25-year average of about 2.6%, this increase may not be sufficient for many retirees, according to AARP. Even a 3% COLA for 2026 wouldnt be enough, according to 77% of older adults surveyed by the organization in September. While retirees are getting some relief on one front, theyll be paying more for healthcare. One provision in the tax bill known as the One Big Beautiful Bill means that people 65 and older could reduce or fully offset taxes on Social Security incomeby up to $6,000 for eligible taxpayers. But retirees will be paying more to access healthcare. In November, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that the standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B, will increase 9.7% to $202.90 in January. All of the changes, both for retirees and workers, will go into effect beginning January 1.
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E-Commerce
In a record weird year for the economy, the price of silver is the latest thing to behave strangely. The price of the second fiddle precious metal has soared over the last month, hitting record highs and outpacing the growth of gold. After hovering between $15 and $25 an ounce for much of the last decade, the price of silver topped $40 an ounce this fall before spiking to a record high of $82 at the end of December. After topping $80 on Monday, silver fell back closer to $70 an ounce still more than double what the metal was worth only a year ago. Precious metals like silver tend to do well in times of economic uncertainty and 2025 has fit that bill and then some. Investors looking to insulate themselves from the Trump administrations chaotic economic choices turned to gold as a safe haven asset in 2025, sending the price of the top dog precious metal up. Like silver, golds price growth outstripped the stock market this year and hit new record highs. Long-awaited cuts to the federal interest rate, and future cuts on the near horizon, are also pushing the price of precious metals higher. Small time investors are getting in on the silver action, with amateur traders organizing on Reddit and plotting their moves like they did in the early heyday of meme stocks. Silvers price was already on the rise, but a looming change to Chinese trade policy may be sending silver even higher. At the start of the year, China will implement a new set of rules on its metal exports designed to step up the protection of resources and the environment in the country a change that is sowing concerns about silvers supply. China also plans to place more stringent restrictions on exports of steel and other metals in the coming year to address what it calls an insufficient supply-demand balance in the steel trade. Silver isnt just an investment Investors have flocked to silver over the course of the year, but the precious metal has many uses beyond holding its value over time. Silver has a wide range of applications and is used heavily in electric vehicles and solar panels two areas that have boomed in recent years. Given those applications, any change to the global silver supply is a cause for concern for Elon Musk, who leads EV maker Tesla. This is not good. Silver is needed in many industrial processes, Musk posted in a reply to a post about Chinas policy change on X. After Mexico, China is the worlds second largest supplier of mined silver. Silver features prominently in solar technology, where it is converted into a paste that coats solar cells. When light strikes the silicon, electrons are set free and the silver the worlds best conductor carries the electricity for immediate use or stores it in batteries for later consumption, global silver association The Silver Institute explains. In 2014, the solar industry accounted for only around 5% of global silver demand, a percentage that basically tripled a decade later. Data centers, currently an explosive area of investment for many major tech and AI companies, also rely heavily on silver and other metals. Trade changes aside, silver is known as a riskier bet than its more valuable sibling metal. In October, analysts at Goldman Sachs warned that silvers big 2025 rally might fizzle out and wasnt likely to stay as steady as gold through its gains. In the near term, we see significantly more volatility and downside price risk for silver than for gold, which is the only commodity supported by a structural central-bank bid,” Goldmans analysts wrote. “Silver lacks the institutional and economic profile that supports gold Without a central bank bid to anchor silver prices, even a temporary pullback in investment flows could trigger a disproportionate correction. Safe haven-seekers counting on silvers winning streak may want to take note.
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