I was delighted to meet an adorable vacuum robot at the workplace! How could anyone say ‘no’ to that sweet face

Never met one quite like this one and they told me her name is Reba

It looks like a $399 robot duck. It waddles, falls over, gets back up — and looks more like a toy than the future of robotics.

But the interesting part isn’t the duck.

It’s what happens when physical experience becomes data.

Unlike language models, robots don’t have an internet-sized archive of real-world experience to learn from. Every fall, failed grasp and recovery has to happen somewhere in the physical world.

Cheap robots like MicroDuck point toward a strange possibility: thousands of robots, in thousands of homes, generating physical experience — and potentially sharing what they learn.

One robot learns. A thousand robots inherit.

Hi Reddit. I am not in the field but I am very interested in the development of robotics. (Just curious) probably not going into the field but very interested and excited about future of robotics

1. What is going on right now? Overall.
   
2. What are some major problems in robotics and major direction?
   
3. Which specific labs in which universities or companies are doing well on their research direction?
   
4. What are some of the leading universities labs and companies globally?
   
5. What is academia compared to industry?
   
6. Where are the centers of robotics?

I would really appreciate any inside perspective.

Those may sound like some naive questions but I am not in the field so forgive me.