
Watch Humanoid Robots Play Soccer and and It's Magnificently Awkward — GeekTyrant
On June 28th, the city hosted its first Robotic Soccer Tournament, and it delivered everything you didn't know you needed: awkward sprints, theatrical wipeouts, and robots trying their digital hearts out.
The semi-finals saw Team Vulcan from Tsinghua University go toe-to-metal-toe with Team Blaze Light from Beijing Info & Sci-Tech U, featuring six humanoid robots that moved like toddlers in Halloween costumes trying to play FIFA.
Legs flailed, balance algorithms glitched, and somewhere deep inside their code, you could feel them really trying. It's a hilarious and weird to watch.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Fox News
28 minutes ago
- Fox News
Autonomous humanoid robot soccer debuts in China
In a futuristic showdown that captured global attention, four teams of autonomous humanoid robots competed in China's first AI-powered soccer tournament. The event took place in Beijing's Yizhuang Development Zone as part of the Robo League robot football tournament, marking a significant milestone for real-world artificial intelligence competition in China. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join my Unlike remote-controlled robot matches, this tournament featured zero human intervention. Each team had three active humanoid robots plus a substitute, playing two ten-minute halves with a five-minute break. The robots ran, walked, kicked and even made real-time decisions using AI and sensors. Cameras and optical sensors allowed them to detect the ball from 65 feet away with more than 90% accuracy. They also recognized teammates, field markings, goals and opponents. Despite a slightly awkward gait, the robots operated fully on their own, acting and reacting without any external commands. "This is the first fully autonomous AI robot football match in China. It represents a combination of technological innovation and industrial application," said Dou Jing, executive director of the organizing committee. Beyond entertainment, the event offered a serious glimpse into how AI and robotics could integrate into public life. It demonstrated how far real-world autonomy has come and how these systems can function in unpredictable environments. Dou added that the match was a step toward bringing intelligent machines into everyday scenarios. The event also served as a preview for the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Sports Games, which will be hosted in Beijing from August 15-17. The games will include eleven events modeled after traditional sports, including track and field, gymnastics, soccer and synchronized dancing. It will be the city's second major humanoid sports event after a half-marathon. Organizers noted that while the robots still face challenges, such as dynamic obstacle avoidance, progress is happening quickly. For this event, collisions were allowed as long as they were not malicious. One co-organizer compared the level of play to that of 5 or 6-year-old children but expressed optimism that skill levels would improve with better hardware and AI training. The THU Robotics team from Tsinghua University defeated the Mountain Sea team from China Agricultural University 5-3. Earlier, China also hosted a humanoid vs. human long-distance race, where the top robot completed a 13-mile course in two hours and 40 minutes. The fastest human finished in just over one hour, but the comparison showed how far walking robots have come. As Beijing prepares to host the 2025 global games, robot soccer is starting to feel less like a gimmick and more like a glimpse into how intelligent machines could soon play a significant role in our everyday lives. Watching robots play soccer without any human help is a peek into where AI and robotics are headed. These machines are learning fast, and while they're still a little wobbly, the future of autonomous technology looks anything but uncertain. If this is the starting point, imagine what they'll be capable of in just a few years. Would you stream a robot soccer match? Or is AI just not your kind of athlete? Let us know by writing to us at Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join my Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
11 Nintendo Switch 2 Settings You Should Change Right Away
Just picked up a Switch 2 and itching to play some games? That's all well and good, but there are a few things you might want to tweak before you dive into Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. We've rounded up some of the settings that you might want to change on your new console. While not all of them are applicable to every Switch 2 owner, some are no-brainers. Most smartphones now come with an optimized charging mode. This prevents the battery from reaching 100% charge capacity since keeping lithium-ion batteries in a full state causes more rapid degradation of the cell. Nintendo included a similar setting for the Switch 2, limiting the charge capacity to 90% or less. Head to System Settings > System then scroll down until you see 'Stop Charging Around 90%' and toggle the setting on. By doing this you will sacrifice some battery capacity, so your Switch will never quite offer as much play time as a console that's been charged to 100%. What you'll gain is better battery health over time. It's a great idea if you only occasionally play your Switch in portable mode, or if you're never far away from an outlet to charge your Switch on the go. While you're there in the System Settings > System menu, enable 'Console Battery (%)' right above the charge limiting setting. This adds a numerical percentage to the battery indicator, so you know exactly how much charge you have left. This makes it easy to see the precise battery impact of a game on your Switch since you can take note of what the battery percentage is at when you start and stop playing. Remember that battery indicators can be a bit misleading, so take that percentage value with a pinch of salt. As part of a push to improve Nintendo's surrounding mobile ecosystem, the Switch 2 can now upload captured media automatically. Oddly enough, this setting isn't enabled by default. To fix that, launch the 'Album' app from the main menu. In the left-hand menu, scroll down and select 'Upload Settings' then choose a user. Scroll down to 'Automatic Uploads' and enable the toggle to turn the feature on. From now on you'll be able to access media captured using the Screenshot button (on the left Joy-Con. or the left-hand side of the Pro Controller) using the Nintendo Switch app for iPhone or Android. Media will be available for 30 days from the date of upload, but you can always choose to upload it again in the future. Got old media you want to upload? Head back to the album and choose Bulk Actions > Upload to Smart Device from the menu on the left. Select the items you want to upload and then hit the blue 'Upload' button. You can upload 20 items at a time. This is probably a good thing, but the Switch 2 limits the maximum volume for headphone users by default. If you're having issues with low volume while using the 3.5mm stereo output or Bluetooth headphones, turning this setting off will probably help. Head to System Settings > Audio and scroll down until you see 'Lower Maximum Headphone Volume' and turn this setting off. You can use the 'Test Output' button to preview the change. To really maximize battery life, you'll want to make sure your console enters sleep mode soon after playing. To do this, you can reduce the auto-sleep timer to as little as a minute when no input is detected. To do this, head to System Settings > Sleep Mode and change the 'Auto-Sleep (Playing on Console Screen)' setting to a value of your choosing. You can do the same for 'Auto-Sleep (Connected to TV)' but this won't affect the battery life, since the Switch is connected to power in docked mode. Want to stop others from messing with your Switch 2? Enable the console lock to stop others from playing games, making progress in your save files, or buying things in the eShop without your express permission. You'll find this setting under System Settings > System by scrolling down until you see 'Console Lock' and flipping the toggle. You'll be prompted to set a PIN, which you'll need to input every time the console wakes. Combine this with a super short auto-sleep timer (above) to safeguard your data. While this setting may seem like the nuclear option, consider that you can always share the PIN with a trusted party while locking everyone else out. The Switch 2 features a new C button on the right Joy-Con (or to the right-hand side of the Switch 2 Pro Controller). This enables GameChat, Nintendo's take on Discord which is free for all users until March 31, 2026. After this, you'll need to pay for a Nintendo Switch Online membership to use the service. Even if you're a keen online gamer, you might not find much use for GameChat. If this is the case, you can remap the button to something else or disable it entirely if you're sick of accidentally hitting it and triggering the feature. Head to System Settings > Accessibility > Change Button Mapping and then select the controller you want to configure. Now select the C button from the list of available options and choose what to do with it. You'll find the option to disable the button entirely at the bottom of the list. One good idea is to map it as a Capture button so that you have the ability to take a screenshot or video from either Joy-Con. You could also map it to an analog stick press if you find this a bit awkward. The launch-edition Switch 2 console has a dark appearance that is crying out for a dark theme. If you play your console at night, enabling the dark theme is an absolute no-brainer. If you have an OLED TV, enabling the dark theme will prevent the automatic brightness limiter (ABL) from kicking in every time you go back to the Switch 2 dashboard. Furthermore, dark mode just looks better. If you're not already using dark mode, head to System Settings > Themes and switch to Dark. Here's hoping Nintendo actually adds a few more themes to the Switch 2, something that was painfully absent last time around. If saving battery is your thing, you'll probably want to leave auto brightness enabled. As you'd expect, this setting automatically adjusts screen brightness depending on the ambient lighting conditions. But if you prefer to keep the screen brightness at one set level, and you're not too worried about battery consumption, you can turn it off. The easiest way to do this is to hold the HOME button and then use the 'Automatic Brightness' toggle, but there's also a 'Screen Brightness' tab within the console settings. With the setting off, you'll want to make use of this panel to adjust the brightness using the slider. If you're playing plugged in all of the time, you'll probably want to leave this jacked up anyway. Nintendo turned the Switch 2's burn-in reduction on by default, which is great for OLED owners who want to avoid the risk of permanent and temporary image retention. This setting will dim the display output after five minutes of inactivity. But if you have a regular old LED-lit LCD TV, you can safely turn this off without any downsides. This will keep your Switch 2 pumping out a bright image, even if you put the controller down for a second. It's great if you're a bit of an idle gamer who is easily distracted, or if you're doing something tedious that doesn't actually require your hands on the controller. Switch it off under System Settings > Display using the "Screen Burn-In Reduction" toggle.


The Verge
an hour ago
- The Verge
TikTok's ‘ban' problem could end soon with a new app and a sale
Even with the TikTok divest-or-ban law officially in effect since January, the app has only shut down service in the US for one day. Now, The Information reports that an agreement for a sale satisfying the law's requirements is close and would come with a new, separate version of the app. Any deal, however, would need approval from the Chinese government, which is also still wrangling with the Trump administration over tariffs. The outlet reports that the Trump administration says it's close to working out a sale to a group of 'non-Chinese' investors, including Oracle, with current majority owner ByteDance maintaining a minority stake that would satisfy the terms of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the General Services Administration says Oracle has reached a new agreement with the federal government that 'is the first of its kind that provides the entire government with a discount on cloud infrastructure,' with a 75 percent discount on licensed software. TikTok's staff is reportedly working on a new version of the app — dubbed M2, to the current app's internal M designation — for release in app stores on September 5th. Trump issued a third legally questionable extension of the deadline to ban TikTok from US app stores last month, which is set to expire in mid-September. According to The Information's unnamed source, under the current timeline, the original TikTok app would leave app stores as the new one launches and then stop working entirely in March 2026.