Chinese humanoid robots are having a moment in the spotlight after a standout performance at the country's annual Spring Festival Gala.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months.

On September 25, 2025, Google DeepMind quietly released Gemini Robotics 1.5. To the casual observer, it may have seemed like just another software update, but for the robotics industry, it signaled a pivotal shift. It was the link that transformed humanoid robots from bespoke science projects into scalable technologies.

MirrorMe Technology's Bolt became the fastest running humanoid robot demonstrated outside computer simulations when it reached a top speed of 22 mph.

At this year's CMG Spring Festival Gala, the world's most-watched television broadcast, four Chinese robotics powerhouses, namely Unitree, MagicLab, Galbot and Noetix, debuted their most advanced units to date. For the robotics industry, this was far more than a cultural performance; it was a high-stakes global product launch.

Tesla is repurposing EV factories to build its Optimus robots. The company is doubling its spending to $20 billion to help expand its robotics business. While it may have an early lead, success isn't guaranteed, and Tesla's shares are too pricey.

Fauna Robotics is launching Sprout as a developer platform for humanoid robots. The robot features 29 degrees of freedom and NVIDIA compute power.

Its skin is literally warm — and we're not sure we want to know why. The post This Robot With a Working Human Face Is Incredibly Unsettling appeared first on Futurism.