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Figure boasts that its second-generation robot is the "highest performing humanoid robot to market"

California-based robotics outfit Figure has today announced its second-generation humanoid robot, which is initially being aimed at production lines in commercial settings, but the company is promising a bipedal butler in our homes in the near future.

Figure was founded in 2022 by entrepreneur Brett Adcock – of Vettery and Archer Aviation – with the aim of bringing a "commercially viable general purpose humanoid robot" to market. We caught up with Adcock last year, publishing a series of three interview pieces, and have followed the progress of its first robot from first steps to learning and performing tasks to joining BMW's workforce, and then gaining OpenAI chattiness.

Figure says that its engineers have since undertaken a "ground-up hardware and software redesign" that includes upgrades to the AI systems, computer vision, the battery pack, electronics, sensors and actuators.

Among the highlights shared are onboard microphones and speakers that cater for one-to-one conversations with humans, powered by custom AI models trained in collaboration with OpenAI. Does this mean that F.02 bots will become a best pal that you can share troubles or life stories with as well as a workmate to help the long day seem shorter thanks to quickfire banter? Possibly, but that's unlikely to be the main focus at present – you can maybe expect something akin to GPT exchanges initially though.

Internal wiring for improved reliability, six RGB cameras to help the humanoid perceive and understand the physical world, and "common-sense visual reasoning" via an onboard vision language model.

Figure has also cooked in something called a vision language model that will allow the humanoid to make sense of what is captured through the camera lenses and make decisions on what, if anything, needs to be done.

As for the cameras themselves, the F.02 sports six RGB cameras that feed the physical world into its AI-driven vision system to help it understand what's what. These include two in its curved-panel animated face as well as an array around back. The robot also benefits from a 3x increase in computational power and AI inference chops compared to Gen1 that "enables real-world AI tasks to be performed fully autonomously."

Fabric covering here and there together with internal wiring make for a slick outer form wearing cool gun-metal gray. A promo video reveals shoulder joints with 50 Nm (36.8 lb.ft) of torque and a 148-degree range of motion, 150 Nm (110.6 lb.ft) at the knee and 135 degrees, and 150 Nm at the hip with a 195-degree range. And the new humanoid has been treated to the latest iteration of human-scale robot hands, enabling "a wide range of human-like tasks" thanks to 16 degrees of freedom and human-equivalent strength.

Lastly, a new 2.25-kWh custom battery pack in the torso reportedly ups energy delivery by more than 50%, though actual per-charge runtime figures have not been shared at this point.

We recently saw some of the results of Figure 01's training regime as it learned to work at BMW's manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The F.02 humanoid has also landed on the factory floor, spending the last few weeks "successfully inserted sheet metal parts into specific fixtures, which were then assembled as part of the chassis" as well as undertaking AI data collection and use case training.

"Figure’s goal is to create robots that will not only enhance productivity and efficiency but also improve the quality of life for humans," said the company in a press statement. "The advanced capabilities of Figure 02 bring the company one step closer to achieving that vision."

Jul 21, 2024 · 6 min read

#3 post (27.8K views)

Yesterday I was browsing /r/programming and came across a blog post titled “After CrowdStrike, Programmers Deserve Consequences.” The author opens up with a comparison of Software Engineers to an Anesthesiologist or a Structural Engineer, and tells a personal story about his friend who got stuck in a hospital due to the CrowdStrike outage. And it’s true—software bugs can kill people. Mistakes in airplane autopilot software, or malfunction in equipment run by software—can cost the lives of people.

But then the author engages in an absurd rant about how the entire software engineering industry is a “bit of a clusterfuck”, and makes a delusional claim how software engineers should bear the responsibility for bugs and outages. It’s not the first time I hear these arguments. I remember when VW emission scandal was revealed, people had the same arguments: the developer(s) who coded the bypass—should be responsible. I’ll explain, in the end of the article, why I don’t think developers should be responsible, but for now, let me give you some more figures to blame.

We can start with the CEO. When you argue with CEOs why they deserve such a big pay and bonuses, they will usually say something along the lines of: “Entrepreneurship implies huge risk and lays the responsibility for failure on the shoulders of the founder/CEO”. And it’s true. Founders/Entrepreneurs bear a lot of risk. They go on raising money, getting into debt, take the role of running a company and they, usually, enjoy the result of their success—which is translated to a nice salary—or bear the consequences of failure. At least they used to.

I remember times when leaders had dignity and self-respect. They would go on stage and apologize. They would take responsibility and outline an action plan. Some even stepped down from their position as a sign of failed management. But today? Today, they hide behind an army of PR people who write blunt, soulless, unsympathetic press releases, blame their customers and compare their employees to a number in a balance sheet. They no longer care about serving the public, but rather generating profit for investors.

And, usually, they fail upwards. George Kurtz, the CEO of CrowdStrike, used to be a CTO at McAfee, back in 2010 when McAfee had a similar global outage. But McAfee was bought by Intel a few months later, Kurtz left McAfee and founded CrowdStrike. I guess for C-suite, a global boo-boo means promotion.

But if C-suite fail upwards, then the next obvious party to blame is the Customer. We could blame United or Delta that decided to run EDR software on a machine that was supposed to display flight details at a check-in counter. Sure, it makes sense to run EDR on a mission-critical machine, but on a dumb display of information? Or maybe let’s blame the hospital. Why would they run EDR on an MRI Machine?

We should blame the IT department in these companies. Unless we understand that the IT department was simply trying to check a box in a stupid regulation imposed by the government. So it makes sense to blame the Government. A government that creates absurd regulations by senile people whose familiarity with technology is limited to their TV remote. Have you seen the absurd questions by the US senate to tech entrepreneurs?

Politicians are good at what they do—creating regulations. The companies are then left at the mercy of implementing these regulations. I imagine an IT specialist trying to explain to his manager how it makes no sense to install EDR software on an MRI machine, but his manager has no clue about it and simply tries to follow the regulation. So maybe we should blame the middle management? The same middle management who cuts corners because they need to demonstrate KPIs, or fulfill unrealistic deadlines that they, themselves, created?

Or, we cane go a level higher and blame the board. The board who cares only about one thing: $$$. How can we save dollars? Let’s fire, sorry layoff, some engineers. Clearly, these overpaid peasants don’t deserve the money they are getting paid, and we can remove some of them. Or better, replace them with AI. I won’t be surprised if this outage was caused by CorwdStrike trying to “optimize” it’s pipeline by firing laying off some QA engineers and or replacing them with AI.

But the truth is, we can’t blame any of the above. They are the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the backbone of our economic systems. They all fail upwards. The white knights of our modern society. Smartest, most successful individuals whose words and practices should be taken without questions as if they spread the message of God himself.

No, we can’t blame them. Instead, we should blame the peasants. These dirty developers who make a lot of, unjustified, money, whose work can be replaced by AI.

You want to gate keep the word “Engineer”? You want to compare Software Engineers to Structural Engineers? Then I have a shocking discovery for your. A Structural Engineer won’t sign off a design that was made under pressure or with cut corners. He will shift the blame to the construction if they decide to use a different type of steel or cheaper screws. And if you decide to replace an Anesthesiologist with AI, then good luck to you.

The reason why Anesthesiologists or Structural Engineers can take responsibility for their work, is because they get the respect they deserve. You want software engineers to be accountable for their code, then give them the respect they deserve. If a software engineer tells you that this code needs to be 100% test covered, that AI won’t replace them, and that they need 3 months of development—then you better shut the fuck up and let them do their job. And if you don’t, then take the blame for you greedy nature and broken organizational practices.

Because blaming software engineers is nothing more than satisfying the bloodthirsty public for your organizational malpractices. Sure, you will get the public what they want, but you won’t solve the root cause of the problem—which is a broken pipeline of regulations by people who have no idea what are they talking about, to CEOs who are accountable only to the board of directors, to upper and middle management who thinks they know better and gives zero respect to the people who actually do the work, while most of the latter just want to work in a stable environment where they are respected for their craft.

I have been the CEO of an anti-virus software developer. We had a special acronym for catastrophic events like this, a so-called "CEE". As in Company Extinction Event. 

Within hours of mass IT outages on Friday, a surge of new domains began appearing online, all sharing one common factor: the name CrowdStrike. As the company grapples with a global tech outage that has delayed flights and disrupted emergency services, opportunistic cybercriminals are quick to exploit the chaos.

Numerous websites have surfaced, promising help to those affected by the outage. Names like crowdstriketoken[.]com, crowdstrikedown[.]site, crowdstrikefix[.]com, were identified by a UK-based cybersecurity researcher specializing in credential phishing.

These new domains were registered and designed in record time to lure in people desperate to restore their systems. While phishing sites commonly emerge following major events, the scale of Friday’s outages presents a vast field of potential victims.

According to the researcher, several sites were still under construction, including crowdstrike-helpdesk[.]com, and crowdstrikeclaim[.]com. Bloomberg reported that he began monitoring the situation around midday in the UK and discovered new domains registered as early as 4:12 a.m. EDT, totaling 28 sites so far.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has already observed threat actors exploiting this incident for phishing and other malicious activities. They urge people to avoid clicking on suspicious links.

George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, said: "Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike. As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again."

I know George and I'm sure that CrowdStrike will survive this. But it sure is a massive headache for customers. He said: "We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this. I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives. Our blog and technical support will continue to be the official channels for the latest updates." 

Exactly. Warn your users to not get lured onto a scam site and download a fake update.

CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This was not a cyberattack.

The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We are referring customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous public updates on our blog.

We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.

Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.

We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.

We assure our customers that CrowdStrike is operating normally and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems. If your systems are operating normally, there is no impact to their protection if the Falcon Sensor is installed.

Below is the latest CrowdStrike Tech Alert with more information about the issue and workaround steps organizations can take. We will continue to provide updates to our community and the industry as they become available.

Summary

• CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor.

Details

• Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor.

• Windows hosts which have not been impacted do not require any action as the problematic channel file has been reverted.

• Windows hosts which are brought online after 0527 UTC will also not be impacted

• This issue is not impacting Mac- or Linux-based hosts

• Channel file "C-00000291*.sys" with timestamp of 0527 UTC or later is the reverted (good) version.

• Channel file "C-00000291*.sys" with timestamp of 0409 UTC is the problematic version.

  • Note: It is normal for multiple "C-00000291*.sys files to be present in the CrowdStrike directory - as long as one of the files in the folder has a timestamp of 0527 UTC or later, that will be the active content.

Current Action

• CrowdStrike Engineering has identified a content deployment related to this issue and reverted those changes.

• If hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File Changes, the workaround steps below can be used.

• We assure our customers that CrowdStrike is operating normally and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems. If your systems are operating normally, there is no impact to their protection if the Falcon Sensor is installed. Falcon Complete and Overwatch services are not disrupted by this incident.

Query to identify impacted hosts via Advanced event search

Please see this KB article: How to identify hosts possibly impacted by Windows crashes (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

Workaround Steps for individual hosts:

• Reboot the host to give it an opportunity to download the reverted channel file. We strongly recommend putting the host on a wired network (as opposed to WiFi) prior to rebooting as the host will acquire internet connectivity considerably faster via ethernet.

• If the host crashes again, then:

  • Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment

    • NOTE: Putting the host on a wired network (as opposed to WiFi) and using Safe Mode with Networking can help remediation.

  • Navigate to the %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

    • Note: On WinRE/WinPE, navigate to the Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory of the OS volume

  • Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.

  • Boot the host normally.

  • Note: Bitlocker-encrypted hosts may require a recovery key.

Workaround Steps for public cloud or similar environment including virtual:

Option 1:

• ​​​​​​​Detach the operating system disk volume from the impacted virtual server

• Create a snapshot or backup of the disk volume before proceeding further as a precaution against unintended changes

• Attach/mount the volume to to a new virtual server

• Navigate to the %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

• Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.

• Detach the volume from the new virtual server

• Reattach the fixed volume to the impacted virtual server

Option 2:

• ​​​​​​​Roll back to a snapshot before 0409 UTC.

AWS-specific documentation:

• To attach an EBS volume to an instance

• Detach an Amazon EBS volume from an instance

Azure environments:

• Please see this Microsoft article

User Access to Recovery Key in the Workspace ONE Portal

When this setting is enabled, users can retrieve the BitLocker Recovery Key from the Workspace ONE portal without the need to contact the HelpDesk for assistance. To turn on the recovery key in the Workspace ONE portal, follow the next steps. Please see this Omnissa article for more information.

Bitlocker recovery-related KBs:

• BitLocker recovery in Microsoft Azure (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

• BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using SCCM (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

• BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using Active Directory and GPOs (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

• BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using Ivanti Endpoint Manager (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

• BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using ManageEngine Desktop Central (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

• BitLocker recovery in Microsoft environments using IBM BigFix (pdf) or login to view in support portal.

Microsoft suffered a massive, ongoing IT outage on Friday morning, impacting airports, airlines, banks, hospitals and broadcasters worldwide. The Microsoft outage hit thousands of Windows PCs, which many companies and organizations rely on as part of their critical internet infrastructure. Perhaps most concerning, several US states reported that their emergency 911 call centers have been hit.

Even though the initial cause of the outage has now been fixed by Microsoft and its partner CrowdStrike -- here's how to fix your Windows PC affected by the CrowdStrike blue screen of death -- many services and businesses continue to be affected, including hospitals and flights.

Microsoft first said on X that it was aware of an issue affecting people's ability to access 365 services late on Thursday. In an update issued around 1 a.m. PT (4 a.m. ET), the company said, "Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress." The company didn't immediately respond to request for further comment. In one update, it said some people had success overcoming the issue by rebooting their computers up to 15 times.

The outage, which also took down the London Stock Exchange, has been blamed on a faulty update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The company handles the security of many Windows PCs and services around the world. In a statement Friday morning, CrowdStrike said the issue had been "identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed." It outlined all of the steps people could take to fix their PCs in its statement.

"This is not a security incident or cyberattack," the company added.

The last time there was an internet outage this widespread was when a service called Fastly went down in 2021. It's a reminder of how much of the internet is underpinned by shared infrastructure, which leaves it vulnerable to widespread issues such as this. The share price of many companies took a nose dive following Friday's outage, but it also affected many people on an individual level, from disrupting vacation plans to preventing access to emergency services.

Are hospitals affected by the outage?

Hospitals in the US reported problems on Friday morning with their IT systems, affecting many patients. "A major worldwide software outage has affected many of our systems at Mass General Brigham, as well as many major businesses across the country," a spokesperson for Massachusetts General Hospital told Newsweek. "Due to the severity of this issue, all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits are cancelled today."

In the UK, medical services have also been affected, including the National Health Service system for booking appointments and pharmacies, which are struggling to take payments. 

Is 911 working?

Across the US, state troopers were reporting that 911 lines were down, starting in Alaska. Unconfirmed reports suggest that some lines in Minnesota, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio and New Hampshire had also been hit. 

Many people were reporting issues through the Down Detector website, with outages appearing to peak around midnight PT. If you live in one of the affected states, check with your local state troopers or police department for alternative emergency numbers. Alaska State Troopers issued an update later on Friday, saying their service had be reinstated as of 4:23 a.m. local time.

Television channels around the world have been hit by the outage, with Sky News in the UK broadcasting from a phone after its studio equipment failed. The Paris Olympics organizing committee also said it had been hit by the outage, but that it had contingency plans in place. 

Are flights still grounded?

Airports from New Zealand to the UK reported issues in the early hours of Friday morning, particularly with their scanning technology, which couldn't register passengers' boarding passes. In India and Northern Ireland, departures boards and boarding passes were being written by hand. Airlines, including Europe-wide budget airline Ryanair, were reporting issues with online check-in. Ryanair advised all passengers to arrive at least three hours early for their flights. 

In the US, the Federal Aviation Authority has grounded some flights from American Airlines, United and Delta. Many US airlines haven't yet issued statements about how they expect the day to pan out, but it might be wise for passengers hoping to fly from US airports today to check with your airlines before setting off and also get there earlier than usual to allow extra time to check-in.

Delta

The biggest airlines operating in the US have been issuing regular updates, with Delta saying in a statement: "Delta has resumed some flight departures after a vendor technology issue impacted several airlines and businesses around the world. That issue necessitated a pause in Delta's global flight schedule this morning while it was addressed." The airline added that additional cancellations and delays would be expected on Friday, but that it had issued a travel waiver, which would allow passengers scheduled to travel today to rebook their flights for little or no cost, depending on date.

American Airlines

In a statement on X, American Airlines said: "We're aware of a technology issue with a vendor that is impacting multiple carriers. American is working with the vendor to resolve the issue as quickly as possible." In an updated statement to CNET it said that as of 5 a.m. ET it had managed to "safely reestablish our operation."

United Airlines

United Airlines issued a statement saying, "A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United." Initially the airline said that it would be holding all flights at their departure points, but later on Friday morning managed to get its flights moving again. 

"We are resuming some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday," said a company spokesperson. "We have issued a waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans via United.com or the United app."

KLM

Dutch airline KLM said that the outage had made flight handling "impossible," and until the issue was resolved, it largely had to suspend operations. In an update on X, the airline added: "Customers should expect delays and cancellations. We urge passengers to stay away from airport if their flight is not departing or is seriously delayed. We realise this is very inconvenient for customers, particularly because the busy summer holiday season has just started."

It added that it's working hard to restore operations and that passengers should keep an eye on KLM.com or the airline's app for updates.

Here's how to track the status of your flight directly from your iPhone's text messages, and three steps to take when your flight is canceled or delayed.

What is CrowdStrike?

The company at the root of the Microsoft outages isn't actually Microsoft at all. The source of the issue has been identified as a faulty update issued by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Founded 11 years ago out of Austin, Texas, CrowdStrike is often called in by organizations following major cybersecurity breaches to investigate what went wrong. These include the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and various events targeting the Democratic National Committee between 2015 and 2016.

Many companies around the world rely on CrowdStrike for critical cloud workload protections. In this case, CrowdStrike issued an update for Windows PCs (it confirmed Mac and Linux users hadn't been affected) that contained a single defect. PCs displayed the "blue screen of death," indicating a critical error, and were forced into a boot loop, which prevented them from turning on.

Exacerbating the problem further is the fact there doesn't seem to be a universal, easy fix for the issue. Most affected PCs will need to be manually reset to an earlier point in time one by one. Until they're able to turn on, they won't be able to receive the latest update from CloudStrike. "We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website," said a spokesperson for CrowdStrike.

"We further recommend organizations ensure they're communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels," they added. "Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers."

In an interview with NBC on Friday, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the company was "deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this."

On X, he confirmed that the outage was caused by an issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts. "We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on," he said.