The Amped Journal

Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Robotics 2, its next-generation physical AI system built to control humanoid robots from head to fingertips. The release includes three models: Gemini Robotics 2, a vision-language-action model driving full-body movement; Gemini Robotics ER 2, which handles real-world video understanding and multi-step planning; and an On-Device 2 variant that runs locally on the robot without a cloud connection.

In demo footage, Apptronik, an Austin-based humanoid robotics company, showed its Apollo 2 robot using the system to pack sports equipment, tie a knot, screw in a lightbulb, and complete kitchen chores like reaching for and picking up a watering can - all from a single prompt, coordinating a five-fingered hand alongside simpler parallel grippers.

The launch pushes Google further into the increasingly crowded humanoid-robotics race, where AI labs are racing to pair large language models with physical control systems for real-world deployment in homes and warehouses.

OpenAI cut API prices for its GPT-5.6 Luna model by 80% and for GPT-5.6 Terra by 20%, crediting efficiency gains from its flagship GPT-5.6 Sol model for making the reductions possible. It also introduced a Fast mode for Sol in the API that runs up to 2.5 times faster than standard processing, at twice the standard price, with no change in intelligence.

OpenAI is also upgrading the Auto-review feature in the ChatGPT app and Codex CLI from GPT-5.4 to GPT-5.6 Luna, which combined with the price cut should make agentic code-review workflows roughly 10 times cheaper to run.

Developer Simon Willison tested Luna the same day and called it "a bit of a beast," saying it quickly generated the SQL, HTML and JavaScript he needed for his Datasette Agent project.

Apple reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $109.4 billion, up 16% year over year and above Wall Street estimates, with iPhone sales jumping 22% to $54.25 billion and Mac revenue surging 29% to $10.35 billion. Greater China revenue grew 22%. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook called it the strongest June quarter in company history, citing double-digit growth across products and regions.

Despite the beat, Apple shares dropped roughly 8%, erasing billions in market value, after the company guided to a softer 9-11% revenue growth range for the current quarter and flagged memory chip shortages pressuring gross margins to 47-48%.

The report is Cook's last as CEO before he hands the role to hardware engineering chief John Ternus on September 1, ending Cook's 15-year run atop Apple.

X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, has launched a new product that functions like a bank account, letting users send money to one another directly, according to the Associated Press. The feature marks X's most concrete step yet toward becoming a financial-services platform, a goal Musk has floated since acquiring the company (then Twitter) in 2022. Fees, availability and any banking partners were not disclosed in the initial report.

Thousands of migrants streamed across the border from Morocco into Ceuta, a small Spanish territory in North Africa, according to the Associated Press. Local officials in Ceuta have called on Spain's national government in Madrid for help restoring control of the border. At least 18 migrants have died attempting the crossing, with the toll rising through the day from an earlier count of nine.

Elon Musk, reacting to footage of the crossing on X, called the group - overwhelmingly young men - "an invasion" and wrote "wake up, before it is too late."

The surge adds pressure on Spain, which is simultaneously battling wildfires and an extreme heat wave that have displaced or confined more than 300,000 people across Spain and France this week.