Monday, December 1, 2025

"The Weekender: Robots, Robots Everywhere (Even at the Litter Box)"

From PYMNTS.com, November 22:

Blame the elves. They saw generative artificial intelligence (AI) coming for their jobs and outsourced Christmas to robots. This holiday season, the digital economy’s strangest edges have gone gloriously mainstream: your drink is mixed by a bot, your window is squeegeed by a suction-climbing square, and your cat’s litter is analyzed like a lab sample. If it moves, beeps, cleans, scoots, mows, mixes or meows: there’s a robot for that.

Why this is suddenly everywhere

Robotics quietly jumped the fence from cute gizmos and warehouse pickers into home life because AI now gives machines better eyes, ears and timing. Vision models let mowers find grass without wires; sensor fusion keeps window bots from leaping off the glass; LLM-powered “companions” follow faces and voices; and even grills “learn” how you like your ribeye. The result? A Black Friday/Cyber Monday gift list that reads like a Fast Company fever dream and a snapshot of how automation is commercializing at the edges. Case in point: Whisker just launched a new LitterRobot with AI cat facial recognition and waste monitoring. Yes, for your cat. Welcome to 2025.

The Fringe Robotics Gift Guide: 10 Bots Invading Home, Yard and Pet Life

  1. The AI Litter Box That Knows Whiskers From Whiskers
    Whisker’s LitterRobot 5 Pro adds cameras and on-device AI to tell which cat is doing what, feeding health insights into the app. If that’s a step too far, the still-current LitterRobot 4 remains the benchmark for quiet, self-cleaning convenience. Poop data is officially a product category now.
  1. Robot Dog, No Walk Required
    The Unitree Go2 is the consumer-grade quadruped that turned robot dogs from YouTube novelty into programmable pets and dev kits. It ships with Unitree’s 4D LiDAR for 360° perception and learned “gaits” like obstacle climbing — equal parts STEM toy and living room conversation starter.
  1. Your New (Algorithmic) Bartender
    Barsys 360 is an app-controlled cocktail robot that meters pours and walks you through recipes from a phone. You supply spirits and mixers; Barsys does the precision. Ideal for hosts who want probar consistency without memorizing 1,000 ratios.
  1. A Window-Clinging Cleaner
    The ECOVACS Winbot W1 Pro treats panes like floors, auto-spraying and plotting back-and-forth paths that avoid edges — even on frameless glass. If you’ve ever squeegeed a second-story window in a stiff breeze, you already know why this is a “shut up and take my money” category.
  1. Pool Robot = Saturdays Back
    Maytronics’ Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus (WiFi) scrubs floors and walls and lets you schedule cycles in the MyDolphin app. If “drag the hose around” was the old pool routine, this is the set-and-forget upgrade....

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Also at PYMNTS, November 29:

Yes, You Can Finance a Near-Orbit Ticket From Your Smartphone 

Yes, You Can Finance a Near-Orbit Ticket With Your Smartphone

If your Cyber Monday cart still tops out at an air fryer and some half-off sweats, you’re thinking too small.

In 2025, the same thumb you use to doomscroll can quietly commit you to a gold-plated toilet, a 550,000-euro watch or a $125,000 ticket to the edge of space. No personal shopper, no hushed boutique, just a browser tab and a strong credit limit....

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Inside Finland’s Drone Food Delivery Revolution

From Arabateknik, November 30:

Table of Contents

Finland is spearheading a revolutionary shift in food delivery through the adoption of drone technology, transforming urban logistics and enabling rapid, efficient service that could redefine how residents receive their meals. In cities like Oulu and Helsinki, pilot projects and commercial initiatives are demonstrating that drones can deliver food within minutes, offering a glimpse into a future where airborne delivery becomes a standard urban service.

A key development is a pilot project in Oulu, where autonomo...

A key development is a pilot project in Oulu, where autonomous drone flights are being tested specifically for food delivery. This initiative highlights how drones can dramatically reduce delivery times and ease congested city logistics by transporting meals through the air rather than traditional road networks[1]. Similarly, Helsinki is set to see drone delivery services launched imminently by Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which is conducting a pilot project to deliver goods — including food — to residents in the Finnish capital, marking a significant expansion of drone logistics in Europe[6].

The Finnish drone food delivery revolution is supported by c...

The Finnish drone food delivery revolution is supported by collaborative research efforts, notably between VTT, one of Europe’s premier research institutions, and Manna Air Delivery, a drone company focused on safe and scalable unmanned air traffic. Their joint initiative explores the optimization of drone transport not only for medical logistics but also for urban delivery services such as food, aiming to enhance both efficiency and sustainability[2][7]....

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This story was generated by AI. Though you can still detect the machine aggregation the presentation is getting smoother and smoother.

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"Louvre to raise ticket prices by 45% for most non-EU visitors"

A variation on the quote last seen gracing our pages a couple weeks ago.

“the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest 
possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.”

—attributed to  Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Controller-General of Finance (1668-83) under Louis XIV of France

From the Art Newspaper, November 28:

The Château de Versailles and the Château de Chambord have also announced new pricing structure 

The Louvre will raise ticket prices for non-European Union (EU) visitors by 45% from 14 January 2026, the Paris museum’s board decided yesterday.

The move will increase the cost of tickets for visitors from countries including the UK, US and China from €22 to €32, which the museum hopes will boost its revenue by around €17.5m annually.

Staff unions have denounced the project as an “unprecedented challenge to the universal mission of the museum since its birth in 1793”.

The Louvre previously increased its ticket prices by 30% in 2024, ahead of the Olympic Games, but has since faced a series of hefty budget cuts, including the loss of 7% of its public subsidies. These subsidies, which in 2015 amounted to half of the Louvre's budget, now represent only a quarter of it....

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I wonder if they will still waive the fee for those who bring their own lift to access the balcony entrance:

https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/9cb99033-bed5-4511-99f5-d839cfd49207/louvre-heist-lift-01-gty-jef-251024_1761328100386_hpMain.jpg?w=1500 

Louvre heist lift-maker seizes the moment with new ad campaign 

"When you need to move fast," reads a banner under the image. "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."

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Capital Markets: "Dollar Losses Extended, while Stocks and Bonds Retreat"

From Marc to Market:

Overview: The US dollar is trading with a heavier bias today. Equities and bonds have also been sold on the first day of the new month. The dollar bloc and the sterling are laggards today, while the yen has been squeezed higher amid heightened speculation that the Bank of Japan will lift rates later this month. The recovery of the yen does not appear to be spurring an unwinding of carry trades, but the substitution of the yen's funding role with the Swiss franc and/or US dollar. Most emerging market currencies are also firmer but for a few Asian currencies (Taiwan, South Korea, India) and the Russian ruble. 

Rising rates and a stronger yen pushed Japanese equity indices down more than 1% today. Taiwan's Taiex also lost 1%. Despite disappointing PMI data, China's mainland markets and shares that trade in Hong Kong rallied, with the CSI 300 up a little more than 1%. Europe's Stoxx 600, which rallied every session last week, is nursing a loss (~0.35) that is unwinding the gains of the past two sessions. The S&P and Nasdaq futures are off 0.55%-0.65%. Bond markets have found no comfort in the equity market losses. European 10-year benchmark yields are up 3-4 bp, while the 10-year US Treasury yield, which slipped below 4% last week, is up three basis points to poke above 4.04%. Gold (and silver) are extending last week's gains. The yellow metal pushed above November's high (November 13, ~$4245) but has retreated after reaching almost $4262.50. January WTI, which traded to almost $57 in the middle of last week, has approached a six-day high near $60 following OPEC+ confirmation that it will pause its increase in output in Q1 26. 

USD: The Dollar Index fell every day last week for the first time since April and is trading with a heavier bias today. It has taken out last week's lows (~99.35), and the next support is seen near the November low, slightly below 99.00....

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