Robots that can do laundry and more, plus unrolling laptops: the standout tech from CES 2026
This year will be filled with robots that can fold your laundry, pick up objects and climb stairs, fridges that you can command to open by voice, laptops with screens that can follow you around the room on motorised hinges and the reimagining of the BlackBerry phone.Those are the predictions from the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas that took place this week.The sprawling event aims to showcase cutting-edge technology developed by startups and big brands.Many of these fancy developments will be available to actually buy, moving from outlandish concepts to production devices, although some are still limited to costly prototypes.The rise of the humanoid robot continues, with the show floor filled with myriad prototypes, some of which operated autonomously rather than being remotely controlled or performing set routines this year.
Not one but two different robots promised to do your laundry, make breakfast and serve drinks,In demos LG’s CLOiD home robot, which is reportedly due to undergo real-world testing next year, looked like a disembodied torso on a rolling platform, slowly and autonomously doing chores linked with various LG kitchen appliances,The Chinese company Switchbot’s Onero H1, however, looks more like a security bot crossed with a robot vacuum with articulating arms ready to do chores,The company says it should go on sale later this year for an undisclosed sum,It joined impressive demos from many other Chinese robotics outfits, including Unitree, Booster Robotics and X-Humanoid, the recent winner of Beijing’s humanoid robot half-marathon.
This also promises to be that year that Boston Dynamics’ long-tested Atlas robot finally goes from awkward prototype to polished product, with a new design unveiled during the parent company Hyundai’s CES show.The South Korean firm is partnering with Google’s DeepMind for robotic AI research and plans to deploy the Atlas robots, which are water resistant, can lift 50kg and automatically swap their batteries, to its manufacturing plants in the next couple of years.Robot vacuums are the more prevalent home robot for now, but even they have new tricks.Dreame’s Cyber10 Ultra arm-equipped robovac can lift up to 500g and use brushes and other nozzles while cleaning your floors.It will reportedly go on sale around August for about €1,800 (£1,560), although it was the company’s Cyber X concept with four legs and tank-like tracks that had attenders captivated because it might help it finally vanquish the mortal enemy of robot vacuums: climbing stairs.
However, if actually cleaning the stairs is the goal, Roborock’s first two-wheel-leg robovac might be better.The Saros Rover is in development, shown off in prototype form, and can raise, lower and jump its way to each step, cleaning as it goes.Not even the humble fridge was safe this year from the march of robotics.Samsung debuted its new Family Hub fridge, which includes a screen on the front but its party piece is voice-controlled doors you can open and close hands-free.Less novel but potentially just as useful, GE built a barcode scanner into its new Profile fridge, which is designed to scan things as you discard them to automatically add them to a shopping list ready for when you need it.
A camera inside the fridge lets you check remotely to see if anything’s finished or rotten.Scores of new laptops were on show from all the major manufacturers including Acer, Dell, Samsung and others.But Lenovo’s Legion Pro Rollable concept was the start of the show: a regular-looking 16in laptop with a OLED screen that unrolls horizontally to a full-size 24in monitor for gaming and productivity on the go.Meanwhile, the company’s new ThinkPad Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist is going from concept to actual product with a motorised rotating hinge that automatically turns the screen to face you or your audience if you are presenting.Samsung used CES to show off its cutting-edge trifolding flexible screen Android phone-tablet hybrid, which takes the book-style folding design and adds another section that unfolds again like a pamphlet to reveal a large wide-screen tablet.
Having gone on sale in South Korea just before the end of 2025 the Galaxy Z TriFold is expected to reach the US and other markets in the first half of this year for a big sum,But for those who long for the days of physical keyboards on phones, the accessory company Clicks is bringing back the BlackBerry with its new Communicator: an Android phone with a physical keyboard,Designed as a “communication companion” with custom software that puts messaging above doomscrolling on social media, the Communicator can be used as a primary phone or as a partner to your existing iPhone or Android,It has a notification LED around the power button and a fingerprint scanner in the space bar,Reservations are open and the phone is due to ship later this year.
Clicks already sells keyboard cases for the iPhone, Pixel and other devices for those that don’t want to replace their phone completely with a BlackBerry.But it also had a new slide-out keyboard Bluetooth that doubles as a magnetic wireless charging battery pack on show at CES.The Power Keyboard magnetically sticks to the back of the phone and will be compatible with iPhones and Androids supporting Qi2, shipping in the spring.
Wessex Water bosses handed £50,000 in extra pay despite Labour government’s bonus ban
The bosses of Wessex Water received £50,000 in previously undisclosed extra pay from a parent company, in the same year that the utility was banned from paying bonuses, the Guardian can reveal.Chief executive Ruth Jefferson and chief financial officer Andy Pymer were paid £24,000 and £27,000 respectively in the year to June 2025, according to a spokesperson for Wessex Water’s owner, the Malaysian YTL group.The payments came from Wessex Water Ltd, which is the parent company of Wessex Water Services Ltd, the regulated water supplier for 2.9 million customers in south-west England. YTL said the payments were not bonuses
US hiring held firm in December capping weakest year of growth since pandemic
Hiring held firm in the US last month, official data showed, amid uncertainty over the strength and direction of the world’s largest economy.Employers added 50,000 jobs to the US labor force last month, capping the weakest year of growth since the pandemic, according to data released from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.The closely watched reading was slightly shy of the approximately 73,000 jobs economists expected to be added in the US economy in December.Previous readings for October and November were also revised lower, with the BLS now estimating that the US added 76,000 fewer jobs during those two months. In October, during the longest US government shutdown in history, the US economy shed 173,000 jobs
Glencore and Rio Tinto are at it again – and it seems the markets smell action
Here we go again. A combination of Rio Tinto and Glencore has been talked about for years and the duo held aborted negotiations at the end of 2024. With the global mining industry in deal-making mode – frenzies come along every 15 years or so – the idea of RioGlen or GlenTinto was due another whirl. On Friday, the two FTSE 100 companies said they were in “preliminary discussions” about a “possible combination of some or all of their businesses”. A full-blown tie-up would be worth about $260bn (£120bn), including debt
US economy added fewer jobs than forecast in December, but January interest rate cut very unlikely – as it happened
Newsflash: The US economy added fewer jobs than expected last month.America’s non-farm payroll rose by 50,000 in December, missing forecasts of a 60,000 rise.Employment continued to trend up in food services and drinking places, health care, and social assistance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, while retail trade lost jobs.That shows a hiring slowdown, compared with the previous month; the BLS now estimates that 56,000 jobs were created in November, 8,000 fewer than its first estimate of 64,000.Time to wrap up!Hiring held firm in the US last month, official data showed, amid uncertainty over the strength and direction of the world’s largest economy
High costs, falling returns: what could go wrong for Trump’s Venezuela oil gamble?
Donald Trump has laid claim to billions of dollars’ worth of Venezuelan crude this week, which at a stroke has handed the world’s biggest consumer of oil up to 50m barrels – but his ambitions are far greater.The White House said Venezuela would be “turning over” the nearly $3bn (£2.3bn) of crude stranded in tankers and storage facilities before it is sold on the international market and after that the US plans to control all the country’s oil sales “indefinitely”.For the Trump administration, the seizure is the first move in taking control of Venezuela’s vast crude reserves, estimated to represent almost a fifth of the proven reserves on Earth, in a push to cut the oil price to $50 a barrel.But experts have been quick to point out that the crude cargo grab could be the last easy win for the president, with no quick or cheap fix to reignite the country’s oil production
Charity watchdog opens inquiry into City & Guilds’ sale of business arm
The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into City & Guilds’ sale of its qualification awards business to a private company last year.The announcement has been made after the Guardian revealed last month how City & Guilds bosses were handed million-pound bonuses after the charity privatised its business arm.The payments – which are understood to include a £1.7m award for the chief executive, Kirstie Donnelly, and £1.2m to the finance director, Abid Ismail – emerged after reports of how the privatised City & Guilds business has also embarked on a £22m cost-cutting drive and is shrinking its UK workforce after being sold by its charity owner to PeopleCert, an international certification company
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