Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness,
A western New York school district has hit pause on a plan to place a lifelike humanoid robot inside a high school classroom after regulators and community members raised concerns over student data privacy.
Salamanca City Central School District announced July 24 it was suspending a pilot program with robotics company Realbotix that would have brought an artificial intelligence assistant called Optio, paired with a seated, silicone-skinned humanoid robot, into AI and robotics courses this fall. District officials said they must finalize enhanced student data privacy agreements with the New York State Education Department before moving forward, and they are continuing to hear from the community.
The district agreed to pay $57,590 for the Optio platform and one M-Series robot, according to the school board contract, a discount off the robot's $95,000 list price. Had it proceeded, the program would have given roughly 500 high school students access to AI tutoring avatars, while the single physical robot served as a classroom demonstration tool, reportedly programmed with a Western New York accent and instructed to say "I don't know" rather than fabricate answers.
Some media reports have tied Realbotix's corporate parent to Intima LLC, a business in the adult companionship market, a connection the company strongly denies applies to the school project.
"For clarity, some media reports have falsely connected the Salamanca project to an adult product or adult-products business," Realbotix told CyberGuy. "The Salamanca robot is a newly manufactured, purpose-built educational unit; no existing product or hardware is being modified or repurposed for the school." The company added that its education-focused subsidiary "focuses exclusively on non-adult commercial applications" and said the two businesses do not share staff, facilities or technology.
Realbotix has cast the project as a teacher-supervised supplement, not a replacement for instructors. "The program is intended to complement, not replace, teachers by giving students supervised access to emerging AI and robotics tools as part of the district's existing STEM curriculum," the company said.
Tyler Durden Tue, 08/04/2026 - 17:10AMD beat on its top- and bottom-line:
Revenue: $11.54B vs $11.28B expected
Adjusted EPS: $1.66 vs $1.62 expected
Good news.
With Data center revenue up 107% year over year to $6.72B, better than the $6.6B expected.
More good news.
As Bloomberg reports, last month, Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su rolled out new products that the company said will outperform offerings from Nvidia, adopting a more aggressive stance in a market it predicts will reach $1.4 trillion by 2030. That further raised already lofty investor expectations.
The chipmaker forecast that third-quarter revenue will be $13 billion, plus or minus $300 million ($12.5 billion consensus).
The outlook boost is good news, but some Wall Street estimates were well north of $13 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Additionally, operating income for the last quarter was only a little better than forecast and clearly traders were hoping for more.
But, AMD shares are down dramatically after-hours, erasing all the day's exuberant gains and then some...
Here's why...
Free cash flow was 20% below forecasts because Q2 Capital Expenditures came in at stunning $808 million, almost triple the $298 million expectation...
It appears the market is unwilling to reward hyperbolic AI spending... without some signs of ROIC (which the revenue forecast did not provide relative to the spend).
This is not great news for AMD’s competitors, like Intel, ARM, and Marvell.
Tyler Durden Tue, 08/04/2026 - 16:55