TechEBlog -

UCLA PhoneBot Gives Old Smartphones a Second Life as Walking Robot Companions

By Jackson Chung October 12, 2026

Photo credit: Ruochen Hou et al. / RoMeLa, UCLA / New Atlas
Old Android phones sitting unused in drawers can now serve as the central brains for a compact walking robot that stands about nineteen inches tall and weighs under four pounds. Researchers at UCLA’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory built PhoneBot as an open-source platform that mounts a commodity smartphone as the torso, relying on the phone’s camera, motion sensors, processor, and wireless connection to handle vision, balance sensing, and movement calculations. Hardware costs for the body, motors, and supporting electronics run around four hundred dollars, leaving the phone itself as the main variable. The design deliberately keeps electronics simple so that swapping one phone for another requires no rewiring.

Citroen 2 CV Concept Returns as an Affordable Electric City Car

By Bill Smith October 12, 2026

Citroën pulled the cover off its 2 CV Concept at the Paris Motor Show this week, and the little electric hatch looks ready to pick up where the original left off after production ended in 1990. Officials describe it as a preview of a production model due by 2028, built in Europe and aimed at buyers who want something compact, light, and priced around 15,000 euros. That figure sits well below most current electric city cars and would place the finished version between the tiny Ami and the C3 in the lineup.

TP-Link Roam 7 BE3600 Packs Fast Dual Band Wi-Fi 7 Into a Compact Travel Router

By Jackson Chung October 12, 2026

Hotel rooms, airport lounges, and Airbnbs often leave travelers sharing a single public network with strangers or struggling with a weak signal that drops during a video call. TP-Link’s Roam 7 BE3600 travel router, priced at $89.98 (was $130), solves that by sitting between any available internet connection and a private network that belongs only to the person who set it up.

Peugeot RCZ Vision Concept Restores Coupe Appeal With Ten Minute Solid State Charging

By Bill Smith October 12, 2026

Peugeot brought the RCZ name back to the Paris Motor Show this year with a concept that treats the old coupe formula as something still worth pursuing. The RCZ Vision sits low and wide on the new Stellantis STLA One platform, measuring 4.65 meters long, 1.94 meters wide, and just 1.35 meters tall. Those proportions make it larger than the original car that ran from 2009 to 2015, yet the height stays almost identical. Muscular shoulders, a sculpted flank line, and an active rear spoiler that stays tucked away until the car is moving all contribute to the shape. Forged aluminum wheels measure 21 inches up front and 22 inches at the rear.

Strange Inventions Image Locator Camera Locates Every Possible Photograph Inside an Endless Image Archive

By Jackson Chung October 12, 2026

A camera that never stores a single photo sits in the hands of Dutch maker Jens from Strange Inventions. Point it at any scene and the small screen shows a number instead of an image. That number marks one exact page inside a theoretical collection that already contains every photograph that could ever exist.