Watch Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot doing training routines , or the latest humanoids from Figure loading a washing machine , and it's easy to believe the robot revolution is here.

From the outside, it seems the only remaining challenge is perfecting the AI ( artificial intelligence ) software to enable these machines to handle real-life environments.

But the industry's biggest players know there is a deeper problem. In a recent call for research partnerships, Sony's robotics division highlighted a core issue holding back its own machines.

It noted that today's humanoid and animal-mimicking robots have a "limited number of joints", which creates a "disparity between their movements and those of the subjects they imitate, significantly diminishing their … value".

Sony is calling

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