If you’ve ever looked at a pile of dishes in your sink and wished you could snap your fingers and make it disappear — we have good news.

Toyota is developing robots to help with housework at its Cambridge research lab, per Wired.

The robots use a machine-learning system similar to those of AI image generators, called diffusion policy, to handle less structured tasks, like sweeping a home.

Rather than being programmed to repeat the same action, as we’ve seen in factories, Toyota’s goal is for these robots to eventually learn by watching videos, allowing them to make real-time decisions and adjustments in your home.

This could be helpful…

… for more than just a lazy Sunday. Toyota’s goal is to use these robots to help people age safely in their homes.

In addition to cleaning, Toyota’s robots are learning to:

• Peel vegetables
• Use hand mixers
• Prepare snacks
• Flip pancakes

If successful, these bots could help support America’s 65+ population, which is projected to reach 82m people by 2050.

And we’re already seeing other robots pull their weight in eldercare, like the ElliQ robot companion to combat loneliness and nursing home robot assistants.

Smart home

Whether for keeping us company or cleaning our floors, robots in the home will likely become more common as other major companies work on their own solutions.

Samsung’s Ballie,first debuted in 2020, is a voice-controlled companion robot that can project videos onto walls and patrol your home.

Plus, this year’s Consumer Electronics Show was packed to the brim with bots:

• Yarbo handles hassles outside the home, like shoveling snow or blowing leaves.
• LG’s AI agent follows you around, helping with chores by connecting to smart home appliances.

And, most importantly, ORo’s robotic dog assistant that keeps your pup entertained.

When Alabama’s Nick Saban — arguably the greatest-ever college football coach — surprisingly retired last week, two things instantly became givens:

• Alabama would immediately throw exorbitant sums to attract an already exorbitantly paid coach from another top school. (It already has, paying Washington’s Kalen DeBoer an estimated $10m+ annually to take over.)
• The school whose coach just got poached would turn around and do the very same thing. (Washington roped Arizona’s Jedd Fisch with a $7.75m salary.)

This is how business is done in the coaching world, which was described as “a 25-year bull market” last week in The Athletic.

“Bull market” is no bull

Saban, who made $120m+ over his 17-year run at Alabama, topped the NCAA in earnings, but those behind him aren’t hurting: 50+ coaches make $4m+ per year.

There’s good reason: football is the cash cow behind schools’ athletic departments and, for winning programs, business is booming.

• Perennial football contender Ohio State led the nation in athletic revenue in 2022, generating $251.6m. That was before OSU’s conference struck a new TV deal that’ll add another $80m-$100m to its coffers annually.

Making millions as a coach isn’t a parade, of course; naturally, a high-pressure, win-now role has wretched job security.

• Of the 133 Division I football programs, only 13 are fronted by coaches who’ve been there 10+ years.

Fired = set for life

A successful coach is “worth his weight in gold,” per The Athletic, selling tickets, upping TV ratings, and attracting booster donations. That means leverage for coaches, which they’ve turned into absurd buyout clauses:

• Earlier this season, Texas A&M paid Jimbo Fisher a record $77m to not coach.
• NCAA coaches have a combined $585.5m+ in golden parachutes, ledby Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who’d get $92.5m if fired.

Next up: Jim Harbaugh, who just coached Michigan to a national title, is considering a $125m contract extension — or hopping to the NFL, where the paychecks are bigger but job security’s somehow worse.

Two other coaching legends —- Bill Belichick (salary: $25m), and Pete Carroll (salary: $15m) — just lost their jobs. Turns out, being among the NFL’s all-time winningest coaches only gets you so far these days.

~70%: Percentage of people who could correctly guess how a chicken was feeling based on its cluck, regardless of how much time they’d spent among chickens previously, per an Australian study. Chickens communicate via body language and sounds, which apparently includes screaming to celebrate the laying of an egg.

1k: How many cafes Tata Starbucks, a partnership between Starbucks and Tata Consumer Products, wants to open in India by 2028. India currently has 390 Starbucks stores, meaning Tata Starbucks must open a new one every three days to reach its goal, which CEO Laxman Narasimhan says is doable. Starbucks faces competition from both local chains like Blue Tokai and others, including Canada’s Tim Hortons.

3.8k%: Percentage increase in the use of the phrase “generational opportunity” during earnings calls since 2018. What does it mean? Well, it sounds like they’re using it to describe a rare or perhaps “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity, and The Financial Times would very much like them to stop.

240k: Average number of plastic pieces 100 nanometers in size or less that may be contained in a liter of bottled water, per a study using a new plastic detection technique. This is much higher than the ~10k particles per liter a 2018 study found, and particularly concerning considering nanoplastics are known to have negative health impacts on humans and animals.