Technology

China’s Xiaomi launches high-end phone in Samsung challenge and debuts EV in Europe

Published

2 years ago

February 26, 2024

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The Xiaomi 14 Ultra.

Xiaomi

BARCELONA — Xiaomi launched its flagship smartphone globally on Sunday as it looks to keep up its recovery momentum, while also debuting its electric vehicle for the first time in Europe.

The Chinese electronics giant launched the Xiaomi 14 for global markets at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, after debuting it this week in China.

Xiaomi found success after its founding in 2010 thanks to selling high-spec and low priced smartphones. But with that section of the market getting more competitive, Xiaomi has looked to push into the higher end of the market, where Apple and Samsung are particularly dominant, but where growth has remained despite a difficult overall phone industry.

The launch comes as Xiaomi has seen a recovery in its core smartphone business which accounts for just under two thirds of its total revenue. Xiaomi, which is the third biggest smartphone player in the world, saw shipments decline 4.7% year-on-year in 2023, according to IDC, a much slower fall than 2022. In the third quarter, Xiaomi posted a small rise in revenue, after six straight quarters of decline.

But Xiaomi continues to face intense competition in the high-end from the incumbents Apple and Samsung, as well as Chinese players like Honor, a spin-off from Huawei. Samsung in January launched its flagship S24 series of phones.

Xiaomi has been trying to talk up its business beyond smartphones, however. Last year, Xiaomi launched its first electric vehicle, the SU7, opening up a new product category for the Chinese giant. Xiaomi debuted the car at MWC, showing it off for the first time in Europe.

The company also launched the Smart Band 8 Pro, Xiaomi Watch S3, and Xiaomi Watch 2 – a smart fitness band and two smartwatches.

Xiaomi is trying to position itself as a company offering a number of consumer devices that can all be linked together via its own operating system – HyperOS — which it launched last year. This is a very similar strategy to what Samsung and Apple do.

Xiaomi 14

The Xiaomi 14 comes in two versions — the standard Xiaomi 14 and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.

For the more expensive Xiaomi 14 Ultra, the company talked up its “quad” camera, which uses lenses from German firm Leica.

The company touted the professional photography and videography features including a “movie mode” which enables “an authentic cinematic look and motion blur,” according to a Xiaomi press release.

Technology

Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’

Published

8 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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$Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'$

Startup Figure AI is developing general-purpose humanoid robots.

Figure AI

Figure AI, an Nvidia-backed developer of humanoid robots, was sued by the startup’s former head of product safety who alleged that he was wrongfully terminated after warning top executives that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”

The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”

The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.

Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.

The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.

Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.

Figure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did attorneys for Gruendel.

The humanoid robot market remains nascent today, with companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics pursuing futuristic offerings, alongside Figure, while China’s Unitree Robotics is preparing for an IPO. Morgan Stanley said in a report in May that adoption is “likely to accelerate in the 2030s” and could top $5 trillion by 2050.

Read the filing here: