PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 7, 2026--
QwikOS officially launches today, introducing a universal mobile application that connects open-SDK humanoid robots and provides a single, consistent interface for accessing each robot’s available commands and community features. QwikOS is designed to complement manufacturer software, firmware, and control systems by providing developers with a universal way to integrate new features they create, while making it easier for everyday robot owners to discover and use them without needing robotics or software-development expertise.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260107972443/en/
Available Now on iOS and Android
QwikOS is accessible to consumers via the Apple App Store and Google Play, representing the first hardware-agnostic humanoid operating system and app ecosystem available to end users. This release delivers secure infrastructure for the global humanoid development community to deploy, test, and scale applications across varied hardware.
Industry’s First Universal Humanoid App Store
The QwikOS App Store delivers the industry’s first and largest catalog of third-party features and actions built for humanoid robots. QwikOS addresses the prior limitation of requiring developers to commit to a single proprietary platform. Capabilities developed on QwikOS can be published and deployed across any open-SDK humanoid hardware.
Universal Humanoid Hardware
QwikOS integrates with any humanoid robot hardware offering an open-source software developer kit (SDK), standardizing the user experience while underlying robot behavior remains implemented by each device’s SDK. QwikOS has completed production validation on the Unitree Robotics G1 EDU models and is the only third-party operating system supporting the Unitree G1 series. QwikOS brings compatibility to open-source humanoid hardware available now and coming soon (including Pollen Robotics, Booster Robotics, Agibot Tech, MagicLabs Robotics, EngineAI, and LimX Dynamics).
Developer Console & Monetization
QwikOS provides a centralized developer console that enables developers to submit features across multiple humanoid hardware platforms. The platform also enables developers to earn from feature development through the QwikOS App Store, including optional paid features, licensing models, and commercial distribution opportunities where supported. These mechanisms are intended to help developers maintain, improve, and support higher-quality features over time, aligned with real adoption and usage.
Integrations
QwikOS supports integrations with third-party platforms, enabling organizations and developers to extend humanoid capabilities by integrating existing technologies—such as LLMs like ChatGPT and external hardware ecosystems like Meta Quest VR headsets—while presenting these integrations to end users within a single, unified interface for streamlined configuration and control.
Learn More
A detailed whitepaper providing an overview of the platform is available on the QwikOS website. It is designed to help developers, integration partners, and corporate stakeholders understand QwikOS core technology, including how the platform enables standardized application deployment for humanoid robots and integrates with manufacturer SDKs.
QwikOS Debuts World's First Universal Humanoid Operating System and App Store
ACERRA, Italy (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday greeted one by one families who lost loved ones to illegal toxic dumping in an area near Naples, tied to a multi-billion criminal racket run by the mafia.
Many paused to share photographs and other mementos of children and young people who have died or are battling cancer because of the pollution.
Leo's visit to the so-called Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Pope Francis’ big ecological encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be), and indicates Leo’s commitment to carry on his predecessor’s environmental agenda.
“I have come first of all to gather the tears of those who have lost loved ones, killed by environmental pollution caused by unscrupulous people and organizations who for too long were able to act with impunity,” Leo said in remarks to family members and local clergy inside Acerra's cathedral.
The pontiff recalled that the area now dubbed the Land of Fires was once called “Campania felix,” Latin for blessed or fruitful countryside, "capable for enchanting for its fertility, its produce and its culture, like a hymn to life.
"And yet — here is death, of the land and of men,'' the pope said.
The European Court of Human Rights last year validated a generation of residents’ complaints that mafia dumping, burial and burning of toxic waste led to an increased rate of cancer and other ailments in the area of 90 municipalities around Caserta and Naples, encompassing a population of 2.9 million people.
The court found Italian authorities had known since 1988 about the toxic pollution, blamed on the Camorra crime syndicate that controls waste disposal, but failed to take necessary steps to protect the residents. The binding ruling gave Italy two years to set up a database about the toxic waste and verified health risks associated with living there.
Bishop Antonio Di Donna estimated 150 young people had died in the city of some 58,000 over the past three decades — emphasizing in his opening remarks that the number didn't take into account adults and victims in other municipalities.
He urged the pope to admonish those who continue to pollute, noting that the dumping of tons of toxic waste was reported a day earlier near Castera. Di Donna said that Italian officials had identified dozens more human-caused contamination sites throughout the country, including the Venetian port of Marghera, and the leaching of PFAS forever chemicals into groundwater near Vicenza.
"We say to those brothers of ours ensnared in evil and seized by a mirage of fabulous earnings: Convert, change your ways, because what you are doing is not only a crime, it is a sin that cries out to God for vengeance,'' the bishop said.
The pope later greeted the mayors of the 90 communities impacted by the toxic dumping, and greeted thousands of people waving yellow flags and chanting “Papa Leone” along the route of his popemobile and in a central piazza.
The victims include Maria Venturato, who died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 25. Her father, Angelo, said he hopes to speak with the pope to explain their reality, “not for me … for the next generation.”
“I’d like to give these young people a future, so I’m asking for the pope’s help with this. That is, I’m making a strong appeal to him to go to those in power and say, ‘Look, let’s heal this land of fires,’" he said on the eve of the pope's visit.
Inside the cathedral, Filomena Carolla presented the pope with a book containing memories from the life of her daughter, Tina De Angelis, who died of cancer at the age of 24.
“I’m just angry at the people who poisoned the soil, because what did our children have to do with it? What did they have to do with it, so young,” Carolla told The Associated Press on Friday.
Francis' plans to visit the area in 2020 were canceled due to the pandemic.
A man presents a pizza with the portrait of Pope Leo XIV during his a one-day pastoral visit in Acerra, Italy, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
Pope Leo XIV delivers his speech during his meeting with clergy, religious and families of victims of environmental pollution in the Saint Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in Acerra, near Naples, Italy, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Leo XIV rides on his popemobile during his one-day pastoral visit in Acerra, Italy, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
A man enters a grocery store with posters of Pope Leo XIV ahead of his visit to the southern Italian town of Acerra in the Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Acerra bishop Antonio Di Donna speaks during an interview with the Associated Press ahead of Pope Leo XIV's visit to the southern Italian town of Acerra in the Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, an area scarred by decades of pollution from illegal waste dumping and burning, much of it linked to organized criminal groups, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Illegal waste is seen on the side of a road in the outskirts of the southern Italian town of Acerra in the Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, an area scarred by decades of pollution from illegal waste dumping and burning, much of it linked to organized criminal groups, Friday, May 22, 2026, a day ahead of Pope Leo XIV's visit. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Illegal waste is seen on the side of a road in the outskirts of the southern Italian town of Acerra in the Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, an area scarred by decades of pollution from illegal waste dumping and burning, much of it linked to organized criminal groups, Friday, May 22, 2026, a day ahead of Pope Leo XIV's visit. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Angelo Venturato talks during an interview with the Associated Press next to photos of his daughter Maria who died at the age of 25 of a cancer he claims to be connected to decades of pollution from illegal waste dumping and burning, much of it linked to organized criminal groups, in the southern town of Acerra, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
