Boston Dynamics drops pinkie on new humanoid hand

Boston Dynamics unveiled a new four-fingered hand for its Atlas humanoid robot that prioritizes the ability to manipulate and use tools rather than grasp a wide variety of objects like previous versions. The hand was designed without a pinky finger because the team determined that the additional complexity, power consumption, and degrees of freedom required did not justify the extra dexterity gained. The hand's design emphasizes direct actuation and high-fidelity simulation capabilities to enable reinforcement learning, allowing the robot to learn complex manipulation tasks through simulated training that can transfer to real-world performance.