Pollen Robotics, a Hugging Face company, has launched Microduck, a new AI robot priced at $399 and now open for pre-order. The one-eyed bipedal robot stands under 25.4 cm tall, comes in cream, graphite, lavender purple, and sky blue, and is scheduled to ship before Christmas this year. Demo footage showed Microduck picking up socks and markers, kicking a ball, and moving on small roller skates. Pollen Robotics said the robot can react to its surroundings, follow a laser pointer, and be controlled with a game controller. Its software uses an open-source design that allows users to retrain it to learn new movements. The device is powered by a Rockchip RK3566 processor and includes a camera, motion sensors, LiDAR, and articulated legs, head, and neck.