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    "story_id": "mp-2026-10-10-011",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-spatialharness-robot-scaffolding",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-10-10-morning-0092",
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    "position": 11,
    "story_type": "dispatch",
    "section": "robotics",
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    "headline": "The Robot Needed a Better View, Not a Bigger Policy",
    "slug": "the-robot-needed-a-better-view-not-a-bigger-policy",
    "dek": "SpatialHarness changes test-time spatial observability for fine manipulation instead of retraining the foundation model.",
    "summary": "SpatialHarness changes test-time spatial observability for fine manipulation instead of retraining the foundation model.",
    "body_text": "SpatialHarness starts from the idea that a strong robot policy can fail because critical spatial relationships are poorly visible from the installed cameras. The test-time harness adds spatial scaffolding that reveals those relationships before a multimodal model chooses fine manipulation actions. The paper evaluates the approach with frontier multimodal systems and physical manipulation tasks, presenting observability as a separate bottleneck from policy capability. That distinction matters operationally: a model upgrade cannot recover evidence a camera never captured. The reported method is a research harness, not a claim that arbitrary camera movement or extra views will safely repair every manipulation failure.",
    "why_it_matters": "SpatialHarness changes test-time spatial observability for fine manipulation instead of retraining the foundation model.",
    "limitations": [
      "That distinction matters operationally: a model upgrade cannot recover evidence a camera never captured.",
      "The reported method is a research harness, not a claim that arbitrary camera movement or extra views will safely repair every manipulation failure."
    ],
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    "first_published_at": "2026-10-10T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-10-10T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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        "qualification": "That distinction matters operationally: a model upgrade cannot recover evidence a camera never captured."
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    "tags": [
      "robot manipulation",
      "spatial observability",
      "test-time scaffolding"
    ],
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-10-10-011",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2610.12457, original v1",
      "publisher": "arXiv / submitting research authors",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.12457v1",
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      "source_type": "primary_research",
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      "published_at": "2026-10-08T13:59:20.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-10-10T08:22:13.309-04:00",
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    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "The Robot Needed a Better View, Not a Bigger Policy",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-10-10T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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