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  "story": {
    "story_id": "mp-2026-10-12-009",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-chronos-physical-time-policy",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-10-12-morning-0094",
    "edition_url": "https://themachinepress.com/edition/2026-10-12",
    "position": 9,
    "story_type": "dispatch",
    "section": "robotics",
    "editorial_classification": "editorial",
    "headline": "The Robot Learned When the Observation Was Taken",
    "slug": "the-robot-learned-when-the-observation-was-taken",
    "dek": "Chronos puts capture and execution times inside the policy instead of hiding them in sequence order.",
    "summary": "Chronos puts capture and execution times inside the policy instead of hiding them in sequence order.",
    "body_text": "Fixed-rate robot policies can become brittle when sensors slow down or inference takes longer. Chronos Policy explicitly conditions on observation-capture times and desired action-execution times. The authors compare timestamp embeddings with time-aware rotary positional encoding and find the latter more robust. Training randomizes sensing and execution schedules, allowing asynchronous measurements without forcing them onto one fixed grid. Simulation and real-world experiments show improvements on dynamic and multisensory tasks, while preserving nominal performance on the evaluated quasi-static tasks. Physical time becomes part of the model’s input, rather than an assumption made outside it.",
    "why_it_matters": "Chronos puts capture and execution times inside the policy instead of hiding them in sequence order.",
    "limitations": [],
    "importance": 8,
    "canonical_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-10-12-009/the-robot-learned-when-the-observation-was-taken",
    "json_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-10-12-009.json",
    "first_published_at": "2026-10-12T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-10-12T09:48:10.481-04:00",
    "content_status": "updated",
    "is_carryover": false,
    "carryover_reason": null,
    "key_claims": [
      {
        "claim_id": "claim-mp-2026-10-12-009-001",
        "text": "Chronos puts capture and execution times inside the policy instead of hiding them in sequence order.",
        "source_ids": [
          "source-2026-10-12-009"
        ],
        "qualification": null
      }
    ],
    "source_ids": [
      "source-2026-10-12-009"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "robot-control",
      "latency",
      "asynchronous-sensors",
      "preprint"
    ],
    "image_url": null,
    "corrections": [
      {
        "correction_id": "correction-2026-10-12-001",
        "revision": 2,
        "summary": "Publication note: The October 12, 2026 edition was prepared and published late on October 12 after the scheduled newsroom task could not start. The edition retains its October 12 date and 9:00 AM America/Detroit reveal time. Reports use sources available before that cutoff; actual preparation and image-generation times are preserved in the provenance records.",
        "published_at": "2026-10-12T09:48:10.481-04:00",
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        "affected_claim_ids": []
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  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-10-12-009",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2610.13929, original v1",
      "publisher": "arXiv / submitting research authors",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.13929v1",
      "canonical_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.13929v1",
      "source_type": "primary_research",
      "is_primary_source": true,
      "published_at": "2026-10-09T13:55:20.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-10-12T09:32:36.538-04:00",
      "supports_claim_ids": [
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      ]
    }
  ],
  "corrections": [
    {
      "correction_id": "correction-2026-10-12-001",
      "revision": 2,
      "summary": "Publication note: The October 12, 2026 edition was prepared and published late on October 12 after the scheduled newsroom task could not start. The edition retains its October 12 date and 9:00 AM America/Detroit reveal time. Reports use sources available before that cutoff; actual preparation and image-generation times are preserved in the provenance records.",
      "published_at": "2026-10-12T09:48:10.481-04:00",
      "affected_story_ids": [],
      "affected_claim_ids": []
    }
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  "publisher": {
    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
  },
  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "The Robot Learned When the Observation Was Taken",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-10-12T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "canonical_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-10-12-009/the-robot-learned-when-the-observation-was-taken"
  }
}