by robot they mean a fake finger that touches things on a phone screen repeatedly.<p>I honestly can't decide if this is all fake news for such an effort to steal something so silly and simple, or if there is a deeper supply chain monopoly based around the this automated device tester. Something like the robot being biased on the QA process and manufacturers only getting US gov certification if they pass that test, which they have to pay US companies, because the certification device is a trade secret, and because the device is biased you have to pay severals interactions to "reverse engineer" the false positive failures you get.