We’re one step closer to the Robocalypse: Japan-based Kawada Industries has developed a humanoid robot that’s specifically designed to work alongside human beings. The so-called Nextage is certainly not the first robot of its kind, but his specs are pretty impressive, and he’s already commercialized, too.

Nextage is equipped with a high-speed stereo-camera and two arms that have 12 joints each and can be positioned within 30 microns. When a human worker gets near, the robot stops working immediately for safety reasons.

Kawada explains:

We’ve created these robots to work alongside people, and to cooperate with people in the same environment. Work done by people doesn’t involve handling large objects or moving very fast. Our aim is for industrial robots to do human work like that, so people can be more productive by working together with robots.

In the video below however, you can see three networked Nextage robots at an exhibition in Tokyo assembling objects by themselves (and showing the finished products to the crowd) – no human help needed:

Video courtesy of Diginfo TV

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Motorola was being mighty cryptic with their teaser video yesterday, but some newly leaked photos may shine a light on what they’ve got in store for us come next week. Engadget managed to get their hands on some more shots of the new Motorola Spyder and Xoom tablet, and they almost look ready to ship.

The Spyder (also known as the Droid RAZR and Droid HD) now sports some Verizon branding and a funky carbon fiber-esque finish around the back. Engadget’s tipsters mentioned that the pictured device was running at 1.5GHz, but that the finished product would indeed have a 1.2GHz processor.

Also on deck is the smaller, reportedly IR-friendly version of the Xoom 2. The body still keeps those slightly curved edges, but Motorola seems to have gone for a different backplate than the more robust metal one seen in earlier photos. If prior reports hold true, then the new line of Xoom tabs come in at around 9mm thick, which would definitely fit the “thinner” criteria that Motorola played up in their teaser video.

They may not be the most tantalizing photos in the world, but they show off products that look very close to release. With Motorola’s event one week away, I wouldn’t be surprised to see either (or both!) of these things take the stage.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Music licensing company Rumblefish last week announced a new music program for YouTube users, enabling them to buy a lifetime, worldwide music license on a selected music track at $1.99 a pop and fully edit the music into their videos.

The online store, dubbed Friendly Music, has just been pushed live.

YouTube users can use the website to access Rumblefish’s catalog of copyright-cleared songs (about 35,000 tracks strong), which they can use to create soundtracks for their videos.

As I mentioned, songs can be purchased from the Friendly Music site at $1.99 per video, and users can edit them using which video-editing application they prefer. Buyers receive an official license for every song they use, so when they upload their finished video to YouTube they can be confident it will not be blocked or deprived of its audio.

FriendlyMusic offers royalty-free songs by artists in styles ranging from rap, reggae and R&B to country, pop and techno, as well as full orchestral recordings of classical compositions.

New music is said to be added to the catalog on a daily basis, and in the coming months the company says the Friendly Music catalog will expand to include “handpicked collections of name artists”.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch