Apptronik readies its humanoid robot for a summer unveilJeff Cardenas pulls out his MacBook. Apptronik’s co-founder and CEO has a slideshow he wants to show, running down the Austin startup’s seven-year history. It does, indeed, take a bit of contextualizing. Like many fellow robotics firms, the company was fueled by government contracts in its earliest days.
First up was Valkyrie 2, the second iteration of NASA’s humanoid space robot. The young company was one of a handful tasked with helping to bring that system to life. Its contribution to the puzzle was liquid-cooled robotic actuators developed at the Human Centered Robots lab at the University of Texas, led by Apptronik co-founder and chief scientist Luis Sentis.
Next was exoskeletons. United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), which was in the market for “iron man suits.”
Image Credits: Brian Heater
“[The]exoskeleton was liquid cooled,” says Cardenas. “We learned a lot doing that. The complexity of the system was too high. It was heavy. We remotized all of the actuators. And then we started to realize what was the simplest version of a humanoid robot: a mobile manipulator. We started getting approached by a lot folks in logistics, who didn’t want to pay for manufacturing arms. They were too precise for what they need. What they wanted was an affordable robotic logistics arm.”
Industrial arms have far and away been the tip of the spear, having existed for roughly 60 years. In that time, manufacturers like Fanuc and Kuka have engineered millimeter accuracy. That’s something that is essential for manufacturing and overkill for most logistics work. Installing electrical systems in cars, for instance, requires a lot more precision than moving a box from point a to point b.

“What a lot of people are doing in humanoid robots is basically trying to build them the same way that we’ve built industrial robotic arms for a long time,” says Cardenas. “One of the key ideas for Apptronik is the way we need to build these robots — when you have a 30-degree of freedom system — is fundamentally different. The things we need are different. We need them to be safe around humans, we need them to be highly robust to the environment they’re around. We need them to be highly energy efficient. It’s a new set of constraints we’re trying to optimize for. Taking the same architectures of all the arms that you see out there [at Automate] and extrapolating that doesn’t make sense. This is a fundamentally different architecture where we have about a third less components per actuator, it takes about a third of the assembly time.”
Image Credits: Apptronik
For a number of reasons, logistics is a logical place for a company like Apptronik to land. Not everyone wants to be sustained by government contracts forever. Over the last several years, logistics/fulfillment has come into its own as the hottest category in the robotics space. Like countless other companies that have pivoted from research to the world of commercial products, the company has had to determine whether the right market fit existed for the technology it was creating.
“The goal was to get to the humanoid,” says Cardenas. “The humanoid is kind of the holy grail. Probably the only thing that was consistent when we started was, ‘Don’t do humanoids. They’re too complicated.’ ”
The true value of humanoid robots in the workplace is still very much an open question. But at the very least, Apptronik isn’t the only one asking it. Tesla’s much-publicized Optimus announcement shook something loose. Suddenly the companies that had been operating in stealth mode felt compelled to announce their own intentions. Startups like 1X and Figure have discussed their progress to different extents. Sanctuary AI, which has partnered with Apptronik hardware, has already begun piloting systems.

Apptronik, for its part, has thus far shown off two halves of a robot. There’s Astra, the upper body of a humanoid robot, which can be mounted to an autonomous mobile robot (AMR). On the other end is Draco, which is quite literally all legs. The company refers to it as its “first biped” which is true — but that’s really all there is.
Part of our impromptu slide show are videos of the slender legs walking around the Apptronik labs. It’s hasn’t achieved Cassie speeds from the look of it, but from purely eyeballing it, the gait appears faster than what Tesla showed off in its recent Optimus videos. What becomes clear after looking at a handful of these seemingly disparate projects is that Apptronik has been building its own full humanoid robot piece by piece since the beginning.
Image Credits: Apptronik
Cardenas says the company bootstrapped for much of its existence, until hitting around 40-50 people. It will be exploring a Series A this year, following the official unveiling of its full humanoid system this summer. “We have all of these building blocks,” he adds. “A lot of it has been iterating and trying new ideas. The advantage to bootstrapping is we’ve believed in this for a long time. We’ve been at this now for about a decade as a team, from Valkyrie.”
At the moment, the company is working on walking and building out the robot’s core functionality prior to launch. It understandably wants to demonstrate that the product actually functions as planned prior to showing it to the world. It’s a markedly different approach to what Tesla has been doing with Optimus, and if everything goes according to plan, it will propel the firm to its next major raise.
Cardenas shows me images — both renders and photos — of Apollo, the system it plans to debut this summer. I can’t share them here, but I can tell you that the design bucks the kind of convergent evolution I’ve described, which found Tesla, Figure and OpenAI-backed 1X showing renders with a shared designed language. Apollo looks — in a word — friendlier than any of these systems and the NASA Valkyrie robot that came before it.
It shares a lot more design qualities with Astra. In fact, I might even go so far as describing it as a cartoony aesthetic, with a head shaped like an old-school iMac, and a combination of button eyes and display that comprise the face. While it’s true that most people won’t interact with these systems, which are designed to operate in places like warehouses and factory floors, it’s not necessary to embrace ominousness for the sake of looking cool.

In some ways, the general-purpose part is harder than the humanoid bit. That’s not to say that building a fully mobile and articulate bipedal robot is easy by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s a big chasm between special and general purpose. The precise definition of the latter is a conversation for another day, but for many, the label describes a system that is fully adaptable on the fly. For some, that means something like an API and app store for third-party developers to create skills, but the systems still have to adapt to their surroundings. Ideally, it’s a machine that can do any task a human can.
Too often, people fail to recognize the vast middle ground that is multi-purpose systems. For the time being, this is a much more pragmatic place to operate within. The Tesla notion of a robot that can work in the factory all day, do your grocery shopping and come home and cook you dinner feeds into existing outlandish expectations that have been fueled by decades of science fiction.

“To get it to do multiple things,” Cardenas says, “it’s still early days, but there are enough applications where if we can do simple things like move a box from point a to point b, there are tens of thousands of units’ worth of demands for those applications.”
Like all work in the space, these conversations require the caveat that we’re still in the extremely early stages. Agility has arguably come furthest in terms of proving out the efficacy of a humanoid (or at very least bipedal) robot in a warehouse setting. But even they have a long way to go.
Regardless, the next few years will offer some fascinating insight into where these culminations of decades worth of research are heading.
Apptronik readies its humanoid robot for a summer unveil by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Concord Signs Nana RoguesConcord Music Publishing today announced a new global publishing agreement with producer-singer-songwriter Nana Rogues, best known for producing and co-writing hits for global artists including Drake (including his 2017 global hit “Passionfruit” which is his 3rd highest streaming song at over 1.3bn), Dave, Future, J Hus, Zara Larsson, Skepta, Stormzy and Wiz Kid.

The new deal with Rogues includes his catalogues alongside all future works.

A winner of multiple awards including a BRIT (Dave, Psychodrama), Billboard (Drake, Scorpion) and nominations for a GRAMMY, in 2018 he achieved a major breakthrough co-writing on Drake’s record breaking single “Don’t Matter To Me” featuring Michael Jackson which at the time, broke the single-day streaming record on Apple Music and Spotify.

Kim Frankiewicz, EVP Worldwide A&R at Concord Music Publishing says, “There is often a lot of hyperbole in this business, but Nana is the real deal; he’s one of the most versatile writers out there, and we are delighted that he’s accepted to join the Concord family at this stage of what undoubtably will be a very successful career”.

Harri Davies, Senior A&R Director at Concord Music Publishing adds, “Nana is an exceptional producer with a remarkable work ethic. We are absolutely delighted that he chose Concord as caretakers of his hit-laden catalogue whilst also entrusting us as the home of his future song writing output”.

Nana Rogues comments, “I'm really looking forward to this next chapter in my career, Concord are a major player that understands my vision and sound. Together as a team we will be putting out great feel-good music that transcends across the world!”

Manager Dani Stephenson of Straight Forward Music adds, “We're ultra-excited to be working with Concord, an innovative publisher and top tier team, one that really understands Nana and how to take him and his catalogue to the next level. Nana is one of the most talented creatives I have the pleasure of knowing. His authenticity is art in its truest form, a genuine musical pioneer who has created timeless music that will forever be a moment in time for many generations to come”.

Originally from Hackney, London, Nana Rogues has proven himself to be one of the most versatile producer-songwriters of the moment, showcasing his one-of-a-kind style, with a vast array of musical vibes that’s moving the needle in today’s Top 40.

In 2019 Nana launched as an artist featuring on releases with Raye “Confidence” and Honne “I Got You” and “To The Max” featuring” Wiz Kid. More recently, he’s co-produced on KSI’s single “Number 2” featuring Future and 21 Savage on the number #1 chart topping album All Over The Place and produced on “We’re All Alone” which features on Dave’s new album called We’re All Alone In This Together. Nana is currently in the studio working with Dave, WizKid and Wiz Khalifa.

Photo: Left to Right – Kim Frankiewicz, Nana Rogues, Harri Davies, Dani Stephenson

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HIMA Seeks Indie Record LabelsThe Hollywood Independent Music Awards (August 17, 2023 at The Avalon in Hollywood, CA) are looking for the best, most artist friendly and supportive INDEPENDENT RECORD LABELS, big or small. They want to shine a bright light on deserving indie labels. See details & guidelines in submission form. FREE to submit whether you're the label, an artist or just a fan. COMPLETE SUBMISSION FORM HERE

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In addition to the spectacular main event, they'll have "satellite" events the week of the HIMA. Songwriting panels, sync & licensing presentations, networking events and more. Over the next couple months they'll reveal these added extras so you can plan a full schedule 8/16 through 8/19. Stay tuned.Share the HIMA Global Network (free) with other artists, industry professionals and friends HERE

SCREENSHOT OF JOB BOARD NOTIFICATION

Above is a sample notification from the Job Board (powered by Smashhaus) We provide opportunities for indie artists worldwide.