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Aren’t little soccer-playing robots just the cutest things? Sure, they are. More on them below.

First, it’s our pleasure to introduce something new into The World’s Technology Podcast mix. For a while now, I’ve wanted to start a monthly round-up of interesting tech stories. I finally managed to strong-arm BBC Technology Reporter Jonathan Fildes into helping me out. He went the extra mile by giving me the perfect podcast opening: “Crickey, have we rambled enough now, Clark?”

Well, you’ll be the judge.

Here’s the plan: each month, Jonathan and I come up with five (or so) tech stories that we find intriguing, and then we just connect via Skype to chat about them a bit. The idea is to keep it informal, and relaxed. We think it’s a great way to go a little more in-depth into the stories we cover on a regular basis.

We hope you like the idea, and we hope you’ll participate as well by sending us your thoughts and ideas for possible stories to cover in the round-up. You can leave your ideas in the comments below, or send them in via Twitter or Facebook.

Here’s the line-up for our inaugural tech round-up:

• 1. Wikileaks: Jonathan’s coverage on the BBC website
• 2. ICANN allows .XXX domain name application to proceed
• 3. OLPC now targeting older pupils
• 4. More on cyber-security
• 5. FIFA, refereeing and technology

Now, more on those little robots. Remember back in WTP 279 we talked with Stefan Otte, part of a team of roboticists at the Free University in Berlin? They’ve created a a team of kid-sized soccer ‘bots called FUmanoids. Well, while all eyes have been trained on South Africa and the human World Cup, FUmanoids trundled off to Singapore for RoboCup 2010. FUmanoids made the final, where they squared off against arch rivals (also Germans), the Darmstadt Dribblers.

Here’s a video of the match:

(Photo: FUmanoids)