Sphero

Do you like your Sphero ? How about getting one that is 2500x larger than the current Sphero? That’s the new Sphero product – Peacekeeper. Order it today on Indiegogo . Along with some other cool Sphero stuff.

So – I’ve apparently been hiding under a rock and had no idea about the Nyan Cat phenomenon . The original Youtube video has 89,604,608 views as of this moment. Insane. Ok – whatever. Wait, shit, five minutes just passed with me playing around with the Nyan Cat site . I’m especially digging Jamaican Nyan and Pirate Nyan . Damnit, another five minutes just disappeared. Time to download Sphero Nyan Cat Spaceparty . A perfect combination of a cat, a ball, and an iPad. ...

28 Spheros + 1 Boombox. + 4 Android phones = Mind Blown. Wow – have you bought a Sphero for Christmas yet?

The gang at Orbotix is running a video competition called “Show Us Your Balls” for crazy things people do with the Sphero. There are a bunch of fun awards, including a month’s supply of bacon. If I win, I expect I’ll be giving the bacon to my friends downstairs at Gnip .

Today is Orbotix day at Feld Thoughts. I’m sitting in the House of Blues in Chicago getting ready to watch the Excelerate Labs Demo Day practice pitches waiting for everyone to show up and listening to the sound check guys blast music and say “hey hey 1 2” over and over again. I put my headphones on and listened to the new video by Sphero announcing and demonstrating their six new apps – Color Grab, Tag, Exile, Doodle Grub, a new version of Golf, and a new version of the core app which is massively upgraded. ...

Orbotix just released a new version of the Sphero firmware . This is a fundamental part of our thesis around “software wrapped in plastic ” – we love investing in physical products that have a huge, and ever improving, software layer. The first version of the Sphero hardware just got a brain transplant and the guys at Orbotix do a brilliant job of showing what the difference is. ...

It was the second week of TechStars and I was doing office hours with each of the 11 teams going through the Boulder 2010 program. I was sitting across the table from Adam Wilson and Ian Bernstein who each looked tired and dejected. In front of them were three slides. I asked them what was wrong. They said they were having trouble deciding which of three different products to pursue. They’d had a dozen meetings with different mentors and were getting wildly conflicting data, which we refer to in TechStars as “mentor whiplash” and is a normal part of the first 30 days of TechStars for every team. ...

Sphero is now available in some Brookstone stores around the US . There’s a handy map on the Sphero site and I’ll include a list at the bottom of this post. Occasionally one of you, dear blog reader, will ask if you can do anything for me. I usually say something like “just do awesome things” but this time I have a request. If you live near one of the Brookstone stores with a Sphero, go check it out. Play with it. Have your kids play with it (if you have kids). And if you like it, buy one. ...

Last week President Obama played with a Sphero . This weekend you can win up to $5,000 at the Sphero Hackathon in Boulder . It starts Friday May 4th at 6pm with a Welcome Reception (which means beer and Spheros) and runs all day Saturday and Sunday where you can hack with Spheros and the Orbotix SDK . I’ll be around Sunday from 1pm to 3pm taking a look at what people have done, playing around with the apps, and answering any questions about why I think Sphero (and Orbotix – the company that makes Sphero) is so awesome. ...

Yesterday, President Obama was in Boulder. The guys at Orbotix showed up and got him to play around with a Sphero . Watch the video (it’s pretty awesome) and then I’ll tell you the story of how they made it happen. The short answer – always be ready to demo your product – you never know when the President (or a key customer) is nearby. Our main characters for this story are Ross Ingram and Damon Arniotes. Ross is the one demoing Sphero to the President. Ross is Mr. Everywhere for Orbotix – his job is to handle every hack event, be at every party, and show up everywhere that might be interesting with a bunch of Spheros. Damion is the guy filming everything on his iPhone. His full time job is to video Sphero in the wild and tell the story all the time. ...