This Amazing Hat Called Cynaps Lets You Hear Music From Your Phone Through Your Head

We saw the most amazing hat at CES 2013 in Eureka Park. The hat is called Cynaps and the startup that created it is called MaxVirtual.

Cynaps, uses bone induction technology which when connected to a smartphone or other music player, lets you actually hear the music through the vibrations in hour head. No headset, no earphones and no earbuds required. The sound is conducted directly into your inner ear through vibration.

Our cofounder Nick Tippmann was able to try the Cynaps out and says that it sounds just as good as headphones. The company spokesperson that we interviewed said that it’s perfect for anything requiring headphones. You can listen to music, watch movies, even take a call or skype with the Cynaps hat.

There are a couple buttons built onto the brim that allow the user to end and start calls and playback.

The South Carolina startup is already up, running and selling the Cynaps hat for $60 here.

Cynaps offers a new level of safety when it comes to hands free operation. While you’re hearing the sound coming through your inner ear with the vibration, you can still hear other sounds as well. The main sound source becomes the focal point but if you were driving or biking with your Cynaps hat on you would be able to hear a car horn or other important noises.

Check out Nick’s interview with Max Virtual Below:

Over 130 startups and 2000 attendees from across the country & around the world are headed to this startup conference

Hundreds of Broken Headsets Lead To Chicago Startup RockRah CES 2013 Interview

If you’ve been a smartphone user for the past few years than you probably have something in common with me, and that is a junk drawer filled with earbuds. Some earbuds are frayed. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some have cords that are too short. Then there’s the other problem of losing ear buds. I’ve lost plenty of pairs of $30 Apple earbuds in my time.

A Chicago startup called RockRah is trying to solve that problem.

While there were plenty of iPhone cases and plenty of earbuds and headphones at CES 2013, in fact enough to bring reporters to near nauseam, they didn’t combine the two like RockRah does.

RockRah has fashioned a smartphone case that has retractable earbuds built into the back of the case. The housing for the case houses the earbuds so they don’t get lost, or tangled up. You have your earbuds right there when you need them and then when you don’t need them they retract right into the case. Kinda smart huh?

RockRah has been in development for about a year now, and it looks like they’ll actually make it to market in the next few months.

Check out our video interview below:

Plenty of startups from Chicago are going to be in the startup village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, is yours?

We Found A Morphing Tactile Keyboard Startup At Eureka Park CES 2013

A startup in California is working on getting their technology implemented into smartphones at the OEM level. They report that we should see their Tactus product on smartphones soon. So what does it do?

Tactus is a morphing tactile keyboard that literally just pops out of the phone. We’re not talking about some cheesy slide out qwerty keyboard or any kind of hardware accessory. As you’ll see in the almost unbelievable video, the keyboard just morphs right onto the screen.

In the interview the Tactus representative says that their CEO was inspired by Steve Jobs because he refused to switch to a Blackberry or other smartphone with keyboard built in.

Tactus’ technology is called “Microfluid technology” which makes the keyboard rise out of the screen and then when you’re done with it, it disappears as quickly as it appears. Our co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann got a chance to play with it during this interview and said it was nothing short of amazing.

The startup showed it off to the TechCrunch crowd at their booth in the parking lot of the convention center where Matt Burns reports that it was the most popular demo during the entire show, stealing the thunder away from the likes of the Pebble Watch, Oculus Rift and Razer Edge.

TechCrunch called it “the future” and we’d have to agree. Check out the video below:

Want to see something else amazing, check out the largest startup conference in the country, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

CES 2013: LivMobile Is Simplifying That Second Screen

A startup in Florida called LivMobile is looking to simplify that second screen for anyone that wants to watch any kind of video from any source. They’re doing this with a web based browser app that turns the browser into the video playback source.

We find out in the interview that the idea for LivMobile was born when their CEO was looking for a second way to view video. He was watching a football game and when they went to time out he wanted a second screen to know when the game was back. Nowadays second screens are common place.

With all the different video apps out there, LivMobile hopes to cut through all the clutter and bring together all video in one easy to use HTML5 browser based product.

Nibletz co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann got a chance to interview LivMobile at their booth at CES 2013’s Eureka Park. Check out the video below:

You can find out more about LivMobile at livmobile.tv

The startup village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference has 135 startups in it, is yours?

Bill Harris, Former CEO Of PayPal And Intuit To Speak On “Adult Supervision” At Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Bill Harris, Personal Capital, Intuit, Paypal, Facebook, everywherelse.co the startup conference

Bill Harris CEO of Personal Capital and Former CEO of Paypal and Intuit to speak at everywhereelse.co (photo: salon.com)

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference has quickly become the biggest starutp conference in the United States. The unique thing about everywhereelse.co is that it’s a celebration of startups outside Silicon Valley with information, and education for startups facing a similar set of challenges, being from outside the valley.

By now you’ve heard that our speaker lineup is one of the best in the country including Scott Case, Pat Riley, Tracy Myers, several managing directors from startup accelerators across the country, founders from some of the best accelerators across the country like Techstars, YC, and MassChallenge and many more.

Today we’re pleased to announce that veteran “parental supervision” CEO Bill Harris will speak at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference on Monday morning.

Harris is the CEO of Personal Capital, his own startup that’s already raised $25 million in venture capital, prior to that he has had a successful career in media, finance and entrepreneurism. Harris has twice been brought into young companies to be CEO and returned the companies to their founders in incredible positions.

Harris was brought into Paypal as it’s first CEO back in the late 90’s and prepared it for a $100 million dollar investment, eventually leading to the acquisition by eBay who owns it today. He also served as CEO at Intuit after merging ChipSoft into Intuit. Harris serves an advisor to some of the Facebook billionaires and has also taken a board or advisory role with several other successful companies.

Harris will speak about his current company Personal Capital. He will also talk about the real need by some startup founders to hire a CEO that is more seasoned than themselves. Eric Schmidt, the current Executive Chairman of Google, was hired as CEO of Google to lead Sergey Brin and Larry Page to the point where they could take back the company they founded.

Many credit Harris with bringing together Confinity and it’s founders Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek and Ken Howery with X.com and Elon Musk to actually form the company we know as Paypal.

Attendees and startups in the everywhereelse.co startup village will benefit from hearing Harris speak on all things startup and about his experiences advising, mentoring and helping some of the biggest startup founders in the world. It’s an amazing victory for startups “everywhere else” to have the opportunity to hear someone of Harris’ caliber and experience at a conference.

Nearly 2000 people from across the country and around the globe, have already purchased attendee tickets for everywhereelse.co the startup conference. The are still a handful of tickets left. There are 135 startups in the Startup Village and there are just 10 startup village booths left. More info can be found at everywhereelse.co tickets can be purchased below.

Event registration for Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference powered by Eventbrite

Big News: Global Accelerator Network Partners For Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Now that the International CES show, and Eureka Park are winding down this weekend, we’ve got a ton of news about the largest startup conference in the country, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. As you may have heard the conference has already sold (not forecast, but sold) nearly 2000 attendee tickets. In addition we have over 130 startups in the Startup Village with a very limited amount of spaces left for your startup. For more on Startup Village booths click here.

Well the conference has some big news that they’ll be announcing over the next week or two starting with a great partnership that will really help startups “everywhere else”.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is pleased to announce that the event has partnered with the Global Accelerator NetworkGAN is an organization of over 50 of the top short-term, mentorship-driven, seed stage accelerators around the globe. Their members include TechStars, Excelerate Labs, TechWildcatters, LaunchPad LA, StartupBootcamp, and more.

Global Accelerator Network’s Pat Riley will be on hand at everywhereelse.co as well as an entire team from GAN.

Everywhereelse.co will feature three accelerator focused panels. The first panel is “what I learned in an accelerator” featuring startup founders that have been through accelerator programs across the country. We’ll have founders from 500 Startups, YC, TechStars, Brandery, Jumpstart Foundry, The Fort, Seed Hatchery and several others. This panel will help give entrepreneurs an insight into the life of the startup accelerator.

The conference will also feature a panel of some of the top accelerator Managing Director’s across the country. While many startup accelerators live to the same principals and road maps some may be different. We’re going to have Managing Directors from startup accelerators across the country.

The third accelerator focused panel will address the reasons why your startup should or should not apply to startup accelerators. This insightful panel will draw from some of the best entrepreneurs who could talk about why your startup should do an accelerator and what vertical accelerators your startup should apply to.

To that end, Global Accelerator Network will be on hand throughout the conference helping entrepreneurs and founders figure out which accelerator may be best for them and then help them apply.

Is your startup in the startup village at “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference“? It’s not too late to register here!

GeckoCap Is Gamifying The Asthma Inhaler, We Checked It Out At Eureka Park

Millions of kids across the country and around the world suffer from Asthma. Fortunately, for many of them the Albuterol rescue inhaler helps them live mostly normal lives. The problem is that many kids either forget to take their inhaler or forget to tell their parents and loved ones that they used their inhaler. It’s actually pretty important to a parent to know when their kid couldn’t breathe.

A Boston startup called GeckoCap is hoping to help kids get back into a regular habit of using their inhalers and telling their parents and loved ones when they do.

Using the companies patent pending technology, a connected cap is placed on the top of the Albuterol cartridge on an inhaler. This cap has sensors, a transmitter and cool LED lights. The cap also keeps kids honest about their inhaler use and keeps a log of when it’s used and what the conditions at that time were.

All of the data collected from the GeckoCap can then be distributed to a child’s pediatric team and their parents.

We caught up with GeckoCap at Eureka Park 2013 at CES 2013. Check out the video interview below:

Oh my nearly 2000 have bought tickets to the biggest startup conference in the country everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

Shimi The Dancing Robot From Atlanta Startup Tovbot Debuts At CES 2013

You’ve always wanted a dancing, djing companion robot for our iPhone right? Well if you did you’re in luck. A group of entrepreneurs hailing from Georgia Tech, IDC in Israel and MIT Media Lab formed a company called Tovbot and have now introduced their first product to the world, and it’s name is Shimi.

Tovbot says they specialize in social, expressive, connected robots and Shimi definitely speaks to that mantra.

“Shimi is a robotic musical companion. He’s like your personal DJ, the guy that knows how to keep a party going and always knows what you want to hear next” Tovbot says on their website.

While companies have been trying to make robots interact with music for quite sometime it seems like Tovbot has really nailed that goal. The robot also doesn’t feel like some cheap piece of crap that’s going to have howling, treble filled speakers. The sound that comes out of Shimi is pleasant, although we didn’t get to hear it that loud.

Check out the video below from our interview at Eureka Park at CES 2013:

Over 130 startups, and over 1800 attendee tickets sold so far for the largest startup conference in the US everywhereelse.co The Starutp Conference

TDC Games Shows Off America’s Funniest Home Videos Hybrid Board/Tablet Game At CES 2013

A startup from the suburbs of Chicago called TDC games showed off an exciting new way to play board games. Combining the power of QR codes, along with video playback, the company has created a hybrid America’s Funniest Home Videos game.

A Hybrid Game?

We’ve seen the app interactive toys at toy stores and department stores everywhere, we’ve even seen games like Life that have taken to the iPad for the “spinner” experience, however TDC Games utilizes the iPad in the game in different ways. For the America’s Funniest Home Videos Game, when the player selects an action card, they scan it with their tablet or smartphone (iPhone, iPad and Android devices) a video pops up with a decision box.

In the demo we watched it was a video clip of a kid kicking a soccer ball in the gym. The player would have had to decide what was going to happen next in multiple choice. That would dictate the next move on the actual game board.

TDC Games has licensed an entire library of proprietary America’s Funniest Home Video clips for this game which makes it interactive.

The Illinois based startup has several games in the works that will utilize several different technologies found in mobile devices to enhance the family game night.

Check out our video interview below:

Several startups from Chicago’s startup community are in the Startup Village at the largest startup conference in the U.S. it’s not too late to exhibit at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Tech Media Elite Stop By Talk Startups At Startup America Stage CES 2013

Engadget Editor In Chief Tim Stevens speaks at Startup America Stage CES 2013 (photo nibletz.com)

Some of the top tech elite dropped by the Startup America Live stage at Eureka Park on Wednesday to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the Las Vegas Convention Center expo floor and talk to young companies, entrepreneurs and startups about what it takes to get coverage for CES and in general.

The panel was moderated by Frank Gruber, founder and CEO of TechCocktail, creator of DC Week and AOL alum. Joining him as panelists were Tim Stevens the current Editor in Chief at Engadget, Kelly Grant with Market Watch and Smart Money at the Wall Street Journal, and Jason Gilbert from the Huffington Post. All three gave very candid insights into what they are looking for and how to get them to read your pitch and visit your booth.

While nibletz dwarfs any of those sites in comparison, we still get 75 pitches a week on a regular week and during CES it swells to 125-150 per day. It’s hard for our staff to weed through pitches, imagine what it’s like for these guys. Well after today you don’t need to imagine.

Gruber started off the panel by asking the panelists what trends caught their eye at CES this year. Stevens said that he was happy to see a lot of the products that got their starts on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo exhibiting at CES. Gilbert agreed with Stevens pointing out that there seemed to be a backlash this year at CES against the “big” manufacturers and “super mega booths”.

Grant loved seeing health and fitness trackers but also said there were too many of them and she’s still looking for the ultimate one.

In talking about CES specifically, Gruber wanted to know what it took to get an email read. HuffPo’s Gilbert said that you have the subject line and the Gmail preview to sell him on a pitch, otherwise it’s probably headed to the trash. Stevens said that he was fortunate to have a team helping him find the diamonds in the rough.

For Grant, like us, its all about timing. You have a better chance at getting your CES related email read a few months earlier so she can put your booth on her calendar. Sending her emails during the show is useless as she (like many of us) don’t even bother reading emails until the end of the night. Like many journalists Grant works off a private email address for her colleagues to actually produce and edit material.

Eureka Park, CES 2013, Startup America Stage, Frank Gruber, Tim Stevens, Kelly Grant, Jason Gilbert

ltoR: Frank Gruber (TechCocktail), Tim Stevens (Engadget), Kelly Grant (WSJ), Jason Gilbert (Huffington Post) photo: nibletz LLC

Presentation and Product are Key

Another theme that all three journalists seemed to agree on is that presentation and product are key. We all know that for a startup a booth at CES can be an expensive thing, but you have to show that you care at least about your product. Speaking of products, Stevens said if you don’t have a product unfortunately Engadget probably won’t cover you. On that, Stevens added that if your product is on the market, going and selling, for more than two weeks it’s too late for Engadget, he likes to be on the cutting edge.

PR People and Press Releases

In a lot of “media” panels PR people get a bad rep. This particular panel didn’t do any PR bashing however they all agreed that your PR team needs to know your pitch word for word and the technology that backs your pitch. As a founder of a startup you don’t want to be at CES or any show for that matter, leave your booth to go to the bathroom and then have a PR person tell a journalist, “I’ll have to ask so and so” and make them wait. Journalists won’t wait.

Stevens and Gilbert both talked about how important exclusives were to them. Stevens said that a product they might not put a priority on would quickly move up the ladder if they got it first.

This panel was part of the Startup America Live stage at Eureka Park at CES 2013

See Scott Case and many more startup and entrepreneurial leaders at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Draw Something Meets Twitter With New Social Startup Didlr: CES 2013

We met a very interesting, and fun, app startup from the UK and Atlanta Georgia at Eureka Park. The startup, called Didlr, essentially combines Draw Something and Twitter for a fun new way to socialize and interact with people across the globe.

Users download the app to their smartphone or tablet, on just about every platform commercially available. After the app is downloaded you go through the normal social networking notions like creating a profile and inviting your friends. Once you’re all set up you can get to Didling.

A Didl is using your creativity through drawings and creating pictures rather than through words. As they tell us in the interview below, 140 characters is a lot more limiting than creating pictures. Didlr allows you to be as creative as you like, or can be.

Thousands of people have already flocked to the service and see it as having a little more meaning than playing the once uber popular Draw Something.

Like Twitter you can follow friends, or Didlr’s whose pictures you like. Also, the more popular a Didl is the longer it stays on the front page of the app.

Creatively speaking Didlr has included a good sized color pallete and various brush tools for any artist.

Check out our our cofounder and CEO, Nick Tippmann’s interview video below.

See startups from across the country and around the world at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Tony Hsieh Considering ZBoards For Downtown Project? Check Out Their Pitch! CES 2013

The problem is simple, you want to get from point A to point B and the distance is just a little too far to walk, and a little too close to drive. Sure you can take a bike but then you need to worry about keeping your bike safe, and the fact that you could work up a little sweat and soil your clothes for the rest of the work day.

California startup Zboard has the answer. Zboard is an electric skateboard that works fundamentally the same way a regular skateboard does. Well at least it kind of sort of looks like a regular skateboard.

The Zboard seems to be powered by the same kind of technology that Segway’s use by moving your body forwards and backwards or leaning.

If you lean forward while riding the Zboard it speeds up and goes forward. You can move your feet, applying pressure to the left and right sides to make the Zboard turn. It also comes with a brake that will stop you when you lean back.

It’s a new wave of hipster transportation. So cool in fact that Zappos CEO and Downtown Project founder Tony Hsieh hinted in a fireside chat at CES that he may be considering getting Zboards for the downtown Las Vegas community. For Hsieh, the Zboard answers the question “How do you connect where you don’t need a car, possible electric boards that are electric”.

Check out Zboard’s pitch from the Launch.It event at CES 2013.

Is your startup in the Startup Village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, find out more here about the biggest startup conference in the U.S.

Popchilla The Robot For Autistic Children Shows Off At Eureka Park, CES 2013

Raising children can be both hard and a blessing. Raising a child with autism is a lot more challenging. Autistic children often times have problems communicating even their simplest needs sometimes.

Parents of autistic children are constantly looking for “more tools to put in their tool chest” Michael Knight the founder of Popchilla, told nibletz.com in an interview.

Popchilla is a fun loving robotic stuffed animal that also has an app to go along with it. As an example Knight showed us a portion of the app where the Popchilla would tell the child to get his or her toothbrush and tooth paste from a virtual house on a tablet, and then brush Popchilla’s teeth.

Knight knew early on that Popchilla would be a success. His company used to make animatronic robots. He wold get questions from parents of autistic children all the time, asking when he was going to make a robot for them. He learned that sometimes children with autism actually interact better with robots rather than humans.

Popchilla was one of the most innovative things we saw at Eureka Park. Not only is Popchilla a cool robot, but when you couple that with the app you have a recipe for success, and definitely another tool for the tool chest.

Check out our video interview with Knight here:

Check out Popchilla at popchillasworld.com

Want to exhibit your startup at the largest startup conference in the U.S.? Check out everywhereelse.co the startup conference.

Are Accelerators from “Everywhere Else” Better at Producing Groundbreaking Innovation? Maybe. Here’s Why GUEST POST

There’s been a lot of press lately about the lack of true, groundbreaking innovation in Silicon Valley. I don’t think that’s completely true, but reading about it made me think a bit about the nature of innovation and whether the current system is built to foster it.

I live in this little city called Memphis and we have a small but growing tech community and a great little startup accelerator called Seed Hatchery that is currently taking applications for its third class.

Now the thing about Seed Hatchery is that it doesn’t get near the number of applicants as a Y Combinator or a TechStars or even some of the less well-known accelerators. They’re okay with that and they’re okay with plugging along and making improvements year after year and meeting goals and milestones that are at a somewhat smaller scale. And there are a lot of accelerators just like Seed Hatchery, all over the world.

There have been arguments made that these accelerators will die out. That may be true for some. But I happen to think that before they do they will have trained and produced more innovative entrepreneurs than some of their larger counterparts. Why? Because, generally, the enrollees in these programs have a high appetite for risk to begin with, and because they won’t have that appetite beaten out of them by the time they finish.

True innovation typically happens at the knife’s edge between failure and success. It doesn’t come from the safer and satisfied middle. That’s good news for tiny accelerators, and may be bad news for some of the more successful ones.

A program that gives me a ton of money, a good to great chance of raising more, and an almost 100% chance of landing softly even if I fail tends to convince even big risk takers to play things a bit more safe. It seems like the opposite should be true, right? I have all these benefits with virtually zero chance of absolute failure, so why shouldn’t I give it a go? But, as we see time and time again, that kind of thinking just doesn’t happen very often.

For these programs, getting in is the big challenge, and once you’ve achieved that you’re granted superstar status. Your success rate jumps to 70% or more. And if the success rate is 70% or more, then beating everyone else isn’t as important as not being in the bottom 30%. So, often enough at least, you don’t build something that has a 10% chance of glorious success. You play it safe. You try not to f$%k it up.

For other programs, by contrast, getting in is potentially easier, but success after graduation is much much harder. A lot of smaller accelerators have one or two companies out of ten successfully raise follow-on funding. When the success rate is that low, the companies tend to take bigger chances in the hopes of finding themselves among those one or two success stories. Except in extraordinary cases, it doesn’t matter what kind of human being you are. The company you build will be different based on whether you’re motivated to succeed above all others or motivated to not screw things up.

Now, before you jump all over me, I will say that there are things that continue to make Y Combinator and TechStars amazing programs, and you would be a fool not to join them if invited. The mentor networks, and the advice participants receive from those mentors, are probably by themselves worth the price of admission. But, imagine for a moment the kinds of companies that might be produced by a Y Combinator should, say, only five to ten of the 80 companies receive follow-on funding. Might that look different? My bet is yes, and that they would be much more groundbreaking.

I’m also betting that the smaller accelerators—so long as they don’t measure success by Y Combinator standards—can produce these kinds of companies. There will be more failures, sure, but that’s okay by me. The near certainty of failure is one the most compelling features.

Author Biography:

Cliff McKinney is CEO of Work for Pie, a company that is changing the way software developers get recruited and hired by changing the way they communicate with

Here’s another take on accelerators “everywhere else” from nibletz.com