Behold! Kingston Unveils The Largest USB Flash Drive Ever; The Data Traveler Hyper X Predator 3.0

At CES 2013 Kingston, a name thats been trusted in memory for decades, unveiled their latest in the data traveler series, the largest USB flash drive ever. To go with it’s enormous size, 1TB, it also has an equally enormous name, The Data Traveler Hyper X Predator 3.0.

This USB flash drive holds up to 1tb of data and has extremely fast read and write speeds. It’s a simple plug and play flash drive like any other USB flash/thumb drive that you’ve ever used, except it’s huge.

We got a chance to catch up with David from Kingston at CES 2013 who shows off The Data Traveler Hyper X Predator 3.0 and tells us how this flash drive got it’s ridiculously long name.

Here’s the video:

We Talk Starting Up At CES With Ian Bernstein CoFounder Of Sphero

Imagine you want to create something. In the case of Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson, that thing was a platform to create robotics controlled by smartphones. It was that initial idea that set Bernstein and Wilson out on a mission to get into an accelerator program. They tried for most of the big programs but really wanted Techstars “primarily because of the mentorship”. Bernstein and Wilson are both techie software and hardware guys, and knew they needed help.

That was three years ago, and yes they got into Techstars. Back in August we brought you the story of how a brow beaten Wilson and Bernstein turned to startup community leader, mentor and investor Brad Feld. It was that meeting with Feld where they decided to create the Sphero ball.

I was first exposed to Sphero at the International CES in 2011. Wilson and Bernstein barely had a couple of prototypes but they were determined to show Sphero off to the world at an annual CES event called “Show Stoppers”. At that time I was still working on Thedroidguy and was amazed at how cool the Sphero ball was. Wilson and Bernstein were talking about freaking out cats and creating apps. That was 3 CES’s ago.

At last years CES (2012), Wilson and Bernstein were back, they had a product, and they had started selling it. Talks turned to apps and games that you could play with Sphero. Sphero had also been the center of attention at the previous years Google IO conference. Sphero had a section of the official Google after party where amidst pulsating music party goers could control Sphero around an obstacle course of sorts.

2012 was the year they really broke through though. Sphero attracted one of it’s biggest fans in President of the United States Barack Obama. Bernstein talks about that story in our video interview below.

Not only did they get the Presidential seal of approval on the Sphero ball, they had other big news just before the holidays. Back in October, it was announced that Sphero would be available in Target stores across the country.

It’s been a whirlwind three years for Orbotix and the Sphero ball. After covering the fun and cool factor of controlling a robotic ball with your smartphone, we got a chance to interview Bernstein on video about starting up. Check out the interview video below.

If you’re a startup everywhere else, you need to get to everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, the largest startup conference in the U.S.

Tony Hsieh Talks ROC, Culture & 10 Hour Phone Calls At Eureka Park CES 2013

Tony Hsieh, Scott Case, Eureka Park, CES 2013,

Zappos CEO and Downtown Project founder Tony Hsieh speaks during a fireside chat with Startup America CEO Scott Case (photo: nibletz.com)

The Startup America stage as part of Eureka Park at the International CES started off with a bang this morning. Startup America CEO and technical co-founder of Priceline.com, Scott Case got a chance to have a fireside chat with Tony Hsieh. Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos, the founder of Link Exchange and the founder of the downtown project.

Their intimate fireside chat gave the standing room only crowd a peak into Hsieh’s mind. Hsieh founded his first company, Link Exchange, with his college roomate in 1996. They exited from Link Exchange by selling it to Microsoft just two years later. Early in the discussion Hsieh discussed the real reason that they sold Link Exchange. It wasn’t about the money, an enormous exit or even getting bored with the company. Hsieh and his partners decided to sell Link Exchange because the culture went bad.

” I was dreading waking up and going to work at my own company” Hsieh said during the fire side chat. From that point forward culture has played a crucial role in everything Hsieh does, from the companies he invests in to the employees Zappos hires. To one end culture is a condition of being around people you like “I try to be around people I like being around”, pretty simple concept, but it transcends across just your friends and personal circles. ” companies that have strong cultures out perform companies that don’t” Hsieh said about several studies that have been done on the subject.

Numerous articles have been written about Zappos and the community of employees that work there. Even though the company famous for their “return it for any reason” shoe return policy, is part of Amazon.com now, Hsieh said that it was a prerequisite to selling to Jeff Bezos that Zappos still functions independently. Zappos recently moved their warehouse operations to the Amazon umbrella because warehousing is something Amazon exceeds at. Hsieh and his other Zappos executives still handle customer service, marketing and every other part of the business.

Zappos is always mentioned alongside companies like Google when it comes to culture, and lifestyle within the Zappos campus, which is moving to the old Las Vegas City Hall next year. It’s the company’s culture that drives their employee base. When Zappos has a new hire they go through a traditional interview, once they pass that interview, the next interview is entirely based on how that person will fit in the company culture.

Case commented that when they were growing Priceline.com that culture was important as well. Like Zappos, at one point Priceline went from a company of 10 employees to over 100. In the early stages one person accounted for 10% of the culture.

“10% changes the culture if you’re not careful about it” Case warned to startup founders in the room.

Culture is just as important to Hsieh in his Downtown Project/Las Vegas Tech Fund companies. He wants to know that startups and their founders will fit in the culture in Las Vegas.

Hsieh committed to investing $350 million dollars in growing downtown Las Vegas (not the strip). He wants to make it the biggest and best city for coworking in the world. Startups and entrepreneurs in the downtown Las Vegas community, and Hsieh’s employees for that matter, live by the Three C’s, collisions, community and co-learning.

Hsieh has $50 million dollars set aside for investing in startups and small businesses. To be the recipient of part of that money though, Hsieh looks at the possibility of ROC (return on community) verse traditional ROI (return on investment). Hsieh just invested in a building at a prominent intersection in downtown Las Vegas. They are using that building for a community speaking theater where distinguished entrepreneurial and startup speakers will speak to community members. Hsieh admits that any other real estate investor could make a lot of money with the same location for a bar, restaurant or even a McDonald’s franchise.

From all the different parts of Hsieh’s business life, everyone in the room benefit from Hsieh’s discussion with Case. He even let on to a milestone Zappos recently had, their longest continuous customer service phone call. The length, 10 hours.

See Scott Case and several other startup and entrepreneurial leaders at the largest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, click here

CES 2013: DC Startup Troop ID Validating Veterans Past & Present In The Civilian World

The members of the U.S. armed forces are heroes. Going all the way back to the revolutionary war, and the military that helped deliver our freedom to the British, to those troops that have helped curb the unrest in the middle east, time and time again we honor them by calling them heroes, recognizing military at events and in tributes on all types of media.

Another way that we, as American’s, have honored those who are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice in our military, is by giving them military discounts and other benefits in a civilian context at retailers, restaurants and services across the country. In some cases these tiny tributes can result in saving our military heroes a little extra time, a little extra money and a little extra pain in day to day civilian life.

Unfortunately wherever there’s a discount program, or a benefits program, there’s also the other side of Americans, those trying to cheat and game the system. In the online world, it makes it hard for online retailers to offer discounts to military because they can’t tap into the government database to validate veterans past and present. While some online retailers have felt the benefit to recognizing the veterans is worth the loss they take in discount fraud, other companies just can’t afford it.

Traditional offline retailers, restaurants and services don’t have the same problem. They can recognize veterans by their uniforms and in some cases by their military ID cards. Online sites can’t see either.

That’s why DC area entrepreneur, and veteran, Blake Hall has created Troop ID. This startup serves as a validation clearing house for military personnel and they are able to do this not with some top secret government clearance and access to the official database, but by leveraging partners like USAA.

Hall already has several partners lined up who are using the system to validate military personnel and open up avenues to offer them discounts and speedy service. He has also given the use of the Troop ID service free to Startup America for their veteran’s initiative launched in November 2012.

Hall got the chance to pitch a team of judges during the Launch.It showstoppers event at CES 2013. This event included special guest judge, the world renowned Guy Kawasaki.

Watch Hall’s pitch video below and hear about the milestones he’s achieved in a short time since he started working on Troop ID.

Several veteran founded startups will be in the Startup Village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

CES 2013: Inventor Jamie Siminoff Creates Christie Street, Crowdfunding For Inventors, VIDEO

When inventor Jamie Siminoff turned to Kickstarter for his latest invention he started realizing how flawed the Kickstarter model really was for inventors creating great products. Often times he noticed that inventors weren’t thinking the entire process through.

In an interview at CES 2013 with nibletz.com Siminoff told us that inventors sometimes go to Kickstarter with a great idea and a funding goal that barely covers cost. Their ideas get quickly validated by folks who oversubscribe on their project, but at the end of the day they go in the hole by netting down less than it costs to even make a product.

Other inventors may take a prototype product to Kickstarter that they had made at one factory but don’t take into consideration the factories that they may actually use when trying t scale a product up.

That’s why he created ChristieStreet, a crowdfunding site that is about inventors and their products. ChristieStreet uses a familiar crowdsourcing model once projects go live, however the team at ChristieStreet vets out the product answering questions like those above. Siminoff has real discussions with inventors before letting their projects go live, and even offers advice to young entrepreneurs with a great idea, on how to make the idea even greater and less costly.

To that end there are currently just three projects on ChristieStreet and each one has it’s own “cool” and “wow” factor. Right now there’s a wireless doorbell with camera that allows the user to view who’s at the door on their smartphone. They also have a bluetooth product that’s a headset with cool shapes like a skull and crossbones. The final project right now is a Powerbag type backpack on steroids complete with the capability of charging three devices at once, one of them being a laptop.

Siminoff says anyone with an actual invention can apply to ChristieStreet. In fact, in the video interview below he says how easy it is to get the product submitted and looked at. Siminoff and his team have seen their share of winners but also their share of products that most likely won’t make it out of the lab.

Check out our video interview from CES 2013 below.

500 Startups: Markerly Founder Sarah Ware Video Interview

Undoubtedly, unless you’ve been living under a rock, if you regularly read nibletz.com, than you’ve heard of 500 startups, startup, Markerly. The Washington DC startup is in the latest batch of companies being accelerated at 500startups in Mountain View.

Markerly makes easy to use, but robustly analytical publisher tools. Their tools don’t require a widget, great publishers can just insert one snippet of code and do things like share bits and pieces of content across social networks or comment on photos. The best part is that Markerly is free.

Nibletz.com, the voice of startups everywhere else, was the first blog to use Markerly’s tools and we’ve been the beta testing guinea pig throughout their entire experience at 500 startups. Recently they added the voice of Silicon Valley, PandoDaily as well.

The company was founder by Sarah Ware. The New Jersey native, Georgetown graduate and former employee at hot DC startup, LivingSocial, and longtime friend Justin Kline started Markerly as a way to share highlighted content. Since arriving at 500startups the team has found more refined ways to share. They also provide sharing analytics which can be invaluable to a founder.

We got a chance to meet up with the Markerly team at CES 2013 and #nmx Blog World. Check out our video interview below

Ware is one of the lead panelists in the “Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else” panel at the biggest startup conference in the US, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

NMX 2013 Interview With Boston Startup UberVu

Boston startup Ubervu is a new social media dashboard startup. Sure there are a lot of startups in the space however what sets Ubervu apart is their intelligence layer.

Ubervu finds what people are saying about companies across the social web. They take that information and convert it into easy to understand usable data to get companies engaged with their customers.

Ubervu’s VP of Marketing Dragos Llinca tells nibletz in an interview:”People talk about companies and products online every day. We monitor and analyze those public conversations. We then use smart methodologies to come up with ways for brands to send more relevant messages to more relevant and influential people, at the most relevant time.”

We caught up with Ubervu’s social media marketing & community manager Elisabeth Michaud at NMX 2013. Check out our video interview here:

Here’s the rest of our interview with Llinca:

CES 2013: Memphis Startup CoyoteCase Presenting At Eureka Park, Announce Samsung Galaxy S III Case

Back in October we were the first tech media outlet to report on hometown Memphis startup CoyoteCase. The company founded by entrepreneur and concerned uncle Jonathan Page, produces a phone case originally for iPhone that protects your phone, and you as a person.

Basically the CoyoteCase doubles as a personal security system in addition to a bump proof case for your iPhone.

There is a little bit of competition in the market already. For instance there’s a case out there that also holds a small pepper spray can. There’s another case with a personal alarm, and one in the works with a taser (that will most likely never make it to market).

CoyoteCase combines the power of a loud audible personal alarm, along with BlueTooth and an app. The BlueTooth connectivity, combined with the app, add functionality like a tie in to a home’s alarm system, to give a monitoring station GPS coordinates of the users location.

CoyoteCase is making its first big tradeshow debut at the International CES in the Eureka Park startup tech zone. Page is also presenting at CES unveiled.

Page took this occasion to announce a CoyoteCase for the popular Samsung Galaxy S III Android smartphone.

After CES, CoyoteCase will be one of the 130 startups in the Startup Village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

CES 2013 Preview: zoomStand To Launch Giving Your Device More Positions Than Karma Sutra

Laptop and Tablet stands are great. They can keep your laptop or tablet propped up for movie viewing, set at a good angle for typing, or they can sit your tablet upright for displaying. A Phoenix startup called zoomStand is about to rock the stand world that allows you to set your tablet or laptop in more positions than the Karma Sutra.

The zoomStand is extremely flexible because of its unique build and telescoping legs. It’s height adjustable guaranteeing your workspace, no matter what it is, is what you need.

“zoomStand is the first modular and portable laptop and tablet stand that doesn’t sacrifice ergonomics or comfort in the name of simplicity. zoomStand fills the need for a singular accessory that can hold any device, in nearly any position and is easily portable. Coupled with the dire need to be able to get out of a chair and still be able to comfortably use a mobile device is where zoomStand fills the void. A single zoomStand can be used as a desktop riser for a laptop, as a standalone desk or as a theatrical holder for your favorite tablet while lying in bed or on the couch while watching a movie. The possibilities are nearly endless. ” co-founde Chris Piper told launch.it

Piper and his team are set to debut the first manufactured prototypes at Eureka Park the startup zone at the 2013 International CES. They plan to finish manufacturing in time for a spring 2013 release.

CES 2013 Preview: Indian Startup Emo2 To Launch Large Touch Screen OS

An Indian startup called Emo2, or Emotional Squared Technologies is set to launch what looks to be a great operating system and large multi user touch screen tablet. The device itself is 42″ and allows multi user input at the same time.

The 42″ touch screen surface is great for hotel lobbies, operating rooms, electronic casino gaming, retail environments and collaborative work spaces. The underlying operating system is designed to support the hardware without any hiccups, lag or delay, making for a pleasing user experience no matter what the application.

The company based in Chennai India, has been working on the technology since 2010 under the leadership of CEO and cofounder Mir Abid Hussain.

Emo2 is venture backed with an early stage investment from Indian firm Blume Ventures. Although the exact funding has not been reported Blume Ventures specialized in angel, and seed investments between $50k and $250k. Rajan Anandan, Zafar Baig and other angels also contributed to Emo2’s angel funding.

To date emo2’s technology has already been deployed in a coffee shop chain with 30 locations.

Although they weren’t specific early on, Emo2 has officially announced that they will launch Tuesday when the International CES show opens in Las Vegas. Before returning back to India they will be showing off their technology in Silicon Valley and New York the weeks immediately following CES.

After CES but before SXSW you can come to the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Awesome Contest: Signal Wars Is Back As We Travel To CES 2013

Some of you may have been followers of our previous well known mobile tech site. If you are, you’ll remember “Signal Wars” a contest where if you get crappy cell phone signal you can win. Well we weren’t sure if we would do it again over at nibletz.com The Voice of Startups Everywhere Else, but alas we’ve teamed with Wilson Electronics to bring you Signal Wars Part Three.

This weekend we’ll be traveling across the country from Atlanta Georgia to Las Vegas Nevada for CES 2013. Along the way we’ll be looking for our loyal readers who suffer signal problems. It sucks having the latest greatest 4G (and sometimes 3G) smartphones and not getting the most out of them because you live in a crappy area for signal. Well fear not, we’ve got a contest for you.

From Friday at 5pm (Eastern Time) through Sunday at 7pm (Pacific Time) simply tweet us the following message:

“Help @wilsoncellular and @startuptechguy my #signalsucks, I’m in XXX XXXX” where xxx and xxxx = your city and state. If you live along the route 40 corridor going across the country and we see your tweet it could be your lucky day.

We’ll do a short video with you talking about your bad signal, we’ll check out your bad signal on the video and voila you’ll be the recipient of a brand new Wilson Electronics Wilson Sleek. You’ll get to choose whether you want the 3G or 4G version and you’ll see a vast improvement in your cell phone signal in the car.

Wilson Sleek signal boosters aren’t little stickers you put on your phone. The dash mounted cell phone holder connects to a signal booster and a small antenna you put on the top of your car, that actually increases your voice and data signal significantly.

We’ve traveled across the country with Wilson electronics 10 times over the last few years and every time we’ve had continuous cell phone signal except for one teeny tiny portion of Arizona.

Again it’s this easy tweet the message:

We’ll DM you or have you email us to arrange the meeting, shoot the video and if you’re selected, you’ll win. (allow 2 weeks for delivery).

Speaking of contests, startups in the startup village at this conference, have three opportunities to pitch for $100,000

Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else At everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Girls Rock, Right?

If you’re a regular reader of nibletz.com, the voice of startups everywhere else, then you know here we celebrate startups across the country and around the world outside the valley. We call this “everywhere else”.

Startups from “everywhere else” are typically “grittier”, and work harder. After all, startups that raise money outside Silicon Valley know that their investors actually expect to see the money back, and that’s of course if you can score funding in the first place. There are lots of other factors that entrepreneurs deal with in entrepreneurial pockets across the country and around the world that you don’t find in Silicon Valley.

Sometimes startups elect to build their companies in their home town and they may be located in a town that’s more familiar with health tech, ed tech, or logistics. There are a number of verticals depending on what town you live in, that may not mesh with what you’re team is working on.

Talent is one of the other big issues that startups everywhere else face. It’s harder to attract or keep talent in different cities across the country and around the world. A lot of talented designers, engineers and hustlers often times move to Silicon Valley or other high density metropolitan areas looking for higher paying jobs.

Now take all of those challenges and add into the mix that you’re a woman with a great idea and you may find that things get even tougher for you.

At everywhereelse.co the startup conference we’re holding a panel discussion on Monday after lunch highlighting some “kick ass female founders from everywhere else”. Women who’ve been able to push on no matter what came their way. We’ll hear from established entrepreneurs who’ve had major success with their companies. We’ll hear from great startup founders like Sarah Ware from Markerly, Brandy Wimberly from Buyvite, Natalie Novoa from Teachmeo and severeal others who’ve launched startups in the last year.

This panel discussion will be part panel and part town hall session for the over 500 women who’ve bought tickets (as part of the 1790 tickets sold so far). For the Q&A part, Memphis entrepreneur Danielle Inez will help field and select the questions. 25 year old Inez has her own Memphis PR company and launched a startup of her own at the Upstart Memphis 48 Hour Launch in December. When it comes to startups Inez is wet behind the ears and still soaking up every bit of knowledge she can get, but she has the attitude, energy and perseverance that many of these other women have. We also have a special guest that will speak about her trials and tribulations in building a huge company.

Tickets and Startup Village booths, for the nearly sold out everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference can be purchased here. We’re almost to the 2000 capacity mark so hurry!

CES 2013: Nibletz Will Be Rawportering From CES 2013 And Eureka Park

Imagine if you could make money by simply taking video of something newsworthy with your smartphone. This new form of reporting is called citizen journalism and startups like Charlotte NC’s Rawporter are at the forefront of this wave of crowdsourcing the news.

Rawporter was founded in 2011 by Kevin Davis and Rob Gaige two marketing executives who left their cush office jobs to to dig into the trenches of startup life and make everyone, potentially, a Rawporter.

The idea came to Davis and Gaige after they were eating at one of their favorite local Uptown Charlotte restaurants. While they were dining there was a rather big car accident right in front of the restaurant. Naturally smartphones were up in the air taking video and pictures at the scene. What Davis and Gaige noticed was that the official news stations didn’t arrive until the accident had cleared.

They, along with several others, sent their homemade videos into the news stations but none of them actually aired. Sure there some of the national cable stations ask people to send in their videos but localized rawportering hadn’t broken through.

Now Rawporter has become a platform that allows bloggers, journalists and even tv stations to crowdsource news footage and has a mechanism for citizen journalists to get paid for their videos. For small one to three man blogs, Rawporter is a great way to get video coverage of events they can’t otherwise attend or report on.

We’ll be sharing a lot of our CES video coverage on Rawporter for free. Other blogs are welcome to use the video coverage that we supply via Rawporter, all we ask is that you credit nibletz.com with a source link.

While we’re giving our videos away, if we wanted to we would be able to sell them for whatever we would like.

On the flipside if we needed video from CES or any other event we could put out a call for an assignment, let the community know how much we were willing to pay and voila we would have our video like we were there.

Check out our Rawporter CES coverage once CES officially gets rolling. We will link to it here on nibletz.com on the right side bar.

Rawporter is also the official on-site video sponsor for the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, for tickets and info click here

Startup Weekend Company Breadcrumbs, Lets You Know Where You’ve Been

A San Diego startup, called Breadcrumbs is helping people keep track of where they’ve been using their smartphone. It’s like automated checking in but could be more useful later on. Maybe you want to keep a journal of the places that you’ve been. Perhaps the next time you’re in a city or town you want to easily be able to recall a place you ventured into on your last trip. We travel so much around here that it’s easy to mistake some downtown areas with others.

Breadcrumbs is innovating at the EvoNexus incubator in San Diego, alongside other great startups like Nulu Languages, TomNod, Antengo, Barc, and Fashinoning Change. The company also received a $50,000 seed investment from Qualcomm Labs.

Breacrumbs is another success story out of Startup Weekend. Founder Joel Drotleff had pitched the original idea at San Diego Startup Weekend, citing the fact that he could never remember how long he spent at the dog park. The other co-founders joined him for the weekend project and now today they have a product in the Google Play store for Android and the iTunes App store.

Breadcrumb’s Sean Dominguez told nibletz in an interview:

“It’s a pretty cool story. We all met at Startup Weekend San Diego back in June when Joel, our CEO, pitched an idea for creating a self-tracking application since he never knew how long he was spending at the dog park. We all thought it was a cool idea, joined the team for the weekend, and ended up taking the Qualcomm sponsored prize that weekend – as well as another prize at Qualcomm’s event Uplinq two weeks later.”

Obviously they caught the most important eyes at Qualcomm who has continued to support the venture. We got a chance to have a more in-depth discussion with Dominguez check out the rest of the interview after the break.