Comments Off on Shimi The Dancing Robot From Atlanta Startup Tovbot Debuts At CES 20130LikeLike 2,938
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:
Comments Off on TDC Games Shows Off America’s Funniest Home Videos Hybrid Board/Tablet Game At CES 20130LikeLike 2,816
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
Comments Off on Draw Something Meets Twitter With New Social Startup Didlr: CES 20130LikeLike 2,274
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.
Comments Off on Tony Hsieh Considering ZBoards For Downtown Project? Check Out Their Pitch! CES 20130LikeLike 3,174
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.
Comments Off on Popchilla The Robot For Autistic Children Shows Off At Eureka Park, CES 20130LikeLike 3,319
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.
Comments Off on Behold! Kingston Unveils The Largest USB Flash Drive Ever; The Data Traveler Hyper X Predator 3.00LikeLike 4,409
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.
Comments Off on We Talk Starting Up At CES With Ian Bernstein CoFounder Of Sphero0LikeLike 3,139
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.
Comments Off on CES 2013: DC Startup Troop ID Validating Veterans Past & Present In The Civilian World0LikeLike 3,501
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.
Comments Off on Meet The 4 Women Led Memphis Startups Pitching At 48 Hour Launch0LikeLike 2,353
Memphis’ Launch Memphis, is holding a 48 Hour Launch made up entirely of startups founded by women. This is part of Launch Memphis’ new Upstart Memphis initiative focused on enriching women entrepreneurs and startups across the midsouth.
In addition to events like this, Upstart Memphis holds a regular women’s entrepreneur meetup and provides access to women founders and entrepreneurs to the organizations free workshops and seminars. Upstart Memphis welcomes entrepreneurs of all types from traditional small businesses to high growth potential startups.
This weekend’s 48 Hour Launch saw traditional high growth startups and a hybrid startup with huge upside potential locally and if it can build scale, nationally as well.
Care2Manage
Care2Manage is a web portal and referral service aimed at 30 and 40 somethings who’s parents may be ready for elder care. More and more of the elderly are turning to staying home rather than going into managed care centers, which can be frightening for their children, especially when 100s of miles separate child and parent.
That’s where Care2Manage comes in. This referral site and management platform allows the parent and the children to collaborate together and find the best care providers in the parents’ local area. With the service being based on the web, children from across the country and around the world can be involved in their parents care. Not only that, but Care2Manage will also staff up with 24 hour staff available to the parent or the child, and in some cases both.
Here’s the Friday raw pitch:
focusED Path
This startup plans to be a first in it’s space. Essentially focusED Path is a social network for students and parents to keep up with their scholastic activities. Using focusED path, parents and students can put all of their grades, achievements and assignments online. As the student reaches milestones they can be celebrated as well.
focusED Path takes it’s name from one of it’s key features. At the eighth grade level most students start thinking about careers and the work force. They start solidifying their first “what I want to be when I grow up” plans.
focusED Path takes those ideas and makes recommendations on courses to take and what grade averages are needed to sustain that goal. The system will also help when that student undoubtedly pivots to another career path. The student and the parent can see what changes will need to be made to keep them on the focusED path.
Finally, in their secure network students and parents can share milestones, and victories along with areas the student needs to work on with that student’s support network.
Here’s the Friday Pitch:
Pink Robin Avenue
Pink Robin Avenue is the ultimate event planning tool for the busy person. Professional career minded women, single dads, single parents and anyone who’s day to day makes them too busy to plan a party can easily use Pink Robin Avenue to design an event in a box and have the party they’ve dreamt about in just a few clicks.
The founder of Pink Robin Avenue, Danielle Inez, put together the idea when she found that with her social calendar and PR consulting firm she didn’t have enough time to think of things like cake toppers, decorations, and party favors.
Check out the Friday pitch:
Mentor.me
Brittney Fitzpatrick has noticed that there is a huge flaw in mentoring. One of her close colleagues is in charge of administering a very big mentor program in Memphis Tennessee and told Fitzpartrick that most of the mentor matching she does is strictly baed on what’s on a sheet of paper. For so many reasons this process is flawed.
Mentor.me plans on taking profiles for the mentor and the mentee and using algorithms to better match the two.
With Mentor.me a mentee will be able to better address and get more indepth about their needs in a mentor. The mentor will also be able to better see if they’re a match or not.
Mentor.me will help both mentors and mentees waist a lot less time and get right into mentoring, which is what they’re supposed to do.
Comments Off on Stay Tuned In With Memphis Startup StayTunedIn, Pitch Video0LikeLike 2,550
Over the weekend we brought you the story of Memphis entrepreneur Aaron Prather and his new idea, which is now called StayTunedIn. StayTunedIn is a new web based platform tool for publishers that allows publishers and editors to keep their finger on the pulse of their readers.
The concept is simple, in fact it’s so simple it’s one of those “Why didn’t I think of that” think of that kind of ideas, well the reason you didn’t think of it is because Prather did.
StayTunedIn is essentially a button that will automatically be placed at the end of a piece of content from a participating publisher. If you want follow up information on that particular piece of content, clicking the button will let the publisher/editor know that you want follow up and when they post a follow up story you’ll be notified.
Say you read a story about a local man that rescued people from a car wreck. Maybe you would like to know what happens next with the “hero” and the people he rescued. By clicking the button you’ll get that content.
Sure their are Google alerts and sites like reddit that offer a similar type of service however it’s not actual follow up and we all know that Google alerts can be messy. This is specific content from the same source. Now you can really keep track of a story.
On the publisher side the tool is great because it lets publishers and editors know exactly what their reading audience wants to read.
Publishing giants across the country have all echoed the same theme. For big sites like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, the problem isn’t readership the problem that they face is getting people to come back over and over again.
“A promiscuous audience is our new reality. Are our news rooms ready to give them an experience worth coming back to, over and over again?”
Larry Kilman, the Deputy CEO of The World Association Of Newspapers echoed Narsetti’s sentiment saying:
“We are not losing readers, we are losing readership. Our industry challenge is engagement. Because someone is a subscriber does not make him a loyalist.”
One major way to get readers more engaged is to give them the content that they want. With StayTunedIn publishers have a better opportunity to do just that.
While Prather worked hard over 48 Hour Launch with a team of Memphis startup community members, he said the work is just beginning. The opportunity for StayTunedIn is too large to abandon after one weekend. In fact he already has commitments from some of the bigger local publications to try the service out when he has it up and running.
Comments Off on Chicago Ideas Week: Kara Swisher On The Next Big Thing VIDEO0LikeLike 4,540
We are in Chicago this week for the Startup America regions summit for Startup America Champions. We’re actually attending as Champions rather than media. Our good friend Frank Gruber at TechCocktail is also attending the summit as a regional champion from Washington DC.
While we did a little bit of actual work at the summit for the most part it’s been a great learning experience. In fact, when I tried to continue working after lunch, Startup America CEO Scott Case personally came and got me to make sure I was learning and not working. All the sessions on Tuesday were definitely worth it.
That doesn’t mean we couldn’t work at night after the summit was over.
It’s idea week in Chicago through October 14th. It’s a week long series of entrepreneurial, startup and innovator events, talks and lectures very similar to startup week happening in Austin Texas. As part of Idea Week, Startup America Chairman Steve Case (no relation to Scott), spoke in a mega talk Tuesday evening.
Case drove home many of the important points from his talk earlier in the day at the Startup America summit. He also went into a little history of AOL and briefly talked about the Time Warner merger.
After Case cleared the stage, they introduced the next guest (which we hadn’t read the program so we didn’t know) Kara Swisher.
Swisher is an authority on startups, technology and silicon valley. She was one of the reporters featured prominently in the 60 minutes interview with Mark Zuckerberg and she, along with Walt Mossberg, head up AllThingsDigital. She’s a great interviewer and an equally as good interviewee.
Most of the interview was in true Swisher banter, great down to earth, and real tech talk sprinkled with her signature humor. In fact one of the funniest points in her talk was when she made reference to the fact that she’s been married to a Google executive for 14 years, Swisher than pointed out that she is a lesbian (which she’s always been out), and in “straight years” that would be 97 years of marriage.
She referred to Google Glasses as “creep glasses” and Google+ as not a social network.
At the end of the interview (the part in the video below) she was asked what she thought the next big thing would be. Her answer may surprise you, and again, even this answer was full of humor, that’s for the most part true:
Comments Off on We Caught Up With Charlotte Startup Rawporter At The DNC 20120LikeLike 2,225
While we were at the DNC 2012 we got the opportunity to crash at the Rawporter crib in Uptown Charlotte. Rawporter co-founder Kevin Davis, recently relocated to New York to help grow the citizen journalism startup. Rob Gaige, the other Rawporter co-founder remains in Charlotte to continue their grassroots efforts in their hometown.
For those of you who aren’t aware, or for those of you who hear the name Rawporter on our videos, Rawporter is a social e-commerece platform for citizen journalism.
On Tuesday evening in the thick of an enormous rain storm, and just before the evening session at the DNC where First Lady Michelle Obama brought the house down, I actually got to join Gaige and Davis for a meal at the Dandelion Market in Uptown Charlotte (that’s their downtown), which is the restaurant where Rawporter was born. It was while eating at Dandelion that Gaige and Davis witnessed a horrific car accident. Like any event like this in 2011, people quickly emerged from every establishment on the block with their smartphones, and immediately started shooting pictures and videos.
Davis and Gaige both noticed that it wasn’t until after the emergency personnel had left and the wreckage was almost cleared that the news trucks began to arrive. When the Rawporter duo got back home and watched the news, sure enough there were no pictures or videos of the actual wreckage.
Sure national cable networks like CNN and Fox News, encourage their viewers to send in videos, but there had to be a way for citizen journalists, and the average people to get their videos to news outlets. In effect there needed to be a crowdsourced video news platform. So Rawporter was born. Davis and Gaige also decided to add another spin and make an e-commerce platform for the buying and selling of these videos and photos.
On the e-commerce side it was quickly discovered that Rawporter was a great way for bloggers with a small staff, or even newspapers and other media outlets with bare bones staff and bare bones budgets, to utilize the platform for great content.
Now news editors and the like can sift through and buy uploaded files, but what’s even better is they can commission a Rawporter user to actually do the work they need. For instance, if there is a convention or conference that the news outlet can’t get to, they can post an “assignment” with what they are willing to pay and the Rawporter community can bid for the assignment. Rawporter even facilitates the transaction.
Naturally with the Democratic National Convention in their back yard, it was an excellent venue to show off their product.
The Rawporter team also pitched at DEMO this past spring and Chicago TechWeek back in July.
Comments Off on DNC2012: National Comedian Tone X Needs Help Getting Obama Tickets VIDEO0LikeLike 2,087
I remember the feeling like it was yesterday, standing in line at the Obama Inauguration freezing my butt off at 4am on K Street in DC. People everywhere were still looking for tickets to get up close and see Obama get sworn into office. Or perhaps you were looking for an Obama ticket 4 years ago at the DNC.
Well critically acclaimed national comedian ToneX turned to @startuptechguy and @nibletztweets to spread the word. He is a sharp dressed, articulate brother that wants to be in the house Thursday night to see Obama deliver his address to the delegates.
With a plea like this we’re sure if you know someone you’ll help him out. You can tweet to him at @tonexcomedy or just drop us a line at info@nibletz.com and we can get a message to Tone’s people.
ToneX brought the house down at the PPL headquarters at the Packard building downtown which is serving as our center of operations today for our DNC coverage. We’re headed to the big StartupRockon party next. It’s refreshing to be here. Here’s ToneX is message, and he approved it himself.
Electricity: The Story and Life of Nikola Tesla a made for television docudrama is raising funds via Kickstarter. Created by “the creative partnership of Carol Bourgeois, business executive and writer along with Wilhelm Cashen engineering savant and entrepreneur” who began the project in the fall of 2010. The overall business plan for Tesla Productions, LLC includes; “education, film, video, games, broadcasting, human experience, technology and products.”
Kyle
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.
Mike Hoffmeyer
Nibletz Staff
Molly McCarrick
Cameron Wright
