TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

Sphero: Robotic Balls For Smartphones

By TechTaffy Desk

By Lisa Carlin

 

Sphero is a white ball. It is also the world’s first mass market robotic ball that can be controlled from your smartphone (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android). And oh, it is not really white. You can configure its color, and keep changing shades.

Sphero comes with six apps out of the box, and a open API incase you want to build your own thing. The apps include Sphero Golf, the Sphero Cam, and the Sphero Draw N’ Drive where you can use your finger to trace a path on the screen and Sphero follows the zigs and the zags. For a complete list of specs see this.

Sphero is a product of Orbotix, founded by Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson, both graduates of the Boulder TechStars business acceleration program.  They combined proprietary internal robotics with specialized control software in 2010 to come up with the robotic ball. Orbotix then developed several prototypes and showed them at numerous shows around the country, and also completed two rounds of financing in the process to start commercial development.

Sphero costs $129.99 and is available for pre-order from the Sphero website. These balls are currently available in the US only. International orders will open next year.

 

(Lisa Carlin writes on gadgets and geeky things for techtaffy.com. She can be reached at [email protected])

 

 

 

Just in

IT

IBM to acquire HashiCorp for $6.4B

IBM and HashiCorp have entered into an agreement for IBM to acquire HashiCorp, a provider of infrastructure and security management products, for $6.4 billion.
AI

OpenAI introduces new enterprise features

OpenAI announced new features aimed at enterprise users on Tuesday, at the wake of Meta's recent LLama 3 announcement.
Around the web

Oracle is moving its world headquarters to Nashville to be closer to health-care industry — CNBC

Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison said Tuesday that the company is moving its world headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee, to be closer to a major health-care epicenter, writes Ashley Capoot.
Industry

Square expands offline payments globally

Payment processing company Square has announced the expansion of its offline payments feature to all hardware devices and countries.
Around the web

U.S. bans noncompete agreements for nearly all jobs — NPR

The Federal Trade Commission narrowly voted Tuesday to ban nearly all noncompetes, employment agreements that typically prevent workers from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own, writes Andrea Hsu.