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Win Bacon! Show Us Your Balls. [VIDEO]

Have you ever wanted to win a month’s supply of bacon? Now you can. Submit your best Sphero video for the chance to win the best swag bag ever. Choose from four different video categories, and in six weeks, the video with the most votes in each category will win some serious #spheroSWAG. People can vote daily, so make sure to promote your video.

Not only can you win a month’s supply of bacon, you’ll also get a custom shell Sphero, a Sphero gumball machine, a Sphero bean bag chair, limited edition ramps, a Sphero Hypercolor t-shirt, and a case of BAWLS Guarana energy drinks. Seriously? #SRSLY.

So what type of videos are we looking for? Use Sphero to prank your friends, family, classmates or coworkers. Show off your homemade Sphero racecourse, golf course, or obstacle course. Personalize your Sphero with custom skins, accessories, or water gear. Or just get crazy and show us why you need to win. Don’t have a Sphero? No problem. Use your creativity to show us why you need one. Create a song or rap video, or come up with your own cinematic Sphero masterpiece.

Check out the video contest page on Facebook for the official rules and guidelines. What are you waiting for? Show us your balls! Your bacon is waiting.

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Nominate Sphero for Best New Gadget on Mashable

You can now nominate Sphero for Best New Gadget for The 5th Annual Mashable Awards. While you can nominate anything from your favorite coffee shop to your best friend, we’re personally hoping you’ll give Sphero a boost in the gadget category.

What makes the Mashable Awards unique? Every competitor is community nominated. That means it’s up to fans like you to get Sphero in the running. Once a day, every day, Twitter and Facebook users can jump on Mashable.com and vote for Sphero under the Best New Gadget category.

Here at Orbotix, we’re on the way to making a big impact in the realm of mixed-reality gaming and entertainment (Sphero is the most programable robot ever invented after all).  Nominating Sphero for the Mashable Awards will help get us one step closer to our goal.  And besides, we wouldn’t mind celebrating at MashBash in Vegas during CES if we nail this thing. Nominations are open until November 18th, and finalists are announced the 21st. If we make the cut, the vote goes back to you guys to determine the ultimate gadgets of the year. Let’s make it happen!

Help Sphero get there by nominating your favorite robotic ball on Mashable.com.

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Vote to see Orbotix at SXSW 2012!

We had an amazing time at South by Southwest (SXSW) last year and we’ve got plenty in store for our return to Austin in March. To start, we submitted two great panels for SXSWi and we need your help getting there as the 2012 SXSW PanelPicker voting period is now open!

First up, a talk from our CEO Paul that’s focused on what makes Sphero tick – mixed reality gaming. The rise of smartphones, tablets and social gaming has led to an explosion of mobile gamers. Just as Angry Birds and Farmville took mainstream gaming away from the console, the rise of mixed and augmented reality – where virtual worlds interact with physical objects – is already forming the next epoch of play. As an emerging area of gaming, mixed reality finds a new load of challenges for both the creators and the user as a consumer. Falling within a spectrum between the real world and digital world, mixed reality has an undiscovered spot that will quickly find its way on the rise. Paul will discuss the possibilities with mixed reality, the challenges, and how mobile gaming is leading the charge.

Vote for Paul’s panel “Creating your mixed reality: digital to physical” here!

Our founders Adam and Ian are teaming up for this next panel, diving into their daily challenges. There are major differences when developing for iOS and Android, that’s not a secret. But what happens when you are developing software that controls robotic hardware on both of these platforms? Challenges arise because the external hardware adds a level of complexity. This conversation is directed towards the biggest differences between iOS and Android, the biggest headaches developers encounter when building for two operating systems, and best practices for both.

Vote for Ian & Adam’s panel “Great divide: Robot development with iOS & Android“ here!

There are tons of other great suggestions to choose from, so no matter which panels are chosen there’s bound to be awesome discussions and insight.  Just like last year, it’ll be a little bit of business and a whole lot of party…Can’t wait till March!

Vote For Sphero: Hot or Not?

When we found out that we were part of the latest “Hot or Not” poll, we feared that having our attractiveness compared to the likes of the Wham-O Superball could have detrimental impact on Sphero’s self esteem – he can be sensitive after all. But then we realized we are actually in the UK’s leading gadget magazine Hot 100. Once that was cleared up, Sphero knew his robotics would have no problem competing. He is a looker, after all.

But he needs your help too! You can nominate Sphero for the T3 Awards and also vote up our hotness!

T3 is the leading UK gadget magazine available only on your iPad but they also have a great website here.

Thanks again to all of our supporters that have been incredibly awesome since we came onto the scene!

© 2013 Orbotix, All Rights Reserved