We love CES because it’s a four-day extravaganza of playtime – for both our team and attendees. The highlight was showing off the new mixed-reality apps that use Sphero as a controller (Space Fighter and Chromo), and putting Sphero’s endurance to the test on ramps at our booth, down concrete stairs, and through crowded hallways. Our little gaming robot survived techy VIP parties, all-nighters, and played through the day with hundreds of fans. In a word, CES 2012 was magical. Take a look at this year’s record-setting Consumer Electronics Show from Sphero’s point of view. You can also view our Facebook album for more shots of the event.

One of the most exciting events at our booth this year was the Space Fighter Press Challenge. Press competed for top score with the chance to donate up to $1,500 to the charity of their choice. Using Sphero as a controller for the first time, press dodged fireballs, attacked alien ships, and had an absolute blast playing Space Fighter. At long last, the results have been tallied! Here are our winners.

In third place with 80,350 points, we have Geoff Hathaway, co-host at the B Team Podcast donating to the Humane Society. Second place is Willem De Moor, writer for Tweakers with 113,650 points and donating to Toys for Tots. Drumroll, please…

The reigning champion with 126,800 points is Dave Hamilton, President and CEO at MacObserver. Dave is donating to the Oyster River Youth Association. Congratulations to our winners! And a big thank you to all who participated. Your energy and enthusiasm fighting alien space invaders was infectious.

The year ahead is cram-packed with events and contests, and we couldn’t be more excited. Keep an eye out for little white robots rolling around, and if you see us at an event, come say hi. We’d love to introduce you to Sphero and all of his new gaming apps.

Sphero will be making a special guest appearance this morning on LIVE! With Kelly at 9:00 AM! Be sure to catch a glimpse of our little robot with one of television’s favorite entertainers. Sphero will be showing off his skills next to the latest tech gadgets from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Leo Laporte, the tech guy known nation-wide from Premier Radio Networks, will be running the show. You can check out the details online, and view the segment later, here.

While in New York, Sphero also had the opportunity to meet with Business Insider and roll around with their team. Check out the article for some insider information on games to come.

Press competed for the top three scores in Sphero Space Fighter with the opportunity to donate up to $1,500 to the charity of their choice. The press rolled in to try their hand at killing alien ships and dodging fireballs, and after four days of extreme space fighting, the results are being tallied up. Keep posted for the winners!

Thanks to everyone who came by and took Sphero for a spin! We will be recapping with a full-length video, staff bloopers, and the winners of the Press Challenge next week, so stay tuned for more.

Sphero has been a sensation rolling around the two largest halls during the first part of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The little robot boosted over custom ramps, raced around pulling chariots, and even competed in games of soccer. Not only that, but the public got to demo two new games – Space Fighter and Chromo.

Press have been competing in Sphero Space Fighter for top score and, as the leader-board currently stands, Eli Haboosh is the reigning champ with 143,900 points. He’s taking the field by storm, but there is plenty of time to upset the lead during the next two days! Come by booth #25300 in the South Hall to try your hand at some mixed-reality play.

Stay posted on our Twitter feed to find out what’s happening at CES during the day, and check back for blog posts after-hours. Sphero might be resting in his induction charger, but you can be sure the team is still on “crazy” mode. Be sure to stop by, we can’t wait to introduce you to our robot!

Chromo Demo

We are excited to announce and demo two new apps – Chromo and Sphero Space Fighter. Both introduce a whole new way to play by using Sphero as a controller. In Chromo, challenge your coordination and memory by correctly matching the colors on your screen by tilting Sphero in the right direction. And in Space Fighter, use Sphero as the controller to navigate a virtual Sphero through outer-space, dodging flying meteors and gaining power-ups along the way. These mixed-reality apps are only the beginning of many exciting apps to come in the year ahead.

Sphero Space Fighter Demo

Sphero will also be making an appearance at PepCom this afternoon, beginning at 4:00 PM PST at the MGM Grand. And if you can’t make it that far down Las Vegas Boulevard, you’ll also see our little white robots rolling around at the AT&T Developer Summit today at 11:00 AM PST at the Palms. Fans will be racing on a track designed especially for Sphero, and it will be a show you won’t want to miss.

There are lots of opportunities to meet Sphero this week in Las Vegas. We would love to introduce you, so come by the South Hall booth #25300. First-release demos as well as games of Sphero soccer, golf, and even chariot racing await. Press will also be able to compete in Sphero Space Fighter for a chance to win up to $1500 for the charity of their choice. Let the good times roll!

Today, we are excited to announce that our Full API and Mobile SDK are officially live and available for developers! Sphero also began shipping this week and made its way into the real world. And Sphero’s first 5 apps are now available on both the iTunes App Store and Android Market.

From the very beginning, we’ve engineered Sphero as an open device for which developers can easily create apps. The great thing about the first set of Sphero apps is that they are all amazing foundational apps. They have numerous core functions that developers can use to build their own apps. In fact, most of the source code for these apps is available in our SDK. We also provide documentation, sample code, and a customizable UIKit to get developers rolling.

For example, our Sphero app shows the possibilities of using voice control to command Sphero. Drive demonstrates the capabilities of Sphero’s robotic movement. Golf provides an example of using the kinetic motion of your smartphone to control Sphero. Draw N’ Drive converts images drawn on the screen of your smartphone to create motion and color changes in Sphero. And SpheroCam lets you simultaneously control Sphero and capture footage using your device’s built-in camera.

Other games in development take things one step further. The first example is mixed-reality apps, which allow Sphero to interact with virtual objects on your smartphone. Some of you may remember this from our Mixed-Reality Pong blog post and video. The second example is using Sphero to control on-screen objects (much like a Wii remote). You’ll see this soon in our Chromo app as well as in a brand new app we’ll be demoing at CES next month. The future of Sphero is going to be very exciting and we’re happy that Sphero developers will become a part of it. Our vision is to make Sphero into an incredible gaming system  - one where Sphero games and apps can be created and used by anyone.

For more information about getting involved in the Sphero developer community, check out our developer page, forums, and Twitter account for developers.

Believe us when we say we truly can’t wait to see what you do with Sphero! Let’s see just how far we can take this robot.

- Sphero and The Orbotix Team

This is an exciting day for us at Orbotix. After much anticipation, we are shipping the first round of Spheros out into the real world. In the short span of 17 months, Sphero has been transformed from a complex idea into a wonderful reality – and we couldn’t be more excited to share him with you.

Today we are not only shipping Sphero, but also releasing five apps. Find them on the iTunes App Store, the Android Market and the Amazon App Store for Android. These apps form the foundation for future apps and demonstrate many of the core functions of Sphero.

Sphero is the main app and has the important function of allowing you to update Sphero’s firmware automatically as new updates become available. It has basic driving functionality, basic draw n’ drive  functionality and other cool commands. You can also track your driving stats and achievements with Sphero World – an online gaming community for Sphero fans that is still in the works. Expect a lot more from Sphero World in the near future!

Sphero Drive is the app that gives you total control of driving with customizable features.  Three speeds and driving methods are available – joystick, tilt, and RC.

Sphero Draw N’ Drive allows you to draw on your screen and watch Sphero trace out your drawing on the floor. Simply shake your phone to erase!

Sphero Golf brings out a whole new side of Sphero. Swing your phone or flick your finger to move Sphero down the course you create in your living room or office.

SpheroCam allows you to record Sphero while you drive so that you never miss a moment.

We have also released our SDK for both iOS and Android. All of our apps are built on top of our SDK – and we even included sample code to help developers get rolling.

While this is an exciting day for some of our fans, we realize others are still waiting for their Spheros to arrive. Our team is hard at work and will deliver your Spheros to you the second we are able. Thank you again for your patience and understanding.

In other news, we have also made it into the semi-finalists for Last Gadget Standing 2012! Cast your vote for your favorite robotic ball here.

Happy Holidays from Sphero and the Orbotix Team!

Our Co-founder Ian with the first two Spheros boxed for customers

Dear Sphero customers and fans,

Over the past few weeks we have received a flood of emails from people who have either pre-ordered a Sphero or are thinking about pre-ordering a Sphero and are wondering when it will be delivered.

The bottom line: demand has been greater than expected and our production capabilities are slower than we planned.  What that means is only a handful of orders are going to be fulfilled before the holidays and the majority of orders will be fulfilled in January.

I’d like to blame it on one big thing out of our control, but I can’t.  We simply underestimated the number of units we’d need to make and, more importantly, we miscalculated how long it would take to bring up the production line.

As I write this there are literally hundreds of Spheros sitting in boxes being watched over by our Co-founder and CTO, Ian. They are awaiting a final quality check prior to being shipped to customers.  Soon there will be thousands. Ian has lived in China since the beginning of August overseeing the manufacturing process.  Our entire hardware team has made multi-week trips to the factory to help speed things up. Folks have missed Thanksgiving, anniversaries, graduations and worked around the clock trying to get Spheros into the hands of our loyal customers.

And while a tremendous effort is being made – we missed the mark.

Here is what we are doing to make it up to you:

1) Everyone who already pre-ordered is getting free expedited shipping.
2) People who pre-ordered expecting a Sphero in time for the holidays will get a free Sphero t-shirt and a holiday card as a placeholder until the real Sphero arrives.

Finally, I simply want to apologize.  We put a ton of effort into building up hype for this holiday season only to fall short of making good on the hype.  But we hope that when your Sphero does arrive, it will make up for this delay in shipping with hours of entertainment for you and your friends.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Paul

CEO, Orbotix

Spheros boxed for assessment after life-testing

Last Wednesday evening, Sphero made his big debut in showbiz. He rolled into the spotlight on the new FX series, American Horror Story, a spine-tingling thriller about a family haunted by past anguish. Painted red and immersed in a spooky plot-line, Sphero wasn’t his usual self. And he almost didn’t make it back – but only because the crew had a hard time letting go of their new robotic actor. If you missed the show, you can watch the full version of Episode 8 online here. And be sure to catch new episodes of American Horror Story Wednesdays on FX.

For the past twenty-three years, Popular Science magazine has been searching out the best innovations in eleven different categories. And each December, the pages are filled with these innovative and tech-savvy creations. This year, Popsci covers everything from a massacre-proof chainsaw to a wetsuit with an inflatable back. The focus of the magazine is to predict and indicate where technology is headed in the near future. And guess who was selected out of hundreds of contenders this year? That’s right, our very own high-tech robotic ball – Sphero. We’re honored to be chosen alongside so many other awesome innovations.

You can find Sphero in the Gadget category, rolling around among a revolutionary bunch. We enjoyed the fresh new take on our magical robot (Sphero is described as a new classic with potential for combat). Check out Sphero in the online version of the December Popsci issue here. And don’t forget, Sphero boasts numerous capabilities not covered in the Popsci description. For the nitty gritty, take a look at our specs page and to check out our current list of apps visit our apps page.

Just in case you haven’t heard, Sphero is ready to make his way to your home. Get yours today and let the good times roll.