Disney also made a minority investment in Sphero. In July 2014, while participating in Disney's technology accelerator program for startups, Sphero's staff were invited into a private meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who showed them then-unseen photos from the production of the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens and images of BB-8-a spherical droid character introduced in the film, and were offered a licensing deal to produce an official BB-8 toy based on Sphero's technology. It goes at speeds up to 23 km/h (14 mph). Instead of using inductive charging, the Ollie uses a micro-USB port for charging. With its ability to spin, it is more intended for doing tricks. The Sphero Ollie, released in 2014, uses tires instead of being a rolling ball. Sphero 1.0 is not compatible with either Sphero Play or Sphero EDU apps. īoth Sphero 1.0 and 2.0 have been discontinued. Users can program the toys with an app called Sphero Macrolab which includes a set of predefined macros, and orbBasic which uses a BASIC-based language. As it includes an SDK, several apps and games have been developed for the platform. Since they have an accelerometer and a gyroscope, it can also be used as a controller for games on iOS and Android platforms. The toys are controlled with a smartphone or tablet running iOS, Android or Windows Phone via Bluetooth. A refreshed version, Sphero 2.0, was released in 2013, featuring a twice-as-fast speed and increased LED brightness. Bluetooth is used for communication and inductive charging for power. It has two 350 mAh LiPo batteries, two color LEDs, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. The processor on board is a 75 MHz ARM Cortex M4. It was released in 2011 and is a white orb that has a diameter of 74 millimetres (2.9 in) and weighs 168 grams (0.370 lb). The original Sphero was initially prototyped by its inventors, Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson, with a 3D-printed shell and electronics taken from a smartphone. In August 2019, Sphero acquired New York City-based startup, littleBits. It has an increased focus on education, and has been released in October 2019 at $249. It is advertised as a "go anywhere, do anything programmable robot" with modular parts and all-terrain capability. On February 19, 2019, Sphero announced a programmable tank-tracked kit called the Sphero RVR (pronounced "rover") on Kickstarter. Sphero's current product lineup includes several spherical robots like the original Sphero: the Sphero Mini, BOLT, and SPRK+. The Disney products were discontinued in 2018 after their partnership ended. Following the success of that robot, Sphero also created a model of R2-D2 and Lightning McQueen. In 2015, Sphero struck a licensing deal with Disney to create a BB-8 robot based on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens film. A remastered version, the Sphero 2.0, was launched in August 2013. Their first product, the Sphero, is a white spherical robot launched in December 2011 capable of rolling around under the control of a smartphone or tablet. (formerly Orbotix) is an American consumer robotics and toy company based in Boulder, Colorado.
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