iFund

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, March 8th, 2008

John Doerr a Partner to Kleiner Perkins Claufield & Byers announced on March 8th something, most likely, life-changing. 

$100,000,000. For investment.

This can be applicable for any number of start-ups, companies, pre-launch, or what have you. The investments can range from $100K of seed capital to $15M of expansion capital in mobile application and service companies.  

That’s a lot of money, and an even bigger opportunity.   

I’m determined to invent better speech conversation technology. The possibilities of Robbie the Robot are limitless in my mind’s eye. Imagine being able to have your Apple TV, mac mini, or whichever mac server farm in your household, organizing all of the variables. How many eggs one has, what the temperature inside is, or the temperature of the pool. All it would take is asking Robbie, hands free, so you aren’t distracted while driving. I’m not 100% sure if iPhone does or does not have the ability to phone people based on speech, but I have an idea on how to do it. Thousands are killed in cellphone related crashes, hands free is the way to go.  

I’m going to apply, and see what happens. If this investment is bestowed upon me, my life would be changed forever, definitely for the good! If it isn’t bestowed upon me, I’m still going to work on Robbie! Nothing is going to stop me from modifying Robbie into life changing applications. For instance, teaching different languages, making children more focused and relaxed, aiding the elderly as a therapeutic device, helping some autistic children or teaching someone to READ. With all of the possible modifications of Robbie, it is bound to be a thrill. With that in mind, I wanted to end with a little quote during the keynote which I thought was really great.  

Entrepreneurs do more than anyone thinks possible, with less than anyone thinks possible. Entrepreneurs are the risk takers, they’re the revolutionaries, they’re the rebels.  

 

Good luck to everyone that enters!

Posted in: News, Programming, Projects, Tech News.

Amazing Day at Apple

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, March 8th, 2008

The day after SDK for the iPhone was released, at 9:30 AM I had the opportunity to show Apple (in Montreal) my Robbie the Robot application.

Their office is extremely clutter-free, it was pretty amazing. Plus, there was a 1984 poster from the Apple Computer TV-commercical, which was neat. Not to mention, there was a mosaic of iPod characters. It was really colourful, and nice!

Let me start off by saying, it was an amazing demonstration!

I was originally going to meet with only 1 person, but that quickly changed to two more people, and another one! They were all really cool, of course. They were impressed, too. One of the jokes of it all was that, no matter who popped in, they asked whether I have the cable for the display to my macbook (which I don’t). They actually didn’t have one, but it’s on order. If it isn’t in on time, it’s not much of a problem to go to the Apple Store.

All in all, they are lending me a 20 inch cinema display! I am so fortunate, and I definitely counted my lucky stars. I took oodles of pictures of it, already! It is stunning. I have a feeling it is bound to stand out against the black display board!

 

 

I also had the chance to touch a Macbook Air. It is unbelievably light! And the keyboard with the backlight is awesome. Also, to debunk a myth, the same Magsafe power adapter does work, however it would put the laptop on an angle. The trackpad is pretty awesome too, with the multi-touch. So, that is pretty much it about the meeting with Apple! It was extremely fun, and I’d do it again! (And so would Robbie).

If you have time, please read my post about the iFund. 

Posted in: News, Programming, Projects, Robot.