Es Tea Double Eye » startup

Another Ted Dziuba classic

Stii — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:15:11 +0000

I’m a Ted Dziuba fan. God knows why, since I actually wouldn’t enjoy working with someone like that, but I love his straight-shooting-from-the-fucking-hip style of writing and he does make a lot of sense most of the time. His latest post:

I don’t code in my free time

…is a true Dziuba classic! This part made me laugh. Out loud. Literally.

Me, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve programmed outside of work or a class. There was only once when I actually enjoyed it, though. I was in college, and shared a common wall with a girl from Spain who was painfully unaware that her computer had a volume control knob. She would stay up late on AOL instant messenger, and I couldn’t sleep. So, I rigged up a Python script to play AOL instant messenger sounds randomly every 5 to 10 seconds, turned up my speakers, pointed them at the wall, and went on vacation for a week. And thus, the asshole you all know and love is born.

Ted often writes for The Register and his opinions are often so refreshingly true albeit a bit brash. Makes for excellent reading even if you don’t agree with everything he says.

(Photo credit: Wired.com)

Robonica.com demo… Its looking very, very cool!

Stii — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:53:57 +0000

A while ago I wrote about Robonica, the coolest African startup. Here is a great video to give you a short and sweet intro to what it can do. I want 2!

Another great African start-up secures funding

Stii — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:24:17 +0000

Chesscube, a Cape Town based start-up just announced they received a whopping $1.25 million in second round funding. That is great news for the guys and I’m happy for them. Chesscube is a great online chess playing community with more than 650 000 users in 207 countries.

I registered a couple of months ago on behalf of my 9 year old son who loves playing chess. I myself sucks at chess. :P I was blown away by the features and the functionality it offered and it REALLY is any chess player’s dream. It is a great example of social networking meets online gaming and we all know that chess is one of the most popular games. If you are even slightly interested in playing chess or if you think you are a worthy adversary in the art of warfare then join! You’re bound to love it. If you think you’re hardcore enough, then join one of their tournaments. Believe me, I got my ass kicked in matters of minutes…

Just looking at Chesscube, one can see a myriad of revenue possibilities which is fantastic! I think they have a brilliant future ahead of them and their investors are bound to be a happy bunch in the not-so-far future. Well done to Mark Levitt (CEO) and his team. Well done to Vinny Lingham for spotting this great opportunity and being an early investor.

Oh, and if you play chess and would like to feel better about yourself by beating somebody into the ground, look me up on Chesscube…

The coolest new startup from Africa! Robonica.com

Stii — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:55:10 +0000

Who says there is no cool African startups? Hands up? Here is one of the coolest! One that not only has an awesome product, but a rock solid business model! A friend of mine contacted me this morning to show off his new venture and job in Pretoria. Bastard… (I’m jealous, okay?!) It is a comapany called Robonica and they’re developing robots and robotic games for a robot called Robonii. They’ve received cool funding (from who or where I don’t know yet) to build these robots and robotic games. HOW COOL IS THAT!

Now this is not exactly new. Think of Robosapien and Lego Mindstorm. This just looks a lot more exciting and fun! It is a cross between Robot Wars and the above mentioned, brought to the consumer market.

Basically, you buy this cool little Starwars look-a-like robot and get control center software which allows you to program the robot. You then set up challenges in you environment and program the bot to either do certain obstacles or you can have a laser fight with other robots. *drool* It will also extend to an online community, but I’m not 100% sure how that is going to work! You can download some specifications in PDF format over here.

They’re launching the product later this year in New York, so watch this space. I’ll try get more info in the meantime!