Orbotix, one of our investments (and a TechStars Boulder 2010 company) is looking for an iOS and an Android developer.

If you don’t know Orbotix, they make Sphero, the robotic ball you control with your smartphone. And if you you wonder why you should care, take a look at Sphero on his chariot being driven by Paul Berberian (Orbotix CEO) while running Facetime.

I got the following note from Adam Wilson, the co-founder of Orbotix – if you fit this description email jobs@orbotix.com

We are looking for two new full time positions to fill as soon as possible.  We need talented iOS and Android Developers that are not afraid of a little hard work and a little hardware!  You must have an imagination. No previous robotics experience necessary but it doesn’t hurt.  We want someone that can help make an API, low level protocols, implement games and work on other research and development tasks for Sphero.  We expect some level of gaming history and previous experience in the field. There are online Leaderboards and some side tasks include coding up demonstration apps for our numerous interviews, conventions and for fun!  We pay well, have plenty of food and beverage stocked including beer, redbull and the famous hot-pockets, are in downtown Boulder and literally play with robots all day/night long.  Read our full jobs posting at http://www.orbotix.com/jobs/ for more info.  Take a chance…. email me at jobs@orbotix.com.

If you are a VC and interested in human computer interaction and you aren’t going to Blur, you’re about to miss the most important and interesting HCI event of the year.

If you are an entrepreneur working on something HCI related, you are also missing out if you don’t come to Blur. I’ll be there as will my three partners at Foundry Group. We will be fully engaged for two days in one of our favorite themes that has spawned investments like Oblong, Fitbit, Organic Motion, Sifteo and Orbotix.

In case you wonder how a conference like Blur can impact the trajectory of a young company, just take a look at the backstory of how we (Foundry Group) ended up meeting and investing in Gist. TA McCann, Gist’s CEO, came to Defrag (another conference like Blur that Eric Norlin runs and we participate in), hunted me down, and took me for a few runs. TA got me hooked on the product and a few months later we lead the Series A financing with Vulcan. This particular story has a very happy ending as RIM acquired Gist yesterday for an amount that put big smiles on everyone’s faces.

The agenda at Blur is awesome. Eric Norlin is an absolute master at putting on highly relevant conferences around a theme (his other two are Defrag and Glue.) Once again my friends at the Kauffman Foundation have provided some great scholarships for Blur and – like all of Eric’s conferences – there will be lots of time for people to spent together talking about and playing with the great stuff they are working on.

Oh – and for anyone tired of winter, it’s in Orlando. Sign up and come hang out with me, my partners, and a bunch of amazing HCI stuff for two days next week.

Several of the companies we’ve invested in are launching products at CES this year.  The first one up is Sifteo.  Today, Sifteo launched and you can preorder Siftables as part of their early access program.

You may be familiar with them from a well known TED Talk that co-founder David Merrill did in 2009.

Or maybe the recent TEDxMonterey Talk that David did earlier this year with a more in-depth demo.

We invested in Sifteo in May 2010 along with our friends from True Ventures.  Sifteo is another HCI investment with its roots in the MIT Media Lab, joining Oblong and EmSense in this part of our portfolio.  If you are at CES, check them out in North – 3317A.

As 2011 kicks off, I think we are in for a ton of innovative software and Internet stuff this year.  Yeah, some of it will be “just like everything else but different.”  However, of the areas we invest heavily in – human computer interaction – has an incredible amount of activity going on.  I’ll be at CES in Las Vegas this week so I expect to have a dose of nerd-eye-candy (e.g. the latest TV sets) along with a bunch of cool / amazing / clever / intriguing new HCI things.

I expect CES will be a classic case of “a mile wide and an inch deep.”  If you want to go really deep with HCI, consider joining me at the Blur Conference in Orlando on 2/22 and 2/23 especially if any of the following topics appeal to you.

• markerless motion capture
• phone controlled robotic gaming devices
• augmented reality apps
• alternative input mechanisms
• neuro-physiological measurements
• all kinds of Kinect hacks
• 3D/digital sculptures
• neuro-ergonomics
• social robotics
• multi-touch interfaces
• speech recognition
• human instrumentation
• natural user interfaces

I’ve accepted the reality that the computers are going to take over during my lifetime.  I just want to help be involved in writing some of the code to hedge my bets.  Register now to come join me in my quest.

CES is just around the corner and I’m psyched to be going again this year.  Toss in a BigDoor board meeting early in the week in Las Vegas and I’ll be getting my annual allotment of sin city in the first week of the new year.

Lots of my friends and a number of our portfolio companies will be at CES this year.  Lest you think it’s just a VC boondoggle, one of my favorite moments of all time happened at CES in 2009 when my dad bought the very first Pogoplug.  We went on to fund Cloud Engines (the company that makes the Pogoplug) which just closed a new $15 million financing that includes Softbank and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners.  Oh – and they have had a totally kick ass year.

Last week, I noticed an article about Orbotix in Wired’s Gadget Lab titled Phone-Controlled Robot Ball, Like Marble Madness in Meatspace. Orbotix is going to be at the CES ShowStoppers event the night before CES begins (and at CES).  As you can see from the article, Wired just challenged Engaget to a Sphero-off.  As Paul Berberian, the CEO of Orbotix said to me in email, “it doesn’t get much more fun that this.”

If you are going to be at CES and are showing off something cool that you want me to see, toss your company name and booth number in the comments and I’ll make sure to come by on Wednesday or Thursday.