In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Ian Bernstein, Founder and Head of Product at Misty Robotics, about a robotics platform designed for developers called Misty II. Ian Bernstein is Founder and Head of Product at Misty Robotics, a spin-off company from Sphero, Inc. focused on building personal robots for the home and office. In this role, Bernstein leads Misty Robotics' product development and design. Prior to Misty Robotics, Bernstein served as Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Sphero, Inc. that has shipped more than 3 million robots to date. Bernstein joined TechStars in 2010 with Sphero co-founder Adam Wilson and created Sphero, the original app-enabled robotic ball.

In this episode of Robots in Depth, Per Sjöborg speaks with Ian Bernstein, the founder of several robotics companies including Sphero. He shares his experience from completing 5 successful rounds of financing, raising 17 million dollars in the 5th one. Ian also talks about building a world-wide distribution network and the complexity of combining software and hardware development. We then discuss what is happening in robotics and where future successes may come from, including the importance of Kickstarter and Indiegogo. If you view this episode, you will also learn which day of the week people don't play with their Sphero:-).

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. This is the FX-2 Giant Human Riding Robot from KAIST HuboLab and Rainbow Robotics, and that's all I know about it. Yuichiro Katsumoto, a "gadget creator" based in Singapore, wrote in to share this video of the robotic kinetic typography that he's been working on for the last year.