DailyTech - CES 2012: Justin Bieber Ruins CES for Robot Maker "Xybotyx"

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Gadgets CES 2012: Justin Bieber Ruins CES for Robot Maker "Xybotyx"
Tiffany Kaiser - January 12, 2012 10:24 AM

24 comment(s) - last by Omega215D.. on Jan 15 at 2:09 AM

David Shafter of Xybotyx (Source: CNN)

Bieber's crowd interrupted all surrounding booths during his two-hour appearance

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas isn't generally a place for 14-year-old, screaming girls waiting to get their Teen Beat posters signed, but that's kind of what it turned into once Justin Bieber arrived.

Pop star Justin Bieber made a two-hour appearance at the TOSY booth at CES 2012 this week to help promote the company's mRobo product, which is a portable speaker that transforms into a dancing robot.

Having Bieber at the booth worked out quite well for TOSY, as a massive crowd swarmed the area yelling the pop star's name and trying to take photos. But for other booths in the immediate area, this was a nightmare.

Enter David Shafter, owner of the company Xybotyx, who made his first appearance at CES this year with his company's latest robot, "Xybot." The Xybot is a round, flat robot that maneuvers on wheels and is controlled by an iPhone or iPod touch. Users simply download different apps to make the Xybot do different things.

Shafter was looking forward to the time his company had at CES to show off the first Xybot, which will go on sale this spring for $111.11, but Bieber seemed to have stolen at least two hours from the Xybot's debut.

"We're pretty much shut down," said Shafter as the crowd surrounded his booth, but only to get closer to Bieber. "We can't run our demos."

Shafter even planned to ask CES officials if he can be reimbursed for his lost time while Bieber took over.

After awhile, it seemed pointless to fight the Bieb any longer. Shafter tried to use his Xybot to maneuver around the crowd to get a good picture of the pop star, but security guards grabbed the little bot before it could make it.

Source: CNN