So, our designers and engineers got to work.

We aim for simple but adaptable designs that put a lot of functionality in the hands of our users.

So, let’s start with a universal camera baseplate that’s made of hard-anodized machined-aluminum with a unibody design. That makes it tough, sleek, and small.

We’ll include two ¼-20” female mounting holes for your accessories like camera straps or flash brackets. We’ll include a slot for your hand and wrist strap.

Let’s give it an extra long mounting slot so you can position the base plate where it makes the most sense to you. Now, you have a total camera platform!

Let’s make it an Arca-Swiss compatible tripod plate so you can just slide your camera into the most common mounting system for tripods. But if you’re using something like a Manfrotto® RC2 ballhead, you can attach the UltraPlate to the ¼-20” screw of an RC2 quick-release plate.

We don’t like tools that get in our way so let’s make it small at 2.8” x 1.7” x 0.5” (7.2 x 4.3 x 1.25 cm) and weighing only 1.65 oz (47g) so that it fits nicely underneath your DSLR camera or compact system camera.

And finally, let’s make it $19.95 so it’s a no-brainer for everybody to have one for their camera.

Check out our video below on the UltraPlate and buy one for your camera today!

What a week it has been!

The Stop Motion Addict Contest is in full swing  – so be sure to post your best videos!

And while we are talking about Frame X Frame, we have received some great coverage from the likes of Stuff and T3 among others.

Love this T3 shout out to the best in stop motion animation:

So if you want to create your own Wallace and Gromit, you can move your characters slightly every few seconds, or you can take a picture of, say the different stages of the moon every night.

JOBY | Peter Stathis Venture Collaboration

JOBY was in NY this week to launch our previously mentioned new lighting line. We have been thrilled by the coverage we have received from the New York Times to Fast Company to Apartment Therapy and beyond. Check out some noticeable quotes:

New York Times:

The table lamp is laid-back, and no wonder. Created by Peter Stathis, a San Francisco industrial designer, for Joby, a San Francisco consumer products company, Trapeze has the easygoing affect of a Bay Area windsurfer on a fair-trade coffee break.

But don’t be fooled by its relaxed demeanor. Trapeze has a serious side — it’s good for the environment, too. Introduced at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which ended on Tuesday, the lamp has 102 LEDs embedded in its ultra-thin head; a diffuser softens and spreads the light so that it resembles the warmth of (boo, hiss) incandescent bulbs. Another bit of patent-pending wizardry allows Trapeze to bend like a Cirque du Soleil gymnast because no wires run through its jolly, bulbous joints. The current somehow manages to flow anyway.

Apartment Therapy:

Of all the cool stuff at ICFF this week, these new lights by Peter Stathis stood out by a mile.

Here at JOBY, we clearly are in awe of parkour (in case you haven’t figured that out see exhibit #1 = our website) and these outtakes from the Red Bull Art of the Motion shot using a GorillaPod do not diminish our interest one bit. Some mind blowing stuff!

Video Studio Pro explains the advantages of a GorillaPod with a man on the street interview.

Some Flickr Eye Candy

Bay Street by Ronnie Yip (this one even comes with a GorillaPod appreciation)

Other Good Stuff

Look quickly and keep your eye on the woman’s hand (seriously)…you’ll know what I am talking about when you view this promotional video by Go Pro. Didn’t see what I was talking about? Where is your mind?

Some Press Shout Outs

“Innovative” and “useful”- music to our ears in this great piece about the GorillaTorch line that appeared in this week’s Montreal Gazette.

With “four viewing positions with infinite permutations” and affirmation of the ergonomic benefits of the foldable accessory, Macworld has a long review of our GorillaMobile Ori for iPad.

The Friday before a long weekend here in the States, how lovely. My dance-loving-mood continues this week with a 80′s inspired groove fest with a dancing GorillaPod by Justin Bolduc Turpin.

GorillaDance from Justin Bolduc Turpin on Vimeo.

Feeling the need to travel, but not quite ready to pay for a ticket to Barcelona? David Kenny stitched together a series of lovely time lapse videos from a trip.

Barcelona, Spain portrayed through timelapses. from David Kenny on Vimeo.

This week we had two amazing stories sent into customer service.

The first comes from Australia, here’s what Lance Royce had to say:

“I live in Cairns Queensland Australia and in the aftermath of the Cyclone this month we lost power for almost four days.  We had a gas stove to cook on, but no clean light to see what we were cooking, so I got my Gorillatorch and attached it to the metal range hood (see attached pic’s).  We also used it to light up our living room by pointing the Gorillatorch on the white ceiling giving us a brighter area to help read and see better.

Thank you Joby for a fantastic, practical and useful product.”

Another customer, came up with a great new use for the GorillaMobile Ori – the workout.

I love the rainbow effect of the store aisles from the long exposure photo shot using a GorillaPod attached to a shopping cart by Dr Syntax.

And now for some valentine’s lovin’…

The GorillaPod video made the top Valentine’s picks for US Magazine.

Not to be forgotten, the GorillaPod Focus got a great write-up by Layers Magazine.

Friday has arrived and a restless spirit has descended on the Joby office. It has been quite a week in San Francisco. In case you didn’t know, the Giants won the World Series, there was an election and somehow we managed to have summer in November for a few precious days.

To start off Friday Finds, I wanted to share this humorous take on the Big Apple (where I was last week). There is nothing quite like a fuzzy monster walking through Time Square. I love the fur on this guy.

We were honored to appear in the “What is in the Staff Photographer’s bag”  by Fred Lum from the Globe and Mail. Here’s what he had to say about the trusty Gorillapod:

Lastly, there’s one piece of gear I don’t use very often but find it indispensable when I do need it and that’s a Joby Gorillapod. It’s got articulated legs which have rubberized rings and feet which have tremendous stiction and can wrap around whatever you can find.

The San Francisco Chronicle suggests that the solution to your camera “shaking like a nervous chihuahua” is the Joby Gorillapod. Plus, love the title of this piece, “Six reasons your travel videos stink.”

November is here and with that starts the Holiday buying season and the gift guides. Blast Magazine honored Gorillatorch Blade (even though the Gorillatorch Flare is shown) as a selection in their 2010 Holiday Automative Gift Guide for “anyone who drives or loves their automobile.”

“Gorillatorch Switchback sheds light on campers,” states USA Today in this review of the latest product in the Joby arsenal. Happy to help her cross her nephew off the gift list for the Holidays.

Enjoy the weekend!

It is still Friday…really… and somewhere in the Pacific it is the middle of the day, so it must be time for Friday Finds.

We have some absolutely fantastic stop motion videos this week.  Executed,  of course, with a Gorillapod. The first one has a lovely twist about halfway through and is beautifully rendered with a touch of whimsy.

Pensées Effeuillées from Aziz Oulhiyane on Vimeo.

The second is another stop-motion film utilizing Legos and humor.

Gorillatorch Blade Takes Aim

It’s been quite a debut for Gorillatorch Blade, with Wired’s claims that it is “tough enough to kill Vampires,” Mashable‘s correct assertion that “it cuts through the darkness,” and Engadget‘s claim that it  is slim.

But before that, we had this great write-up in the Wall Street Journal’s The Fixer column for the Gorillapod. Making it even more appealing, it came with a clever title, “Me, Myself (My Thumb, My Arm) and My Camera.”

Friday is here, and the sun has finally appeared. We are literally wearing wool and suede here, in the not-so-summery San Francisco August.

Parkour!

While this theoretically could get a little repetitive there is something so ninja-cool about this video of swinging through windows. Captured with a Gorillapod Magnetic, it comes complete with post-activity grunts.

Flickr Fun

MI6 building under surveillance by Gorillapod SLR and an Olympus.

Given that downloads are disabled for these Gorillacam photos, I decided it best not to post on the blog. So, you’ll just have to see this priceless expression the old fashion way.

A Dabbling of Press

Scary that Autoblog seems to think that we are already in the “end-of-summer.” This guide helps prepare you for the ultimate summer road trip. Of course, hands-free, emergency-ready, Gorillatorch Flare is a must.

And why we are a little worried that it may go to its head, the Gorillatorch Flare was given the close to perfect rating of 9.5 our 10 on the I4U website.

Hilarious Gorillatorch Story

We received this awesome email the other day from a customer, that was too fun to pass up. I love the image of the Gorillatorch holding on for dear life as the car surges down the road.

I received a gorillatorch as a Mother’s Day gift. I was playing with it to see if it would attach to my van. It did. It worked so well, that I forgot I had placed it on the outside of the van. I drove at 70+ mph for over 30 miles before I realized that I had left the torch attached to my van. To my amazement, it never moved! The bulb still worked despite all the road vibrations. Very good product. Thank you.

Biking Season is Clearly Here

Apparently, people got the memo. The sun is out and it is time to start biking. This week you can choose from a charity cycle in the English country side,  some hills in a Vancouver neighborhood or a quick city trip in Slovenia.

Biking Gorillapod Style: England

Biking Gorillapod Style: Vancouver

Biking Gorillapod Style: Slovenia

Press

Gorillatorch, the hands free flashlight with personality, makes an appearance in Parents Magazine this month.

Best Title of the Week

“Joby Gorillapod Magnetic is Grooviness Incarnate”

Love the mix of a variation on the word groovy with the polysyllabic wonder incarnate. Some of the examples of ways to use the Gorillapod are not entirely recommended by Joby.

It’s Friday and its time to share a little bit of the fun that has been happening around here.

Swagapalooza

Last week a few of us from Joby had the pleasure of attending Swagapalooza, an at times raucous event where companies showcase their products to a gathering of social media greats – and some others. Guy Kawasaki keynoted and a bevy of hard core twitterers joined  in the fun. The live twitter feed made for some “interesting” moments. Joby CEO Forrest presented some of the creative ways Joby products have been used for photography including an awesome shot by our Director of Industrial Designer inside Notre Dame in Paris. Despite rules against tripods, our wily Gorillapod was welcomed into the venerable cathedral, allowing for some great photos even with the low lighting.

Here is the image that was taken inside of Notre Dame and the set-up:

Here is a video of our CEO Forrest speaking:

Twestival

Joby was thrilled to be involved in the San Francisco Twestival event last week, which successfully raised over $10K for Concern Worldwide, an organization which seeks to bring education to the world’s poorest children.  Concern has been implementing innovative programs and solutions for over 40 years. The worthy caused brought together a number of people from the social media to tweet, drink, listen to music and drink some more.

Press

We love the press love…here are some recent hits which make us feel – oh so very happy.

Best title of the week goes to Graphic Design & Publishing Center who wrote an article entitled “You need a tripod…a Gorillapod.” While the title may not be subtle, they certainly get the message across.

Honorable mention from a few weeks goes to this ultra long but very funny title from Cult of Mac;  “iPhone apps weekly digest: The day Mr. Mediocre came to town and got smashed in the face by Gorillacam.”

Other great press clippings this week include a piece on the Gorillatorch for in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and  a piece on the Gorillamobile for Smart Computing.