Thanks for the shout out We think you’re pretty great, too!

We’re sorry! Our pop-up store location has changed. If you are in the Bay Area and were planning to come by Mint Plaza to check out our store, please reroute to 2475 3rd St. #252. We’re still doing demos, selling Sifteo cubes, and giving away freet-shirts and gift wrapping.

Also, thanks so much to everyone who visited us in Mint Plaza! We had a great time playing games and getting to know you a bit. Please feel free to stay in touch with us on Facebook and Twitter–we’d love to hear from you!

Dave and Jeevan talk on CNN about how Sifteo cubes “combine what’s great about thinking board games with what computers can do in terms of interactivity.”

Are you an aspiring code-cracker? Do you dream about globe-trotting adventure, using your criminal number hacking skills to breach the world’s highest-security treasure vaults to steal fabulous treasures? Or perhaps, alternatively, do you kindle an obsession with numbers, a desire to divide, combine, and discover patterns among them?

For the holidays this year, we’re pleased to offer you a new game that we think you’re going to love: Peano’s Vault. Developed in collaboration with  Scott Kim, renowned puzzle-master and designer of Sifteo’s game Matchination, Peano’s Vault is a code-solving number game which should appeal to both puzzle-loving families as well as serious Sudoku or KenKen players.

Each round, you’re dealt a set of cubes that display numbers, mathematical operators, and an Access Code. By neighboring cubes, you can combine their values according to the operator between them. The puzzle is solved when you can combine all the cubes to reach the Access Code. Each cracked code brings you one step closer to learning the secret contents of Peano’s Vault!

Still gift shopping? Order Sifteo cubes today! It’s the last day to place an order we guarantee will arrive by December 25.

10 hours of shooting in the Sifteo office and out and about San Francisco paid off! This video by Good.is featuring Sifteo co-founder David Merrill does a beautiful job of telling the Sifteo story.

“Sifteo co-founder David Merrill believes in the power of hands-on thinking. Using digital cubes, he explores how intelligent play and physical exploration with our hands stimulates cognitive learning. Defying the idea that technology creates a passive experience, Sifteo cubes engage users with games and encourage them to play and think nimbly with exploration-oriented problem solving.” See the full article on Good.is

Over the last few weeks, Sifteo employees have begun to undertake their respective holiday shopping agendas. For most of us, this involves some or all of the following:

• waiting in line at Best Buy, Target, Toys R us, etc
• wandering haplessly between clothes racks in Macy’s
• mowing through an entire festive tin full of flavored popcorn (butter, caramel, cheese) while browsing Amazon, feverishly
• searching for our 5-year-old cousin, who is hiding in a clothes rack in Macy’s
• watching an accidental 7.34 hours of uninterrupted infomercials while taking notes and eating fudge with little marshmallows in it
• thumbing through periodicals in search of inspiration (i.e. coupons)

Obviously, it’s a highly effective process.

But there is one thing we’ve found useful this year, and that’s The Gift Guide. In fact, we’ve consulted a lot of them and noticed a pattern we think is pretty cool: Sifteo cubes have been included in a number of these guides, and we humbly agree that it’s a great suggestion. Here’s where you can find Sifteo cubes featured among other “it” gifts of 2011:

A Smart Gift for Tech-Minded Tykes

A Best New Gadget for 2011

A Splurge for Third Grade

“Wonder Cubes” for a Tech Geek

A Gift Idea for Teens

Interactive Games for 9+ Years



Happy hunting!

Maybe you’ve already heard on Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps you’ve seen our ad in the paper. But once more Sifteo would like to share with you that we will be hosting a holiday pop-up store in downtown San Francisco, and we’d love if you stopped by!

Between Monday December 12 and Friday December 23, we promise hands-on game play, free gift-wrapping, free t-shirts, and instant gratification (no shipping required!). We’ll be in Mint Plaza, off of 5th between Market & Mission. Come visit us!

Who: Sifteo,  friends, family, holiday shoppers, curious bystanders, bewildered pedestrians.

What: Pop-up store, games, free stuff.

Where: Mint Plaza, off of 5th between Market & Mission.

When: December 12 – 23, 9am – 7pm.

See you there!

Sifteo is a finalist for “Best New Gadget” in the 5th annual Mashable Awards!!! We’re up against some tough competition. Sifteo founders David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi discuss the reasons you should vote for Sifteo.

Vote today (and every day for the next 10 days)!

Note the voting button in the right column >>>>

10.) You like cracking puzzles more than you like re-watching The Nutcracker, and Sifteo cubes are perfect for that. With over 16 unique games with a wide range of difficulty levels, you’ll stay occupied for hours in your holiday downtime.

9.) Awkward (but awesome) family time: we all know how it goes. You love these guys, but you have to insist—again—that you won’t be joining Uncle Hurnold in his Slanket on the La-Z-Boy and if you have to play one more game of Yahtzee with Aunt June you’ll be seeing dice in your sleep. With so many fun, hands-on, and multi-player games, Sifteo offers more quality time, less awkward time. (And yes—less Yahtzee time.)

8.) The will to give gifts that people actually keep. The lines to return crappy gifts are practically as long as the lines to buy them. Order Sifteo cubes online and have more time for doing fun stuff.

7.) You’re way too indie for Apple…or at least that’s what you say when people wonder why you’re still using a Samsung flip phone that folds open like a book. No, not a Google Book, a straight up book. But Sifteo brings you gadgetry that rivals Apple’s awesomeness while allowing you to remain a persistent advocate of lifestyle alternatives. After all, Sifteo is a small, San Francisco-based start-up, and supporting the underdog is undeniably cooler than buying mainstream merchandise at any time of the year.

6.)    Drinking games, which you can make using Sifteo’s Creativity Kit. Trust us, this is easy. And amazing. Do not add eggnog. (Or do, and let us know how it goes…)

5.) Holiday nostalgia. It’s unavoidable: at some point this December, somebody’s going to pull out that photo album and pass around the pic of your mullet from 1984. Your relatives can laugh their well-groomed heads off—but hey, wasn’t that also the year Tetris came out? And doesn’t Tetris probably still rank in the Top 5 Gifts you’ve ever received, and didn’t it usher in a personal Golden Age during which you vanquished all contenders in your sibling rivalry? Sifteo offers classic play patterns and amps them up with the coolest technology available today (see reason #4).

4.) You wish to bamboozle your brother, to flummox your Luddite cousin. With the latest and most exciting technology, it’s easy to amaze even spaced out, sugar-overloaded and food-comatose friends and family with Sifteo cubes, which have been called “magical” as well as “the world’s smallest computer.” We find that the combination of LCD screens, wireless play, accelerometers, and proximity sensors tends to have that effect.

3.) Gene Autry, Jingle Dogs, Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (something from 1984 we really do wish could be forgotten), and every single existent version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Of course, we love holiday jams, too—but selectively, and in moderation. For sanity’s sake, we think it’s acceptable to tune out on occasion. Sifteo currently has two games, LoopLoop and Planet of Tune, which allow you to make your own music. Enjoy.

2.) Blizzards. Like I said, we’re Californians. But we’ve heard that it snows in other parts of the world and we’ve even watched the plows exhume your residential roads on the evening news. We sympathize, so Sifteo’s proposal is this: put down the shovels, make some hot cocoa, and play with Sifteo cubes to beat your cabin fever, where ever you may be.

1.) You want to keep the kids happy, no matter what the holidays bring. It’s not like you’re a softy or anything, but you love to see their faces light up—and not just in the blue glow of the television, but with true, beautiful wonder and excitement. Sifteo does just that, period.