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Press Center
Media Contact: Amy Hesser, [email protected],
312-933-8324
Twitter: @Smurks
News
Press Releases
November 8, 2011 - Smurks New Activity Pages Helps Autistic Children Unlock Emotions
Working with educators, the creators of Smurks have developed a variety of emotional intelligence activities ...
more
August 16, 2011 - Caller ID Selective Un-Blocking App Now Gives iPhone Users Easy Privacy Solution
"It's Me" Mobile Caller ID App Debuts to Rave Reviews ...
more
June 22, 2011 - Smurks Launches Updated App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch With More Options
Now Users Can Smurk Even More on Facebook and Twitter With "Clip for Web" ...
more
May 17, 2011 - Smurks Launches New App for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch
App Offers Children With Autism and Others a New Way to Express Emotions ...
more
Executive Bios
Pat Byrnes/Creative Director, Co-Founder
Celebrated cartoonist at The New Yorker,
Readers Digest, Wall Street Journal and America Magazine, and
popular book author and illustrator, Pat Byrnes, is also a
stay-at-home dad, blogger and former rocket scientist who has lots
of ideas every day. His genius inspiration for Smurks was born out
of a attempt to tweak Twitter's 140-character limit with a cartoon
wondering if anyone had that much to say. Then he realized that
sometimes lots of people didn't. Not with words. But with body
language and expressions, they had volumes to communicate. And now
Smurks enables them to do just that with their iPhones, iPads and
soon Androids. Out of the box thinker and doer Byrnes joined
General Dynamics Convair after getting his Aerospace Engineering
degree at the University of Notre Dame. Realizing his creative
talents were better fed elsewhere Byrnes went on to win buckets of
awards, from the Addy to the Clio, writing ad copy at big
agencies, including J. Walter Thompson. Eventually he left
copywriting for a successful voiceover acting career and has
written a number of musicals. Byrnes is married to Illinois
Attorney General, Lisa Madigan.
Steve Landers/Chief Propeller Head, Co-Founder
No one would be smurking without the
technological prowess of Smurks Chief Propeller Head Steve
Landers, who specializes in graphical cross-platform applications
that combine the best of proprietary and open source technology,
and delights in masterminding 'it just works' solutions. After
gaining a Computing Science degree at the University of NSW, he
held senior technical positions with Exxon, Olivetti, and Murdoch
University before co-founding Australian technology company
Functional Software. For the last decade he has been principal of
specialist IT design studio Digital Smarties which serves
customers in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia; delivering
solutions across industries as diverse as Telecoms, System
Management, Financial Services, Bioinformatics, eCommerce,
Corporate Communications, Universities and Medical Sciences.
Landers is based in Perth, Australia and is well known in the open
source community where he regularly contributes software,
expertise and attitude.
Mike Doyle/Angel Investor, Co-Founder
You’d have to ask Dr. Mike Doyle why he decided to join
Iconicast, because no one here can quite figure out why the
founder of the National Museum of Health and Medicine
Chicago and chairman of Eolas Technologies wants to hang out
with a bunch of goofy cartoonists developing mobile apps.
Our apps must be that awesome. Dr. Doyle is one of the
smartest guys we know. Before he started Eolas, Dr. Doyle
was the director of the Center for Knowledge Management at
the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He
didn’t exactly invent the internet, but when he was at the
UCSF Medical Center he led the team that developed the
fundamental technologies that enabled Web browsers for the first time
to act as platforms for fully interactive embedded applications. A
true brainiac, his research topics include next-generation
Web applications, 3-D biomedical visualization, and
morphospatial genomic activity mapping. His transient-key
cryptographic timestamp innovations have been adopted in the
x9.95 ANSI National Standard, which really impresses a bunch
of geeks like us. Before his work at UCSF, he was the
director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Biomedical
Visualization Laboratory, where his research included
advancing state of the art of interactive computing. Mike’s
philanthropic projects include heading The Buonacorsi
Foundation and funding the advancement of the arts and
sciences across a wide array of academic institutions and
arts organizations. When he’s not busy being super intelligent, Mike enjoys downtime with his family at their cabin in Wisconsin where he likes watching
films and football in his man cave and listening to great music.
Testimonials
Here's some of what others are saying about Smurks
What a wonderful technology!
Two boys near and dear to me have autism and this
technology is such a great stride in providing
accessible and entertaining tools and resources for
these brilliant, but often misunderstood boys. Great
job Smurks!
Great for therapy
I use this with clients so that they can show me how they
feel. This is truly one of the best apps. I use this with
both kids and adults and find it a fabulous and popular
tool. And of course it is also amazing for texts.
Wow!
Great, simple fun app! Interesting psychology behind this. Check
out their presentation at Spring Demo 12. Could this be the
start of something new?
Organic Emoticons!
This is a great re-working of the garden-variety emoticons. That the
developer is a professional cartoonist shows clearly in the
expressivity of each drawing. What truly sets this app apart is the
uesr interface. Instead of looking through pages of mugshots, you
essentially use a logical system of finger strokes to 'dial in' for
the right Smurk to capture an effect. Go look at the videos on the
Smurk website and see what I mean.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Great app. If you're tired of the same old stock smiley faces, you'll love this.
Pinch and stretch to create different expressions, then send via text/mail/twitter/facebook. Fun cartoon designs.
App also has plenty of preset images for special situations.
Brilliant Idea!
Very intuitive, and a picture is worth a thousand words.
Great App!!
Fun to play with! Easy to send to Facebook. Entertains the kids. What more could you want?
Fantastic App
A fantastic app that allows you to demonstrate how you're feeling even if you don't have the words to describe it.
Very easy to use and fun! I can't wait for more smurks in the future!!!
The Best Yet !
I love this! Very different & so much fun. So many to choose
from. Thank you :) oh yes meant to say, I also loved your videos
as well, very cute.
These are sooo cute!!
I use them all the time!! Thanks for making such
a fun app!!
Glad I came across this app!!! Different approach than other
apps! No keyboards included!! Very easy to use and very fun.
Tutorial was creative and kept my attention. I have
introduced app to my friends amd family!! Very diverse app!!
Great Great Great!!
Videos
Introducing the Smurks Iconimetrix rating system (60 sec)
Pat Byrnes previews Smurks Iconimetrix at DEMO SPring 2012 (5:30 min)
We also have some videos to help you get into Smurks
- Smurks overview (30 sec)
- Finding Smurks (4:30 min)
- Sending Smurks (3:45 min)
For historical (and perhaps even hysterical) reasons you can still view the old Smurks Demo (6 min).
Or perhaps just get you interested in finding out some background about Smurks?- An Interview with Pat Byrnes (4 min)
- Pat Byrnes extended interviewed with CU@USC (24 min)
- The Smurks Launch Party (1:20 min)