Atoms and bits are coming together in interesting ways. A slew of geo apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt let you leave digital markings in the real world whenever you check into a location. Stickybits lets you put barcodes on physical objects which invokes a message, photo, or video which can be passed around with the object. And now we are beginning to see startups figuring out ways to control real-world objects with people's phones and computers. Of course there is AnyBot , the $15,000 remote-controlled robot . But even that is too complicated and expensive for the masses. Yesterday, one of the 11 TechStars companies that launched called GearBox showed an early version of an iPhone app that can control a robotic ball (see video below). GearBox wants to wants to help developers build games which involve players controlling a real robotic ball with their phones.