While I kid a bit in the headline, this is actually pretty cool: Swatch, the largest manufacturer of mechanical watch movements in the world, has created a movement that is assembled entirely using automated systems. Why is this important? The watch industry was originally gutted by the rise of cheap quartz watches, making this piece quite ironic, and this means that more people will be able to… → Read More
Acer just announced the Aspire R7, a strange hybrid of a desktop all-in-one, laptop, and a tablet that was previously teased in some promotional Star Trek commercials. It’s honestly really, really weird. We always expected that Windows 8 would lead to some really strange convertible touchscreen devices, but the Aspire R7 is a whole new kind of crazy. The first thing you’ll notice… → Read More
Spotify has acquired Tunigo, one of the many music apps that are powered by its API, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka reported today. The details of the deal aren’t being made public, but the startup will move its staff to either Spotify’s Stockholm or New York offices, as the talent is folded into Spotify’s larger team, Spotify confirmed via email. → Read More
Though Southeast Asia is one of the world’s fastest growing economies and benefits from a youthful, tech-savvy population, the region’s startup ecosystem is still in its infancy and many founders lack resources. The freshly launched BootstrapAccelerator Asia seeks to address that gap. Founded by San Francisco-based seed and venture capital fund BootstrapLabs and Malaysia’s MAD… → Read More
Thunderbolt, you were a tech with near unlimited promise when first introduced, but what have you done with all that power? Since my first Thunderbolt-equipped Mac, I’ve essentially been using the ports as straight up Mini DisplayPort replacements, and using them exclusively for powering external screens. But now the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock has arrived, and Thunderbolt finally makes sense. → Read More
You’ve likely heard whispers of a company called Wander in the past year. They nabbed $1.2 million, launched out of TechStars, and have since gone relatively quiet. Until today. Today Wander is launching a mobile app called Days, which aims to change the way you think of photo-sharing on every basic level. To start, Days asks you to stop thinking of the moments that are… → Read More
Innovation FTW! The Stinky Gaming Footboard reached its Kickstarter goal. The novel gaming controller is headed to production. I have a Stinky under my desk right now. Much to my surprise, the controller earned a place in my life. I reviewed the unit several weeks ago and doubted it was more than a novelty. But it’s still there and I’m starting to really enjoy using it. The controller… → Read More
To use text messaging and navigation on Google Glass, users currently have to pair it with an Android phone and install the Glass companion app on their phones. This will change very soon, however, one of the Google representatives in its New York office told me when I picked up my own unit yesterday afternoon. Glass, the Google employee told me, will soon be able to handle these features… → Read More
Do you guys have any Green Day? Really? Yeah, like the early Knitting Factory stuff. Not this Dookie garbage. Yeah, I liked them before they sold out. What about Neutral Milk Hotel? Is the new album any good? Yeah, I know, dude. What’s the Avery Island junk? Serious bummer after Aeroplane. → Read More
The Nook HD and HD+ got a great update late last night (via Engadget), as Barnes & Noble finally moved away from its closed and system-specific app and media ecosystem. The two Android tablets now offer Google Play, and new devices will ship with the app pre-loaded, while existing owners can get it via a software update over-the-air or via direct download. → Read More
LG is an Android smartphone OEM that, like many others, finds itself in the shadow of Samsung. But it scored an impressive hit with the Nexus 4, the $300 unlocked Google-branded Android reference phone it released last year, and according to the Korea Times, it’s already working on a follow-up with the search giant. → Read More
BlackBerry and Samsung devices have been given the go-ahead for use on Defense Department networks. The approved devices are BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets using the Enterprise Service 10 system and Samsung’s Android Knox. The Pentagon said earlier this week that it also expects to clear Apple devices using iOS 6 in early May. → Read More
BeTheDancer is Alex Greenburg’s name and handle on Instagram. He’s a good friend and a brilliant photographer, but because Instagram doesn’t require real names, I had a lot trouble using the app’s new tagging feature to point him out in my photos. Right now, Instagram’s 100 million users are discovering that while pseudoanonymity can be fun, it’s not very functional. → Read More
There are already plenty of journaling apps out there, but Step stands out as a personal data aggregator that records and helps you make sense of your life’s minutiae. → Read More
Look over to one of the upper corners of the room you’re in. What’s there? If you’re like me, probably nothing.
Three Stanford product design majors are building a speaker to take advantage of the wasted space and natural acoustics of the corners of your room. The Tiptop speaker is a small pyramid that can stand alone or fits into a mold made for the upper corners of a room. → Read More
Fortune reported earlier today that Mike Brown Jr. and much of the team that ran AOL’s venture funding arm have formed their own VC firm — Bowery Capital — that aims to find and fund enterprise-friendly startups. While it’s somewhat heartening to see a new firm set up shop in New York City, there’s another weighty question here that hasn’t been answered yet: now that nearly all of its… → Read More
Evernote is going after KakaoTalk’s 90 million registered users by inking a partnership deal with the South Korean messaging giant that would bring Evernote integration to KakaoTalk’s mobile app. Despite boasting nearly 4 million users here in the United States, chances are you’ve never heard of KakaoTalk. The messaging app is mostly used by Korean Americans (such as myself), to… → Read More
Chef Sleeve has been selling its iPad-protecting plastic sleeves since 2011 to keep kitchen gunk off the iPad you’re using while you cook. They also make a chopping board with a built in iPad stand. But Chef Sleeve’s grand plan is to create a range of connected devices for the kitchen that link up with an iPad app to let people track their nutrition in a highly granular yet low hassle way. → Read More
Ron Conway, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny meet new startup founders practically every day as investors at renowned angel funding firm SV Angel. So when they came backstage at this week’s Disrupt NYC event after their on-stage talk with Michael Arrington, I asked them to talk about the most inspiring up-and-coming founders they’ve met with lately — people who may be flying a little more under the… → Read More
LinkedIn has just reported Q1 earnings of $324.7 million, up 72% year-on-year, and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.45, both soundly beating analysts’ estimates (via First Call) of $317 million and EPS of $0.31; as well as LinkedIn’s own guidance from last quarter, when it said it expected between $305 million and $310 million in revenues. Net income for Q1 was $22.6 million a big rise on the… → Read More
Transit trade groups pulled out the race card and managed to block smartphone taxi “e-hailing” a day after they were cleared to pilot in New York City. Associate Justice Helen E. Freedman issued an emergency injunction against smartphone taxi app companies Hailo and Uber, after hearing arguments from the several car service groups alleging that smartphones permit drivers to… → Read More
The rise of the company builders is right. As Leena wrote in her spot-on post, “Operators are foregoing the traditional path of joining a traditional VC to instead create a studio-like holding operation.” The latest in a series of accomplished entrepreneurs wanting to lend their expertise to a new generation of companies? Serial entrepreneur Garrett Camp, who has set up the holding company Expa to… → Read More
Songza, the app that matches expert-created music playlists to your mood or activity, has just released a huge update to its iOS app, streamlining the experience quite a bit and cleaning up the UI to ensure that users are getting the best music to match their mood and activity in the fastest time possible. To start, you’ll notice straight off the bat that the Concierge screen has changed… → Read More
A new game today available for iOS devices called Heads Up! provides an entertaining experience you could only have with a smartphone, with a simple game mechanic and a video sharing feature that means the fun can last well beyond the initial play period. The game also features a big brand tie-in, as it was made by Clear app developer Impending for Ellen DeGeneres, and featured on her show. It’s a… → Read More
Those who know in the Valley know the name Sam Pullara. Whether it was his time as a repeat entrepreneur and technical founder, or stints as an EIR at some of the Valley’s most premier venture capital firms, or his time as a lead technologist at two of the largest tech companies in the Valley (most recently at Twitter), Pullara has occupied nearly every seat at the table throughout his career. → Read More
Meet Lumu: a digital light meter for photographers that plugs into the iPhone’s headphone jack as a smaller and smarter replacement for traditional analogue light meters. It’s used in conjunction with Lumu’s app — being demoed in prototype here at hardware alley at Disrupt NY — to help photographers figure out the best camera settings for their current location. → Read More
Mozilla was keen to talk up the 3.0 version of its Firefox OS simulator back in March, but didn’t have much to share about when eager developers could start fiddling with it. Thankfully for HTML5 buffs, that six-week quiet period is over — the team just announced on the official Mozilla Hacks blog that the newly updated simulator is now available to download. → Read More
Zoho has a new Card Scanner app for iOS for its SaaS platform that allows a customer to take a photo of a business card and have that data stored in the Zoho CRM or as a new contact. The app scans business cards in English, French, German and Spanish. An Android app is coming soon. Zoho developed the app to help sales people save time on manual data entry. Cards get left on a desk, never to be… → Read More
Well, what do we have here? Somewhat under the radar, Google has hired the computer games veteran Noah Falstein to the position of Chief Game Designer. Yes, that’s right, the search giant, not normally known for its games development, appears to have a major gaming project in circulation, at least something that requires someone as experienced as Falstein at its helm. → Read More
I hate using email. I get an average of 60 to 70 emails every day, and only one percent of them are from people I actually care about. Using email today is all about sifting through the clutter. Dextr is an app that helps you accomplish that by filtering your inbox to only include emails from your friends and family. → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin Germany
