Startups that enter the Y Combinator program don’t generally do it for the money alone — most companies receive $20,000 or less in seed funding. Instead, they do it for the exposure, connections, mentors, and resources that the YC program affords. And they just got one more major perk: Facebook has announced that it will be working to help YC companies create “transformative social experiences”, and it’s going to give them preferential treatment and access to company resources. From the Facebook post:
We’ll provide product, technical and design resources to support new Y Combinator companies interested in working with us to build deeply social products, whether a website or an application on Facebook.com. These companies will have priority access to our technologies and programs such as Facebook Credits, Instant Personalization and upcoming beta features. → Read More
High speed photography is really cool to see, but difficult to do right. Photographer Lex Augusteijn doesn’t have that problem though, he’s taken some amazing high speed shots using a coilgun and some very careful timing. The end result is amazing, and a lot of fun to look at. Lex also has a complete gallery of his other work that is definitely worth your time to take a look at. [via Make] → Read More
Remember Diaspora? You’ll be forgiven if you don’t. Since they received a lot of hype as the open-source “Facebook Alternative” this past May, they’ve been quiet. In fact, they hadn’t given any updates on their progress since early July. But today they’ve re-emerged with some updates. Notably, they say: “We have Diaspora working, we like it, and it will be open-sourced on September 15th.” That’s just three weeks away.
That’s good news. But even though it has only been three months since the initial buzz began about the project, the online world has slightly changed. Back then, it seemed as if everyone with a voice on the web was screaming bloody murder about Facebook and their privacy issues. That plus a timely New York Times profile helped Diaspora raise over $200,000 from the crowd-sourced fundraising site Kickstarter — the most ever raised on the site and an amazing $190,000 more than Diaspora’s original goal. But today, again, just three months later, Facebook is still growing like a weed. Controversy keeps bubbling up, but it just as quickly subsides. → Read More
The autostereoscopic technology behind the 3DS and Toshiba’s HDTVs (to say nothing of glasses-free 3D products for years) is far from secret, so it makes sense that once 3D started blowing up, we’d see it everywhere. Here’s an example: a tiny 3D tablet aimed at 3D movie-watchers. → Read More
If you’ve been on the new Digg at all in the past day or so you’re probably already familiar with the above “Fail Ox” image, especially if you’re trying to use Digg search. The image is new, and is the result of Digg designer Tyson Rosage’s obsession with The Oregon Trail, you know the old school computer game.
Founder Kevin Rose told TechCrunch and Twitter last night that Digg experienced over 1 million unique visits on its launch day (the site has been averaging about 8.7 million unique visits per month, according to Comscore) as well as “a handful of new bugs.” “We hope to have all the major issues fixed in the next 24hrs,” says Rose, which might affect the ubiquity of the “404″ page. Consensus among users I’ve talked to is that the site seems to be moving forward from the scaling issues it had yesterday both in terms of speed and in terms of frequency of “Fail Oxen.” → Read More
Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Kim-Mai Cutler.
Nearly four years after Apple launched the iPhone and two years after Google open-sourced the code for its Android operating system, Microsoft is finally set to re-enter the mobile market this holiday season in a serious way with Windows Phone 7.
It is trying to catch up to those more modern smartphones the only way it can — with cold, hard cash.
The company could spend a half-billion dollars or more in marketing costs and payments to developers and handset manufacturers to subsidize the expense of building phones and apps, so that the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem is well-seeded at launch. → Read More
The new Digg is here and clearly it is in your best interests to follow us on it. You can do that by going here and I guess following us. You can also follow us on Twitter and you can follow us home and we’ll keep you like a lost puppy. Whatever floats your boat. We’re just trying to keep current. → Read More
Look out GameStop, there’s a new gun in town. And it’s got the brick and mortar location, name recognition, and marketing power to give you a run for your money. Ol’ blue and yellow is moving into the used game market starting this week and I think some competition will only be a good thing. → Read More
We’ve already seen a few pieces of the new iPod touch, which, though it may not be a carbon copy of the iPhone 4 minus the phone, it’ll probably follow the example of previous devices in providing similar functionality.
The new Nano, though — we’ve had some speculation based on the tiny touchscreen leaked a while back, but I was skeptical of the usability of such a wee thing. But these leaked cases seem to indicate that yes, the new Nano is a tiny, touchable square. → Read More
Digg Head of Business Development Matt Van Horn is leaving Digg to move over to the “stealthish” startup Path as VP of Business Development. This Friday will be his last day at Digg, which just this week announced its V.4 redesign.
From Van Horn’s announcement email to colleagues:
When I graduated college in 2006, it was a crazy dream to move to the bay area and join a tech start-up. So I took it upon myself to stalk Kevin and crew repeatedly until they created a position for me. It’s now been more than three years since I started here and I have learned so much and am so grateful for the chance that everyone took in bringing me on board. This has been the opportunity of a lifetime and I am excited for what the future has in store for Digg and will continue to support it in any way I can. → Read More
Back in June, we noted a couple of websites that existed for the sole purpose of revving up mayor battles on Foursquare: When Will I Be Mayor? and Be The Mayor. Today, Foursquare itself has just rolled out a small feature which should also entice users to battle for the crown.
Now, when you check-in to a venue on Foursquare via a mobile app if you’re within 10 check-ins of becoming the mayor, Foursquare will alert you how close you are on the check-in confirmation screen. But the way they do it is a bit different from simply “you need X more check-ins”, instead they tell you that “you’re now X days away from becoming Mayor”. This is an important distinction as it shows that it’s about more than raw number of check-ins. → Read More
I’ve tried out a few of these gun-like controllers in my time, from the silly (just a controller shaped like a gun) to the awesome (pico-projector built-in), and of course everyone loves the Redneck Techie and his Game Gun. But variety is the spice of life, and this Mag Gun has a different system than all of them that may make it worth a look. → Read More
MIT researchers tested the first prototype of the Seaswarm, a pack of robots that use nanotechnology to suck up oil from the surface of the ocean and for immediate processing.
When completed, the robots will be able to travel along oil-spilled waters, collecting oil more cheaply and efficiently than oil skimmers. The robots are large: 16 feet in length and seven feet in width. They push a conveyor belt wrapped by an oil-absorbing nanowire mesh that repels water while slurping up to twenty times its weight in oil. → Read More
The government is coming after you! Run for the hills! Oh, wait, the government owns the hills! Shrill, yes, but there’s a point. A recent article in Time magazine paints a fairly scary picture of the potential for the government to use GPS (originally a military creation, remember) to track your every move. Will this happen? Eh, pretty hard to see that happening—but it could happen. Maybe. → Read More
“Am I expecting a massive day one [for the Move]? Not particularly. We didn’t with EyeToy, either. It went on to be massively successful.” These are the words of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe senior vice-president Ray Maguire. Is Sony trying to lower expectations or just being frank? Perhaps a little bit of both. → Read More
Last month we reported on a new experiment Yelp was running that put it in competition with the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial: time-sensitive daily deals, offering steep discounts at local businesses that users can pre-purchase. Reached for comment at the time, the company said that it was “always testing new things” and also pointed out some of the previous marketing programs it’s run over the years (it was essentially downplaying the experimental local deals).
Today, the company is making things a bit more official: it’s announced a new sneak peek on its blog that says it’s now offering local deals in San Diego, with plans to expand to San Francisco, New York, and other cities in the near future. → Read More
You’re a pretty punctual person, right? Right. But sometimes stuff just happens, you know? Maybe you forgot your wallet and had to go back. Maybe you couldn’t find your keys. Maybe you had to bust through the front windshield of a flipped-over bus to save the orphans inside.
Whatever the totally-legitimate-and-not-at-all-made-up reason is, Telenav’s OnMyWay for iPhone will automatically let your party know you’re running a bit late, and when they should expect you → Read More
This morning, we saw Dell’s announcement this morning that 3PAR had accepted its increased offer to acquire the storage company for $24.30 per share in cash, or approximately $1.6 billion, net of 3PAR’s cash. Now HP just upped the ante, offering $1.8 billion for 3PAR, or $27 per share in cash.
Clearly these companies want 3PAR. Bad. Dell had previously signed an agreement to acquire 3PAR for $18 per share, with a provision for matching competing bids. HP subsequently outbid Dell for the data storage company, offering $24 per share in cash, or also roughly $1.6 billion at the time. But Dell and 3PAR signed an amendment to the agreement reflecting the new offer price, which brings its bid up to par with HP’s offer. → Read More
Remember back in the day when Twitter follower email notifications basically only told you a person’s username? Yeah, those were pretty useless. Luckily, we’re far beyond that. And a new addition today makes these notifications more useful than ever.
Over time, Twitter has added things like profile pictures, stats (number of tweets, following/followers), and most recently, list stats and bios. But a new addition allows you to see just how many people you follow also follow the person requesting you. And it shows you how many people the user follows that you also follow. → Read More
Scientists at the University of Liverpool report that they have created dry water. That is, a mostly normal drop of wet water is surrounded by a coating of sandy silica, creating, basically, powdered water. Don’t expect to be able to pour yourself a nice tall glass of dry water, though. The proposed uses for this new form of water mostly deal with absorbing greenhouse gases. The research shows that dry water is three times better at absorbing carbon dioxide than the normal wet water is. → Read More
