Children are known for how much they love to play make-believe, and StoryKid, an app introduced today during the Disrupt Hackathon in New York, takes this and gives it a new twist by offering a series of pictures as visual cues for a child to tell a story based around them. StoryKid is aimed at children aged 2 to 5 who are already talking but may either be too young or are just starting to write. → Read More
Financial advisory services often aren’t targeted at the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum — and arguably, those are the folks who really need money advice the most.
That’s where Scaffold, an app built over the past 24 hours at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Hackathon, wants to help out. Scaffold aims to be a financial advisory platform that can give actionable insights to lower… → Read More
Using off-the-shelf hardware, SafeHouse aims to disrupt the home security space. Raspberry Pi and Ninja Blocks are used to build a surprisingly robust security system. As seen during their Battlefield presentation, even though SafeHouse was built during our 24 hour Hackathon, this product could be a legitimate service.
I spoke to creators backstage. Going forward, SafeHouse could live on in… → Read More
Unlike something like Evernote, which helps you store and reference information, TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon entrant Memstash helps you actually memorize stuff. For example, if you want to memorize a famous quote, you can put it in your Memstash through a bookmarklet and the app will send you that quote via SMS or e-mail at specific intervals until you have it memorized. → Read More
This team at the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon found a great idea to keep them motivated through the development. When you are visiting a city, Local Drunk connects you to a local who knows a good place to get your drink on.
It was not their first idea, they originally planned a last-minute vacation service, but eventually settled with an idea revolving around alcohol. We can’t blame them for… → Read More
This hack comes from a pair of charming Germans who created an app to find books related to apps you just opened. For example, when you download or install an app – Word, Photoshop, Skype – it will automatically find books related to the new app. → Read More
It’s become more clear than ever that analytics about how people interact with things — from physical stores to television screens to websites — are key for businesses to optimize their relationships with potential customers. And the more detail, the better.
It’s this philosophy that drove Jason Shah to build HeatData over the past 24 hours at the Disrupt SF 2012 Hackathon. HeatData is an… → Read More
Peter Ma says hadn’t switched on his HP laptop for nearly six months when he booted it up at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon yesterday afternoon.
From May until August he backpacked alone in the Sierra Nevada, with no electronics other a watch and a head lamp, just trying to get away from society and come up with a truly new idea. “I wanted to get in touch with basic human needs,” he explains. → Read More
At the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon, a presentation on stage was very polished and caught our attention. Advise.ly provides peer-to-peer career advice on demand. It uses both the LinkedIn API the Twilio API to first find people with the same career background and then initiate a phone call. The site is already live and working, which is impressive for a 24-hour hack.
First, you authenticate… → Read More
It was a long and trying night here at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse, but after it all, the sun did rise in San Francisco this morning, bringing in a new day for the scores of programmers at the Disrupt SF 2012 Hackathon. → Read More
If you’re working on an iOS app and would like to demonstrate key features to users, Appetize.co makes things a little bit easier. Rather than hacking together in-app videos, Appetize allows programmers to add one line to their code that can simulate button presses and swipes. You can then play these movies back in the app itself during demonstrations. → Read More
A mere 24 hours ago an eclectic group of coders gathered outside of The Concourse at San Francisco Design Center intent on hacking together the next great app. And now after a sleepless night these groups are ready to show off their creation on massive the TechCrunch Disrupt stage.
Join us live as these apps, services and hardware hacks are displayed for the first time. Each group gets 60 short… → Read More
Hex3 founder Jon Atherton didn’t have any hardware hacking experience when he launched Kickstarter campaigns for the company’s debut products, the AppTag Laser Blaster and the JaJa Pressure Sensitive Stylus for the iPad. But now, just a few months after raising over $100,000 between the two campaigns, both are real and available for hacking at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. “I’ve had the… → Read More
The Hackathon never sleeps, and neither do the hackers. Just like the Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon, and the San Francisco Hackathon before it, this year’s bunch of coders are up and at ‘em, ready to disrupt… well, anything.
Surveying the San Francisco Design Center, you’ll find a lot of empty red bull cans, beer bottles, and bags of chips. It’s not necessarily the most nutritional sustenance… → Read More
As this is being published, it’s just after midnight at the Disrupt SF 2012 Hackathon, and programmers are elbows deep into their projects (or perhaps in the middle of a well-deserved nap) with a very limited amount of time left to finish them off and polish them up for on-stage presentations Sunday. It may be hard for those bleary-eyed hackers to believe, but it was only hours ago on Saturday… → Read More
If you are attending this weekend’s Hackathon – that is if you have tickets and are raring to go – I have some fun news. As we mentioned before, Makerbot will be in attendance with two of their 3D printers and I still have two Raspberry Pis courtesy of Adafruit Industries that will go to teams intent on building small hardware projects. → Read More
Do you have hardware project that’s been simmering on the back burner because you can’t get access to a 3D printer? Come on down to the Disrupt Hackathon and use one of the MakerBots and Raspberry Pis we’ll have on site for anyone to use. Build toys, robots, Arduino cases, or whatever you want and enter the Disrupt Hackathon as an inaugural hardware hacker. We dare you.
The best hardware hack… → Read More
Ford today announced that its AppLink platform is now available in 1 million vehicles across the company’s fleet. The AppLink API allows developers to link their mobile apps to Ford’s SYNC platform and lets drivers manage the apps through voice controls and radio buttons on their steering wheels. The platform is still invite-only and some of the supported apps include Pandora, TuneIn, Slack Radio… → Read More
After nearly 24 hours of fighting fatigue and crafting code, our Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon is finally drawing to a close. Not a moment too soon — I think some of our hackers are about ready to keel over at this point.
Nevertheless, we just got an eyeful of 92 projects that our wonderful hackers have been slaving away on through the night, but only three teams will be able to show off their… → Read More
It’s been a long, caffeine-fueled ride for the hundreds of hackers who have set up at our big Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon, but the furious process of taking a wild idea and turning it into something real is finally winding down.
Projects were being finalized, UIs were being tweaked, last minute Red Bulls were being downed — it was a quite a sight to see everyone buckling down for those final few… → Read More
It’s midnight.
The city is alive with Saturday night fever, and Pier 94 is just as awake, and perhaps a bit more drunk. Tequila shots (and plenty of beers) are flowing, along with Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Energy Bites.
In other words, this place is like one giant vat of FourLoko, topped with a sprinkling of coders. → Read More
It’s been about eight hours since our big Disrupt Hackathon kicked off, and all of our intrepid hackers have been busy letting the code (and the caffeine) fly ever since.
I managed to tear a few of them away from their work (these folks are pretty motivated, so it took a bit of doing) to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they’ve been trying to crank out during the wee hours of the… → Read More
There’s a strong murmur in the room with random spurts of excitement. Hackers and coders have teamed up and mostly (hopefully) decided on a project. There are only 15 hours left. But night is approaching. That’s when things tend to get loopy thanks to the sudden influx of food and beer.
So far the event has been fantastic. There’s a 3:2 ratio of Macs vs PCs. Epic t-shirts are everywhere. → Read More
Hackers aren’t necessarily known for their fashion sense. Most of the time, a t-shirt and jeans is as far as it goes. But there are certain circumstances in which it’s clear that hackers pay a little extra attention after rolling out of bed in the morning. The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon is one of those instances, but that doesn’t mean that the go-to jeans and T have been abandoned.
Even… → Read More
The anticipation is palpable.
Hundreds of hackers have congregated outside Manhattan’s Pier 94, planning, strategizing, and praying to baby Jesus that their fates will be similar to those of Group.me and Docracy. We’ve seen plenty of Hackathon winners go on to do incredible things, make millions of dollars, and rise to startup stardom levels, but the journey isn’t a simple one.
Let me… → Read More
Hackers, are you ready? The Disrupt Beijing Hackathon is almost here. Not only is this our fifth time hosting the Hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt, but it is our very first time hosting it overseas. The Hackathon has become an incredibly popular event, where hackers of every stripe come together to build cool products and businesses — from funny to useful, from bizarre to essential. The goal of… → Read More
In case you missed it, hackers were busy building new ideas and products at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Hackathon in New York last night. Fueled by RedBull, coffee, and massive quantities of junk food, hackers burned the midnight oil last night, preparing to show off their designs to the judges, who included VC Jeff Clavier and Canv.as founder Christopher Poole, and Google VP of Product Bradley… → Read More
Presentations for the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon are in full swing (tune in for the live stream!), and we’ve already seen some very nifty nascent apps and services. One that just caught my eye is NerdNearby, a simple app that detects your current location and presents every tweet, Foursquare check-in, and Instagram photo that has been shared from that area in the recent past. In other words… → Read More
Around 500 hackers participated from late last night to early today morning at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in New York, building in teams and waking up or popping enough Redbull this am in order to show off their hacks to notables including VC Jeff Clavier and Canv.as, VP of Product Bradley Horowitz and Canv.as founder Christopher Poole.
This year’s NYC Hackathon was our largest showing… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
