Flutter has been acquired by Google, announced on Flutter’s website.  The YC W12 company makes a popular Mac app that enables Kinect-like control by gestures at the webcam.  Flutter was included by Apple on its 2012 Mac App Store “Best Mac Apps of the Year”.  This past February, Flutter added support for Google Chrome.

Bump Technologies has been acquired by Google, announced on Bump’s company blog.  Bump develops mobile applications and APIs for communication between two smartphones in close proximity.  The company was in YC Summer 2009.  Bump’s initial product was an app for exchanging contact info between two smartphones by bumping them together.  The acquisition announcement states “the Bump […]

BufferBox has been acquired by Google, reports an article on Business Insider.  BufferBox is “an automated, self-serve kiosk to eliminate the frustrations and hassle involved with failed parcel deliveries. BufferBox has successfully deployed our first kiosk that allows for 24/7 pick-up of parcels at a convenient location” (CrunchBase).  BufferBox graduated from Y Combinator’s most recent batch this […]

Pebble Smartwatch has announced the sixteen finalist apps in its first-ever Pebble App Challenge.  The developer of each of these apps will receive a Pebble Steel.  These sixteen apps will also compete through the first week of April to determine the winner of the $5,000 prize.  Each app submitted to the contest has its own app details page […]

Virtual reality got me interested in technology in the early 1990′s.  Two decades ago, “cyberspace” was still an exciting new concept.  I’ve met several virtual reality pioneers over the years, including VPL Research co-founder Jaron Lanier, hardware hacker Mitch Altman, and cyberpunk sci-fi author Rudy Rucker.  The vision for virtual reality was the ability to put on a […]

Pebble is currently having a Pebble App Challenge.  Developers of Pebble smartwatch apps can compete by submitting apps between now and March 23.  The winner gets $5,000.  The top 16 finalists each receive a Pebble Steel.  The winner will be chosen by two rounds of voting between March 24 and the first week of April.

Kamcord is now natively supported in Unreal Engine 3 for iOS and Android.  Developers using Unreal Engine can offer Kamcord’s free platform to record, replay, and share in-game experiences.  Monster 500, a kart-style racing game already on iTunes AppStore and Google Play, is a great example of Kamcord integration with Unreal Engine 3.  I wrote about Kamcord in November […]

Gentrification in the Bay Area is a popular topic lately.  San Francisco rents are up more than 3 times the national average, reports SFGate.  The cost of living has simply gotten too expensive except for those with well-paying jobs at established companies.  That’s a serious long-term problem for everybody because the high cost of living destroys […]

Easel.io has been acquired by GitHub, announced today on Easel’s company blog.  From YC S12, Easel is an in-browser web design tool.  The company’s service will continue post-acquisition, providing support and additional benefits to paid subscribers.