Virtual Reality: Real Products for Cyberspace
Pebble App Challenge Finalists Announced
Female Founders Conference Re-Cap [Video]
Flutter, Makers of Gesture Control App For Mac, Acquired By Google
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 Acquired By Google
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 (YC S12) Acquired by Google
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 App Challenge Finalists Announced
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: Real Products for Cyberspace
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 Smartwatch Announces Developer App Challenge For Cash And Prizes
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.
Winter 2014 Companies (YC W14)
YCW14 (Winter 2014) View YCW14 on its own page. Companies YC Investment Matching Investment (YC VC, Start Fund) 57 $1,140,000 $4,560,000 General Description 42 Location: New York, NY; Toronto, Canada CrunchBase: 42 Hacker News: n/a Status: live Market: 42 is a big data platform for retailers. 42 provides a web-based platform that analyzes and dissects […]
Kamcord Gameplay Sharing Now In Unreal Engine For iOS / Android
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 […]
Startups Can’t Survive On $20,000
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 In-Browser Web Design Tool Acquired By GitHub
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.
Companies
| General | Description |
|---|---|
| AdGrok |
AdGrok allows business owners to automate the process of choosing and bidding on keywords on Google AdWords. |
Filepicker.io
|
Filepicker.io builds tools that make it easier for developers to integrate access to cloud services within their applications, including mobile apps on iOS and Android. With the new Filepicker.io Mobile Library, developers can quickly add integrations which let their apps connect to popular services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Facebook, Flickr, Evernote, and more. |
| Intrafold |
Intrafold is an employee directory that integrates with Google Apps and works on a variety of platforms. |
Meta SpaceGlasses
|
Meta is a pair of augmented reality glasses that also detects motion in front of it. Meta is essentially Google Glass meets Microsoft Kinect. |
MixRank
|
MixRank is a spy tool for contextual and display ads. During MixRank's free beta, you can access data on Google AdSense ads running on over 93,000 different sites. With MixRank you can see exactly where your competitors are buying traffic and which ad copy is performing best for them. You can use MixRank to watch your competitors spend money testing different ads and traffic sources, see which ones worked best, and use that data to build your own campaign. |
| Noteleaf |
Noteleaf helps you be prepared for any meeting. By integrating with your Google Calendar and recognizing the names of the people you're going to be meeting with, Noteleaf is able to push information about who you're going to meet, right before you meet them. |
People and Pages
|
People and Pages is a service similar to Google Groups, allowing group organizers to manage email lists and publish to the web in one place. Although the screenshots show that it's part WYSIWYG website creation tool as well, making it competitive with Google Sites, Weebly, and others. |
SeeingInteractive
|
SeeingInteractive provides Web-based software for newspapers that make money. SeeingInteractive makes software that works with companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter so that newspapers can remain at center of local. |
Segment.io
|
Segment.io is an API that lets developers integrate once, and then send their data to any service. Segment.io currently supports 20 different providers, including Google, KISSmetrics, Mixpanel, Chartbeat, HubSpot, and Salesforce. |
Snaptalent
|
Snaptalent powers a distributed job advertisement network primarily meant for developer listings. Job ads submitted to Snaptalent are displayed on the service's participating websites. A unique feature about the network is that it will detect the IP addresses of website visitors and attempt to identify whether they work for a particular company or attend a particular university. It will then serve up targeted ads that have been designated for, say, employees of Google or students of Carnegie Mellon. |
Startuply
|
Startuply is a job site focused on jobs at startups. The company argues that the average college graduating engineer goes to Google, Microsoft or another large tech company is that they don't know about smaller startups, where they may have more responsibility and be happier. Startuply aims to solve this problem. The company allows free job listings from startups, and gives them the opportunity to create extensive profiles that describe what they do. They also provide startups a widget that they can use to list their jobs on their own websites. The company was previously called Jowba, which launched in late February of 2008. |
Swapbox
|
Swapbox is a startup based in San Francisco, founded by a team with work experience from Google, Microsoft, and Zynga. With Swapbox you no longer have to worry about missing deliveries. Use your Swapbox shipping address and your packages will be waiting for you at our nearest location. Swapbox is currently available on Stanford Campus in Palo Alto and in San Francisco. |
| Weebly |
Weebly is an AJAX website creator that allows you to create pages with template skins and content widgets. Users can easily drag-and-drop content widgets like pictures, text, video and Google Maps in WYSIWYG-fashion. |
Zenter
|
Zenter is an web based presentation app that promises to really take advantage of being online. Users will have the regular functionality of PowerPoint, but with the ability to directly add content from the web (Google Images). Each public slide show will also be put into a public library, for other users to remix or just drop into their show. |