Pair has rebranded as Couple, reports VentureBeat.  The “app for two” lets couples “stay together when you’re apart” through private sharing of calendars, lists, sketches, and thumbkisses.  The mobile app, available for both iPhone and Android, resulted from Y Combinator Winter 2012 by maker Tenthbit.  It subsequently raised over 4 million dollars from investors like Ashton Kutcher’s A-Grade Investments and […]

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 […]

Y Combinator held today its semi-annual Demo Day.  This time it’s for YC W14, which contains 64 companies.  57 of these startups either presented at today’s demo day or have already launched in the press.  Below are all the known companies in YC W14.

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.

Y Combinator Universe published more than a hundred blog posts in 2013.   Topics covered everything from relationship apps for couples to in-memory relational databases.  I wrote about fashion startups and wearable devices.  The acquisition of a dozen companies were mentioned.  And Demo Day for two new batches were detailed, YC W13 and YC S13.  Here’s a […]

I bought a Pebble smartwatch today at Best Buy.  Special holiday pricing ($119), a $30 instant coupon for anybody with a .edu email address, and extended return policy all influenced the purchase.  I had also been waiting for more apps and watchfaces.  Here’s my first impression of Pebble having finally bought the smartwatch.

Y Combinator is having its semi-annual Demo Day today.  This time it’s for YC S13, which contains 53 companies.  By Demo Day, most of these companies have already launched in the technical press.  As of writing this, I already have 45 of the 53 companies in YC S13 on my complete list of known Y […]