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Watch The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon Live!
May 22, 2:51PM
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 ever, and what the hack teams came up with are about to be judged, American Idol style, on stage with each team given 60 seconds to present. In case you taking part in this is no biggie, one of last year's participants, GroupMe ended up received $10.6 million in funding.
And They Hacked, And They Hacked, And They Hacked Into The Night
May 22, 7:28AM
Jerry Lee Lewis would have been proud. Even as the clock ticked past midnight at Pier 94 in Hell's Kitchen, there was a whole lotta hackin' goin' on. Beginning around noon on Saturday, hackers filed into the spacious room at the site of Disrupt NYC to begin networking and scheming in earnest. As the day wore on, groups solidified, team names were chosen, and at the height of activity, we estimate that more than 500 hackers were huddled around tables, bent over screens with headphones on -- doing their thing. By midnight, Chinese food had been consumed, much Red Bull downed, and most teams had moved past the brainstorming and napkin-doodling stage to full-fledged hacking and aggressive coding. Ideas were beginning to come to life. One hacker Tweeted around 1 am that the even "Twilio cake is looking pretty good right now". By 2 am, all the beanbag chairs had been accounted for, some were napping, and the crowd had started to thin.
Mo' Money: Square Now Processing $3 Million A Day In Mobile Payments
May 22, 5:09AM
That was fast. Just like that Square passed $3 million in transactions processed, on a Saturday no less, according to a Tweet an hour ago by CEO Jack Dorsey. The mobile payments startup is seeing an acceleration in transaction volume. It took about 10 months from its public launch for Square to reach $1 million a day in payments going through its mobile app. Getting to $2 million a day only took about two months. And now, less than a month later, it is passing $3 million.
Hax0rz Advice: "Don't Listen To Me. Go Build Something." (TCTV)
May 22, 4:14AM
Talent scouting at the 2011 Hackathon in Manhattan today, TCTV caught up with three alumni hax0rz and one n00b, who gave us a sneak peek of their apps and ideas. They included: a couple of dating sites, one with a hyper local twist, a mobile web application that lets you see nearby job opportunities using data from your Foursquare network and... 
The Hack Is On At The Hackathon
May 21, 11:04PM
The tables here at Pier 94 are full of enterprising hackers, swapping code and networking furiously. The Red Bull is flowing freely and snacks crunch underfoot — pigeons flit to and fro looking for crumbs and perhaps some seed funds. And it's only just beginning. The hacking will continue all night, punctuated by API demonstrations by the likes of Twitter, Qualcomm, and Google, and at 9:30 tomorrow morning the projects will be submitted. There are way more teams and individuals than our last Hackathon, which was already far larger than the one before. Fortunately, our new venue is very spacious — cavernous, even. They'll need the space after the pizza arrives and things start getting over-savory.
Make.Money.Slow : The Bitcoin Experiment
May 21, 5:30PM
Bitcoin. Oh, man, where to begin. Its Hype-O-Meter got cranked to 11 this week, and breathless histrionics are everywhere. Death and Taxes called this new currency "a seismic event"; Adam Cohen says it's nothing but a giant scam; Jason Calacanis calls it "the most dangerous project we've ever seen"; and they're all completely wrong. It's interesting, and innovative, and down the line it might even be important ... but in many crucial ways, Bitcoin is nothing new. Matthew Ingram at GigaOM wrote a good Bitcoin 101 piece, but a summary of that summary, for those too lazy to click: it's an anonymous online currency whose transactions and monetary supply are verified by digital cryptography and maintained by an open-source peer-to-peer network. Computers on the Bitcoin network can also "mine" new bitcoins, which are generated at a fixed rate. And, crucially, no more than 21 million will ever exist. (~7 million are currently extant.) "So what?" you may ask, and not without reason—but Bitcoins are in fact worth something. Right now you can sell them for ~$7 a pop at any of several Bitcoin exchanges. The EFF accepts Bitcoin donations. Creating a secure distributed currency infrastructure is no mean feat; creating one that people actually use is more impressive still. I don't want to understate that accomplishment. But, people, we have been here before, many times.
Gillmor Gang 5.21.11 (TCTV)
May 21, 5:00PM
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Dick Hardt, and Steve Gillmor — got all LinkedIn in the wake of the startup's successful IPO. Amid the fear mongering about another tech bubble, it seemed more likely that LinkedIn was the first of at least a trio of big social plays going public. Facebook and Twitter seem no brainers, each with their own dynamics in terms of revenue plus virality. And then there's Groupon and maybe Zynga. But the real question was not whether hype trumps value, but what's next as the intersection of technology and media accelerates. This year's broadcast upfronts seemed primed for disruption, with most networks junking their entire drama debuts from a year ago in favor of big budget sci-fi and Sheenless comedies. Meanwhile Netflix continues to mushroom as it becomes the next HBO, or some supernode unlike anything since the agencies took over from the film studios in the '50s. King Harvest will surely come.
BioPro Takes DIY Approach To Biofuels
May 21, 4:39PM
Passionate biodiesel hobbyists have long relied on their local diner's supply of used cooking oil to power their cars, but a unit that automatically converts oil to fuel could help restaurants do it themselves. The BioPro 190, made by Springboard, is a tall stainless steel box containing a biodiesel processor that that mixes, heats and separates used cooking oil, producing ready-to-pump biodiesel in about 48 hours. Both animal and vegetable oils can be used, and though the oil requires the addition of methanol, sulphuric acid and a catalyst to be processed, these are the only steps in the recipe to to fueling any diesel-run vehicle. While vehicles typically require biodiesel conversion to run on on biofuels, Springboard claims their fuel can power any diesel engine without being converted. 
Want To Get Rewards For Going Out? Good, Because LoSo Wants To Find You Free Drinks
May 21, 2:30PM
I'll bet that got your attention. Finally, an app that wants to buy you a drink. Well, not exactly, but it's the next best thing. LoSo is a location-based social media app for the iPhone that re-launches today to bring the best parts of Foursquare, Yelp, and OpenTable together in one app for your mobile phone. An ambitious goal, yes, but to counterbalance that, LoSo is targeting a very specific market: your local restaurants and bars. So, on the one hand, LoSo is addressing a problem cited by many small businesses in using Groupon: They're happy to have a blast of new customers taking advantage of a big discount, but they want to see loyalty, not single-serving customers. And, on the other hand, LoSo wants you to be rewarded for doing just that: By being (or becoming) a loyal customer at your favorite local eatery or watering hole.
(Founder Stories) Gilt Groupe's Kevin Ryan Says There Is No Bubble (TCTV)
May 21, 1:56PM
Heading into TechCrunch Disrupt, New York, we pulled a couple excerpts from Chris Dixon's freshly shot Founder Stories interview with Gilt Groupe's CEO & Founder, Kevin Ryan. Ryan, who will be speaking at the conference dismisses talk of the so-called "tech bubble" and dives into the "renaissance" of the New York Tech scene. Responding to a recent "Economist" article which cautions of a tech bust, Ryan, the former DoubleClick CEO says, "They are completely wrong."
This is How Sacca Spends His Friday Nights: Wearing A Space Helmet On Turntable.fm
May 21, 6:58AM
Ever wonder how super angel and man-about-town Chris Sacca spends his Friday nights? Well, right now you can find him at Turntable.fm, a stealthy, you-can-only-get-in-if-you-know-someone online DJ party. I just stumbled onto it by accident. You can only gain entry if you are Facebook friends with someone already inside. As it happens, I knew some people. Turntable.fm is a project of Seth Goldstein and Billy Chasen, the two guys who brought us Stickybits. You enter and there are different DJ rooms to choose from. There are probably 25 people there right now (this is still in private alpha). But in one room called "Let's rock old-ish hip-hop," there was Sacca, Goldstein, YouTube's Hunter Walk, and Mike Marquez of CODE Advisors. Sacca was playing "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa, up on the DJ platform (he gets to wear the space helmet because he has a lot of points, which are awarded to him by other people in the room who like what he plays). 
RadiumOne About To Corner The Market On Social Data Before Competitors Even Know What's Happening
May 21, 12:25AM
RadiumOne is emerging as a leader in a new breed of advertising networks, with enhanced targeting based on social data. The company is positioning itself to lock in data sources before competitors even get rolling. "Behavioral targeting in advertising led to double digit increases in effectiveness," RadiumOne's CEO Gurbaksh Chahal tells me. And he should know, this is his third advertising network. The last one, BlueLithium, sold to Yahoo in 2007 for $300 million. "But it's commoditized now, and it's time to innovate and differentiate." The key is to know what ad to show to a person, and when. That can turn low value remnant inventory to premium ad space, no matter what site or service that ad is being served on.
Google's WebP Image Format Takes On JPEGs With Sharper Pictures
May 20, 10:25PM
Google is on a mission to make the Web faster. One thing that slows down pageload times are fat image files. Even JPEG and PNG files can get pretty big. So Google is developing a new image format called WebP (which is a sister format to its WebM project for videos). The images above, for instance, are from this gallery comparing JPEG to WebP. The WebP images are significantly smaller, but look just as sharp. Can you tell the difference? 
Frequent Fliers: Superfly Emerges From Beta To Help You Organize Your Travel Rewards
May 20, 10:17PM
If you've seen George Clooney and Jason Reitman's Up In The Air, you know that George Clooney's character in the film is the epitome of a savvy, frequent flier. His life's ambition is to accumulate miles, and he knows exactly what his rewards packages entail. Most of us, though we may similarly heavy travel schedules, are by no means masters of miles or travel rewards. If you're anything like me, you can't even remember which mileage programs you've enrolled in. Thus, Superfly, an Israeli startup emerging from beta today, wants to help you become more like George Clooney's character in Up In The Air -- and less like me. (Always a good thing.) Armed with a new domain, new design, and fresh funding, Superfly's goal is to not only help users organize travel rewards (be they frequent flier miles or hotel rewards), but actually educate users on how to use them to maximize their value. According to Superfly, there are currently between 17 and 22 trillion unused miles and points floating around travel accounts today, and these points are valued at between $500 and 600 billion. 
Firefox Updates Mobile Browser For Android With 'Do Not Track' Privacy Feature
May 20, 9:25PM
Firefox beta for Android has been updated today with the ability for users to turn on the "Do Not Track" privacy feature, making it one of the first mobile browsers to offer the privacy option. Mozilla's Do Not Track allows users to have more control over how their browsing behavior is tracked and used online. When the feature is enabled, Firefox will tell advertising networks and other websites and applications that you want to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes like behavioral advertising. Basically, Mozilla implements an HTTP header that Firefox users can elect to send that tells ad networks they don't want to be tracked.
Twitter's First CTO Greg Pass Steps Down
May 20, 9:00PM
Twitter CTO Greg Pass has as of today stepped down from his post at Twitter according to people familiar with the matter. Prior to becoming Twitter CTO, Pass held the VP of engineering position at the company, after being CTO and co-founder at Summize, which was acquired by Twitter in July 2008 and was eventually turned into Twitter Search. Prior to Summize he was Systems Architect at Aol. As VP of engineering, Pass was responsible for taking the team from a dozen engineers to around 10 times that number and played a seminal role in Twitter's scaling success.
Loopt Beats Groupon To Notifying You Of Nearby Groupon Now! Deals
May 20, 6:37PM
Loopt a checkin app that seems to be pulling out all the stops, has now integrated with Groupon Now! in Chicago in order to provide users withlocationally relevant realtime deals around them, notifying them when they are near a deal. While the plan is to notify users of deals when the app isn't even open, the time sensitive deals will also appear on place pages within Loopt, so users can see and share with friends their favorite relevant deals in the vicinity. 
Chomp Brings Cross-Platform App Search To Android With Verizon's V Cast Integration
May 20, 6:03PM
Chomp, an app search engine, has partnered with Verizon Wireless to offer an app search engine for the communications company's mobile app marketplace, V Cast. Chomp, which just launched an Android app that allows users to search across Google's Android Marketplace, now allows customers to search for apps on the V Cast marketplace. Chomp now allows Verizon Wireless customers to find apps based on what the app does, as well as the title or name of the app. Verizon Wireless customers with V CAST apps enabled devices can download Chomp (which is free) from the marketplace. 
An Explosion At Foxconn Chengdu Engulfs Building, 16 Hurt, 2 Killed
May 20, 5:38PM
What appears to be a fire or explosion engulfed one of the buildings at the Foxconn Factory in Chengdu, China. Foxconn is reporting two casualties and 16 hurt and the damage does look severe and quite thorough. MICGadget reported that "10 fire engines, ambulances and 10 police cars" arrived on the scene. Reports state that a few floors in Building A5 (apparently part of the iPad 2 production line) were affected and that the explosion was caused by light dust igniting in one of the manufacturing rooms. Auto-playing video after the jump. 
What It's Like To Go Through Y Combinator (The Wired Version)
May 20, 5:13PM
Paul Graham and Y Combinator just got the Wired treatment. Steven Levy writes a long and loving article which evokes what it's like to go through the program (or at least what it's like to be a fly on the wall watching startups who go through the program). A big part of the Y Combinator experience is learning from Paul Graham, who is like a Jedi master for startups. Graham is famous for his "office hours" when founders can come and consult with him. (Graham will be holding office hours onstage next week at Disrupt NYC and will also be interviewed by Charlie Rose). Levy explains how office hours work in his article:
AHAlife Curates And Sells Unique, Hard-To-Find Products From Around The World
May 20, 4:39PM
Have you ever visited a city, country or even store and found an original, unique product or item that you've never seen before? AHAlife is an e-commerce sites for hard-to-find and exclusive luxury lifestyle products, curated by 'tastemakers' from around the world. AHAlife introduces one new product a day in editorial format through its email list, tells the story about how the product was made, who made it, and where it came from while allowing you to also purchase the product. Products span fashion, food, beauty, travel, accessories, home décor, tech, and travel experiences. 
Twitter Inc. Sued For Tweets Which Break UK Celeb's Press Gag. Oh Yes.
May 20, 4:25PM
We've been watching the British legal system turn itself into knots for the last couple of weeks, largely due to the ability of Twitter users to break just about any legal 'super injunction' a 'celebrity' (usually footballers) has on the reporting of their private life (usually affairs). So far so normal for Twitter. What's a super injunction? It's when someone rich (these things are very expensive) takes out an injunction on the press that not only stops them reporting something but also stops them reporting that the injunction even exists. That makes it 'super', which of course it is anything but. But today the story took a new turn when it emerged that Twitter Inc. itself is being sued. Oh yes. They are going there. 
The Man Who Wants Your ID – Myid.is Launches Beta To 1.2m People
May 20, 2:52PM
I first met Charles Nouÿrit at Le Web in 2007. Surrounded by 'boothe babes' in tight white T-shirts, he was handing out cards about something called Myid.is. Was this the standard French startup pitch at Le Web? It probably was back in 2007. And it was a little hard to take the pitch, such as it was, seriously. But Identity? "ID"? Yes, it was a hot topic even then - and still is. Since then 600 million users have signed up to Facebook, close to 100 million on LinkedIn. Sure, many of those won't be fully kosher online identities. But isn't the issue of a verified online identity slowly being solved? The answer of course is no. Real identity, and more importantly the verification of someone's ID by a trusted third party is nowhere near being solved online, outside of the banking system. But this is going to be a key battleground online going forward, especially where ecommerce and the ability to 'sign' for things enters a new phase. And - since 2007 - Charles has stuck to his guns on his startup and aimed high.And today Myid.is is emerging as a potentially powerful play. A giant trial with the French Post office (La Poste) with a service branded as "Identic" will soon launch, claiming to be a world first in the Identity space. Identic is a brand owned by La Poste but run behind the scenes by MyID.is and allows digital identity to be verified by the La Poste organisation. 
SSE Labs Announces Impressive List Of Advisors, Offers Sneak Peek At Latest Startups
May 20, 2:45PM
About a year ago, Stanford University students Dan Ha and Cameron Teitelman co-founded SSE Labs, a startup accelerator designed to assist aspiring entrepreneurs at the university develop their businesses and provide them with the space and educational resources they need to grow a successful business. At the time, the Stanford student government (which operates independently of the university) had just disbanded SSE Ventures, a student-run venture capital fund that invested directly in student-led start-ups. In turns out that this was just the catalyst the founders were looking for. Teitelman turned SSE Ventures into SSE Labs, refocusing the program on the acceleration of its local entrepreneurial talent through experiential education, rather than providing investment and equity. Ha then joined Teitelman at the helm and has run the program since its summer launch.
The Hackathon Is Almost Here. Come Root For Your Favorite Hackers This Sunday!
May 20, 2:38PM
The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon is taking place in NYC this weekend and is shaping up to be our biggest and best yet. We'll be hosting hundreds of hackers all weekend long. Come hang out with them, or watch their presentations in person at Pier94 in NYC on Sunday, May 22nd starting at 10:30 am! We're thrilled to have Bradley Horowitz (Google), Amanda Peyton (MessageParty), Jeff Clavier (SoftTech), Christopher Poole (Canvas) and more helping us judge the event. Over twice the number of hackers as last year have signed up to spend the weekend prototyping new products so they can blow you away. Due to the overwhelming demand we have had to close the hacker signup form. However, if you're a potential hacker who didn't get a confirmation email from us and still want to hack with us this weekend just show up at Pier94 on Saturday, May 21st starting at 12:30 pm. There's limited availability for walkup signups but we'll do our absolute best to make sure you get in. Or you can just come to the Sunday Demos and watch the awesomeness. (Click through for details and logistics)
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