Category: Tech news

 MIT’s CityHome aims to solve the space issue for many urban renters in New York and San Francisco who often must sacrifice space for cost. A 200 square-foot modular unit expands to a full 840 square-foot apartment with the wave of a hand. Think of it like an apartment in a box that responds to Wii-like hand gestures. Read More

 At the roughly one-year anniversary of the NSA leaks, Reform Government Surveillance, a group backed by a number of notable tech companies, is publishing a letter demanding the Senate strengthen the NSA reform bill that recently passed the House. According to the letter, in the coming weeks, the upper chamber of Congress has the “opportunity to demonstrate leadership and pass a version… Read More

 Bazaarvoice just announced that it’s selling PowerReviews for $30 million in cash.
The news comes after an acquisition deal in 2012, followed by an antitrust suit in which the US Justice Department argued that by bringing together two major consumer review sites in one company, the acquisition would reduce competition. The suit ended with Bazaarvoice agreeing to sell PowerReviews to… Read More

 At its WWDC event on Monday, Apple made waves among the iOS and Mac developer communities with the announcement of Swift, a new programming language designed from the ground up by the company’s developer tools team. The language itself builds upon the compiler, runtime, and libraries that Apple developers use with Objective-C today, which means that those already familiar with the tools… Read More

 Zoom zoom! A Croatian company wants to put your butt onto a new kind of bike, a sort of electric/mechanical hybrid that uses battery assist to help you up the hills and includes an automatic transmission system that ensures you rarely have to use the battery.
Called the Visiobike, the $5,303 bike is made of carbon fiber and has a dock for your phone. Special software gives you a speedometer… Read More

 Back in October of last year, we broke the word that Amazon was working on a new smartphone …with a bit of a twist. Using multiple cameras to track your eyes and head, it featured a 3D interface that changed according to how you were looking at it, we were told. Read More

 Monoprice, everyone’s favorite source for cheap $20-foot HDMI cables and other stuff that you don’t feel like going to Best Buy for, has just announced the availability of a new 3D printer, a dual extruder model that looks to be based on the original Makerbot Replicator. The $1,199 comes with two spools of PLA filament and has a 225 x 145 x 150 mm build volume. Read More

 You’ve played Cards Against Humanity, right? The so-called party game for horrible people? Well, here’s the unofficial Tech Edition and it’s about the best thing ever. It’s just not available for purchase — yet. Read More

 Howdy, y’all.
As a Texan myself, I’m thrilled to announce the judges for our Austin Pitch-Off going down next week at Palm on 6th St. (BTW, tickets to the Austin Meetup are still available but are running out quickly so grab one here before it’s too late). Read More

 QuizUp is a challenge-style game that was released last September and has created a lot of buzz around its social model. The massive take-up it achieved demonstrated that there was a market for competitive, real-time quiz apps. A few new apps have tried to replicate this, but not many in vertical subjects. SportsQuest, by Cuju Media, is an iOS app that plans to do just that and was actually… Read More

 Rent The Runway has made a splash as a way for women to literally rent high fashion. Now a new startup hopes it can reproduce that success with a similar model, which has a new take on the idea, with the goal of bringing a large variety of luxury rentals to all major markets in Europe. With Chic By Choice, you hire designer dresses curated by boutiques and department stores. Read More

Profitero, a SaaS provider of online insights and e-commerce intelligence for retailers and brands, has raised $8 million from Polaris Partners.
It will use the funds to double its 40-strong engineering team and expand its presence in North America and abroad. Profitero says it want so be the “Nielsen for online global retailers and brands.” Read More

 Marking the one year anniversary of the NSA leaks saga, Microsoft today called for broad change in how the United States Government and its intelligence agencies operate, and what they collect.
Microsoft is not alone among technology companies in calling for reform. Its blog post today, however, is interesting given its breadth and specificity.
The company wants the government to end bulk… Read More

 Google.org, Google’s nonprofit wing, has announced which nonprofits participating in its Bay Area Impact Challenge will receive grants for $500,000 later this year. Hack the Hood, Health Trust, Bring Me A Book, and Center for Employment Opportunities came out on top after a 10-day voting period and 200,000 votes cast. Read More

 Meet Product Hunt, a small experiment that is increasingly becoming the center of the conversations of product-oriented people working in tech. You can call it the Reddit of tech products, the Hacker News of product launches, but none of these descriptions really capture what Product Hunt is. “It initially started with friends of mine and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley,” Product… Read More