startup

Geeking out on hardware is not just about robots anymore

What do you get when you stick a bunch of geeks from all around the world in an hardware-focused incubator program for 111 days?

Well, you still get robots (which are pretty cool), but with the HAXLR8R hardware-related accelerator program, you also get young people who are excited about nearly every facet of life.

The program's demo day in San Francisco on Monday night highlighted several new products that consumers can literally get their hands on. This included some products you would expect from really smart people interested in hardware like:

Bilibot, a robotic platform designed to make affordable … Read more

Why I had it all wrong about Boston's high-tech scene

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- I'm at a crowded tech schmoozefest, and Tim Rowe, the pied piper of local startups, is giving me a serious talking-to about my blase attitude toward the local tech industry.

"I'd like you to think about what you're saying and look at the facts," Rowe says with growing intensity. "I think you're going to see your perception and the facts don't add up."

No startup culture? Look around here in the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, ground zero for New England startups, Rowe says. There are about … Read more

Mark Cuban leads funding of video startup Switchcam

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is leading a round of seed funding in a new video startup called Switchcam that has technology that can be used to stitch together different videos of the same event so viewers can switch camera angles as they wish.

Other investors in the $1.2 million round, raised via AngelList, include Dave McClure's 500 Startups, Turner Media Camp, Vikas Gupta, Niket Desai, Reed Morse, David Beyer and Jeffrey Schox, Switchcam announced today.

Switchcam CEO Brett Welch told CNET that he got the idea while using his phone to take video of live music concerts. Unlike … Read more

Dear startups: Don't treat money like toilet paper

Having lots of money isn't a reason to spend it, especially if you're a startup that has yet to prove itself as a viable, sustainable business.

There have been a lot of early-stage startups raising monster rounds in recent months. Ark ($4.2 million seed), Viddy ($30 million), and Gumroad ($7 million) are just a few prominent examples.

The funding party may be over though, at least according to Paul Graham, a prominent investor and founder of Y Combinator.

"Jessica and I had dinner recently with a prominent investor," Graham said in a letter to Y … Read more

How to cope with the emotional stress of a startup

Imagine experiencing the pain, sorrow, and misery of a breakup. Now imagine winning the lottery the next week. That's the kind of emotional roller coaster a new startup founder can expect.

"The emotional ups and downs were the biggest surprise for me," a founder of a Y Combinator-funded startup says in one of Paul Graham's essays. (Graham is a co-founder of Y Combinator.) "One day, we'd think of ourselves as the next Google and dream of buying islands; the next, we'd be pondering how to let our loved ones know of our utter … Read more

Sexy, six-legged robot Hexy wants to get friendly

You'd be surprised at the number of people who crave spider-like robots.

Boston-based ArcBotics is gathering funds for its Hexy kit robot, billed as a low-cost, completely open-source critter that is easy to program.

It has six legs instead of eight, but Hexy can walk, dance, bang some keyboard keys, and do whatever else you can imagine.

It comes with a few installed moves, too. It's so cool, it even plays electric guitar. … Read more

Stealth startup Airtime raises $25M, buys Erly

Airtime, the video startup founded by Napster duo Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, announced today that it had closed a second round of funding and had purchased another startup.

The mysterious company raised $25 million, according to a TechCrunch report. The startup also announced the acquisition of Erly, a company founded in 2011 that claims to provide a "new social platform for organizing and sharing your personal content." Terms of the deal were not revealed.

Erly was founded by CEO Eric Feng, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which led Airtime's round of financing. … Read more

Is it a problem if Windows 8 boots too quickly?

Really fast boot times on Windows 8 hardly sounds like a problem. But it is. Here's why.

Startup can be so fast that you whiz by familiar sign posts that prompt for input, wrote Chris Clark, a program manager in the Windows User Experience team, today in a Building Windows 8 blog post.

"When you turn on a Windows 8 PC, there's no longer [enough time] to detect keystrokes like F2 or F8, much less time to read a message such as 'Press F2 for Setup'," Clark said.

On a solid-state drive-equipped ultrabook, for example, Windows … Read more

Magnetic football perfect for butterfingers

I'm not one to watch an NFL game on TV or toss around the pigskin in the park, but if I did I would probably benefit from this magnetic football.

Ultimate Reception is a campaign on crowd-funding site IndieGoGo aimed at developing a magnetic football and gloves that improve catching ability.

Actually, the gloves are embedded with powerful magnets that attract a special layer in the football's skin. They're strong enough so that the ball will stick to the glove when the arm is outstretched and palm down. … Read more