• 

  Art and Technology Go Together Like Tang and Tequila at Burning Man

  By Whitney Phaneuf September 7, 2012

  Two incredibly long dust storms, a 10-hour exodus, and three long showers later, I’m physically back from Burning Man. Mentally, I’m still in the temporary city that rises from the northern Nevada desert each year the week before Labor Day. My white MacBook is tinged brown with dust despite staying in a backpack and plastic bag for most of…

  Read More
• 

  How To Do Burning Man? There’s an App for That

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 29, 2012

  Burning Man operates on a gift economy. The only things for sale are ice and coffee, sold by the Burning Man organization. Everything else you better hope you brought with you, or have faith someone will gift it. In a world where people are constantly thinking, “What does this person want from me,” the dogma here is “What can I…

  Read More
• 

  Welcome to Burning Man: Friend to Fire-Shooting Octopus Robots, Enemy of Tesla Roadsters

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 28, 2012

  Elon Musk ruined my first Burning Man. It was 2007 and I found myself in the Green Man Pavilion standing under a carport stacked with solar panels designed to charge electric vehicles. Under the carport was a Tesla Roadster prototype, black plastic curves devoid of any logo, but its identity obvious to anyone who didn’t mistake it for a...

  Read More
• 

  CloudPhysics Launches a Social Network for the Virtual Data Center, Raises $2.5 Million

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 24, 2012

  CloudPhysics CEO and co-founder John Blumenthal will probably cringe at the above headline. His data center analytics platform CloudPhysics, which launched this week after raising $2.5 million from the Mayfield Fund and angels, isn’t exactly a social network. But it’s heavily inspired by the consumer Web. Subscriptions to the beta platform open up next week and offer IT system...

  Read More
• 

  Taking a Cue from Social, Jivox and Music Interactive Partner to Bring Music Downloads to Online Ads

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 23, 2012

  The reward for sitting through an ad used to be the content itself. Now advertisers are searching for incentives that make online ads more sticky. Interactive video ad platform Jivox and branding tool Music Interactive think they’ve found the best bait to reel them in: Free music by cool artists. Rewards and giveaways have been a huge driver...

  Read More
• 

  Live Music App Thrillcall Finds Its Calling, Adds Partners and Expands Into New Cities

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 23, 2012

  When Thrillcall started in 2008 with three people collecting info on live music events, it had one goal in mind: Make sure people don’t miss the show. Six months after the company relaunched as a consumer mobile app, co-founder Matt Tomaszewicz says it has the same mission. But figuring out just how to execute took the startup five years….

  Read More
• 

  While PC Security Leaders Snooze on Mobile, Two Startups Get VC Funding

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 23, 2012

  Two companies focused on securing enterprise data within employee’s device applications closed funding rounds today: Mocana raised a $25 million Series D led by new investor Trident Capital and MobileSpaces closed a $3 million Series A from Accel Partners. If you’re working for a startup, you probably abuse the same devices for work and pleasure. If you work…

  Read More
• 

  Deal Décor Launches Ecommerce for Wholesale Furniture, Direct From China to California

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 23, 2012

  Unless it’s handmade or extremely high-end, most furniture sold in the US is manufactured in China, and the designs are white label, meaning retailers brand and sell identical pieces. Deal Décor figured if we were all buying the same furniture from the same place, there had to be a cheaper way to do it. Today the ecommerce startup launches…

  Read More
• 

  9GAG, the Biggest Little Startup at Y Combinator’s Demo Day

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 21, 2012

  What startups were the big winners at today’s Y Combinator Demo Day? ReelSurfer, who we recently profiled, just closed a $880,000 seed round, and financial-advice engine SmartAsset raised $900,000 in seed funding. We also hear a San Francisco-based travel deals site that’s staying “off the record” will soon announce a big round of funding. But the biggest winner...

  Read More
• 

  New iOS App StrutType Time-Warps Images to the 1880s

  By Whitney Phaneuf August 21, 2012

  [caption id="attachment_36834" align="alignleft" width="225"] StrutType co-founder Christine Summers with her bird, Elvis[/caption] Launching today on iPhone and iPad, StrutType co-founder Christine Summers immediately corrected me when I labeled her product “Instagram filters inspired by the late 1800s.” “This is not a camera app,” says Summers. “This is photography.” StrutType takes the concept of Instagram and Hipstamatic, inspired by…

  Read More

More articles »