Startups Beta-in-a-Box: Prefinery Brings More Services for Pre-Launch Startups Much like competitor LaunchSet, startup support system Prefinery offers beta management software, allowing time-pressed entrepreneurs to buy rather than build these critical systems without reinventing the wheel. A company rep contacted us to tout the service's "feature set that lets entrepreneurs and technologists focus on building a great… Jolie O'Dell View comments
News Skype Sale Reported to be Announced Tomorrow Update: This news is now official. Online telephony service Skype will be sold by eBay to a group of private investors, possibly including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen's new venture capital group, and the deal will be announced on Tuesday according to a report by a team of reporters from the New York Times. EBay faces legal challenges… Marshall Kirkpatrick View comments
Augmented Reality Your Cyborg Eye Will Talk to You Just as many of us are getting used to augmented reality applications for cellphones and digital cameras, Babak Amir Parviz and his University of Washington students are taking it one step further. The group is working on a human machine interface where LEDs are embedded into contact lenses in order to display information to the wearer. You heard… Play Dana Oshiro View comments
Cartoons Cartoon: Annotating the World This past week's buzz phrase (so much so that it was a trending topic on Twitter) was "augmented reality" (or AR), which is what you get when you mix your perception of the world around you with computer-generated information. While still in its infancy, the technology holds the promise that you might one day be able to point your iPhone's camera… Play Rob Cottingham View comments
Social Bookmarking Finding Better Friends: Delicious and SPEAR Between self-aggrandizing FriendFeeds, bottom-feeding link baiters, and perpetual Twitter spammers, finding cool online friends can be challenging. Michael G. Noll and Ching-man Au Yeung created the SPEAR (SPamming-resistant Expertise Analysis and Ranking) algorithm in the hopes of separating the social media wheat from the chaff. This morning… Social Dana Oshiro View comments