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Startup Q&A Site Sprouter to Shut Its Doors

Startup Q&A Site Sprouter to Shut Its Doors

We’ve covered Sprouter several times here at ReadWriteStart, recommending the Toronto-based startup as a great resource for entrepreneurs – as both a professional social network and, more recently, as a Q&A site. So it’s sad to hear the news today that Sprouter will be closing its doors.

According to the Sprouter blog, the site will close on…

How to Liberate Your Data from Google (And Why It Matters That You Can)

How to Liberate Your Data from Google (And Why It Matters That You Can)

Anytime you sign up for a new product or service online, you need to ask yourself these three questions, says Google’s Brian Fitzpatrick:

1. Can I get my data out in an open, interchangeable format?
2. How much will it cost me to do so?
3. How much of my time is it going to take to get my data out?

Of course, most of us neglect to ask…

Europe’s Film Heritage Now Available Online

Europe’s Film Heritage Now Available Online

Although we often invoke “Hollywood” when we talk about the movie industry, many of the world’s greatest films and much of the world’s film history comes from outside that Los Angeles district. A nod here goes to the Lumière Brothers, of course, two of the earliest filmmakers. But rousing applause should go to the European Film Gateway, which is…

Humble Bundle Launches Its Third Pay-What-You-Want Video Game Offer

Humble Bundle Launches Its Third Pay-What-You-Want Video Game Offer

The Humble Bundle is set to launch its latest package deal today, continuing its successful “pay-what-you-want” business model with the release of a new bundle containing 5 indie games.

This bundle includes: Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVVV, Hammerfight, and And Yet It Moves. As with the previous Humble Bundles, these games are all…

Big Data, Better Dating:  How OKCupid Helps Users Find Their Perfect Match

Big Data, Better Dating: How OKCupid Helps Users Find Their Perfect Match

Online dating services promise you help finding your “perfect match.” Complete your profile, answer a series of questions, choose a few filters as you search and you’re given a list of singles in your area who are most likely to be a suitable date.

But providing these search results is no easy task. It isn’t simply a matter of identifying…

A Day Without Native Apps:  My Chromebook Experiment

A Day Without Native Apps: My Chromebook Experiment

I’ve had a chance to test-drive a Chromebook already, but having received my very own this week (See disclosure at the end of this post), I decided to see if, indeed, I could make the Web-only netbook work for me. I mean really work for me. Many of the early reviews of the Chromebook suggested that, while it was a great idea and a decent netbook…

33 GB of Scientific Papers – and a Manifesto – Uploaded to Pirate Bay

33 GB of Scientific Papers – and a Manifesto – Uploaded to Pirate Bay

An archive containing over 18,000 scientific papers, downloaded from the academic journal database JSTOR, has been uploaded to The Pirate Bay, where they’re now available as a torrent.

The papers were uploaded by a user named Greg Maxwell who says that his decision to make the large quantity of scientific papers available was a response to the…

FDA to Review Medical Smartphone Apps

FDA to Review Medical Smartphone Apps

The explosion in the number of health-related apps has opened many interesting possibilities for rethinking both mobile and personal medicine. But when the Food and Drug Administration starts a blog post by invoking the Apple slogan “there’s an app for that,” you know the results may well be “there’s a regulation for that.”

Indeed, the FDA is…

A Better Facebook Photo Feed with Pixable, Now With Video Support, Too

A Better Facebook Photo Feed with Pixable, Now With Video Support, Too

If there’s one thing that keeps me coming back to Facebook, it’s the photos. Admittedly, I’ve largely abandoned Facebook as my social network of choice, but it’s still the primary way I can see what all my old high school buddies are up to. But photos often get lost in the shuffle of Facebook status updates, and there’s been no easy way to…

Harry Potter Goes Google for the New Pottermore E-book Site

Harry Potter Goes Google for the New Pottermore E-book Site

JK Rowling’s announcement last month that she would finally be releasing digital versions of the Harry Potter novels was met with great excitement. That’s no surprise as the series is much beloved and Rowling’s announcement timed with the release of the final Harry Potter film. Fans, feeling nostalgic perhaps for the books themselves, are keen to…

White House Challenges Developers:  Build Apps to Prevent Sexual Assault

White House Challenges Developers: Build Apps to Prevent Sexual Assault

Young women face the highest rate of dating violence and sexual assault, with nearly 19% – one in five – women reporting they have experienced sexual assault while in college. The Obama Administration believes that one way to help combat sexual abuse on college campuses may be through mobile phone apps, and with the Department of Health and…

Textbook Rentals Come to the Kindle: Probably Not a Money-Saver

Textbook Rentals Come to the Kindle: Probably Not a Money-Saver

Amazon unveiled a Kindle Textbook Rental, giving students the ability to rent instead of buy digital textbooks. Amazon says that, “tens of thousands” of titles from some of the major textbook publishers – including John WIley & Sons, Wlsevier, and Taylor & Francis – will be available for this school year.

It’s not just the selection that the…