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It’s midnight.
The city is alive with Saturday night fever, and Pier 94 is just as awake, and perhaps a bit more drunk. Tequila shots (and plenty of beers) are flowing, along with Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Energy Bites.
In other words, this place is like one giant vat of FourLoko, topped with a sprinkling of coders. For the most part, they seem ready for anything. We’ve heard that the majority of them are ahead of schedule, which is good news considering that the alcohol-induced energy rush will only last so long.
We caught up with Jake, a 15-year old hacker who’s back for the second time to code away, along with Matt Hall, co-founder and CEO of Docracy and former Hackathon winner, and both seemed confident in their hacks. However, Jake has all the energy in the world (despite eating basically nothing), while Matt says he’s typing at a rate of one character per minute. Clearly, youth is an advantage once the clock strikes midnight.
We also brought along some Nerf Vortex blasters (the ones that shoot discs) so that the hackers could take a break and let loose a bit, which basically means that the floor of Pier 94 is currently littered with little green discs.
All in all, the hackers are hitting their stride with about 11 hours left to perfect not only their product, but their presentations. We’ll keep you updated on the action as it’s happening.
Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer, Sarah Tavel, Fred Wilson, and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge.
If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here. Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. You can find the full agenda here.
It’s midnight.
The city is alive with Saturday night fever, and Pier 94 is just as awake, and perhaps a bit more drunk. Tequila shots (and plenty of beers) are flowing, along with Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Energy Bites.
In other words, this place is like one giant vat of FourLoko, topped with a sprinkling of coders. For the most part, they seem ready for anything. We’ve heard that the majority of them are ahead of schedule, which is good news considering that the alcohol-induced energy rush will only last so long.
We caught up with Jake, a 15-year old hacker who’s back for the second time to code away, along with Matt Hall, co-founder and CEO of Docracy and former Hackathon winner, and both seemed confident in their hacks. However, Jake has all the energy in the world (despite eating basically nothing), while Matt says he’s typing at a rate of one character per minute. Clearly, youth is an advantage once the clock strikes midnight.
We also brought along some Nerf Vortex blasters (the ones that shoot discs) so that the hackers could take a break and let loose a bit, which basically means that the floor of Pier 94 is currently littered with little green discs.
All in all, the hackers are hitting their stride with about 11 hours left to perfect not only their product, but their presentations. We’ll keep you updated on the action as it’s happening.
Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer, Sarah Tavel, Fred Wilson, and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge.
If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here. Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. You can find the full agenda here.
It’s been about eight hours since our big Disrupt Hackathon kicked off, and all of our intrepid hackers have been busy letting the code (and the caffeine) fly ever since.
I managed to tear a few of them away from their work (these folks are pretty motivated, so it took a bit of doing) to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they’ve been trying to crank out during the wee hours of the morning.
Devon Peticolas
Devon is a senior at Rutgers University (and the newly-minted president of the school’s undergrad CS club). As you might imagine, he’s no stranger to hackathons either — he can’t quite put his finger on it, but he’s probably in the “double digits” at this point.
He’ll be spending the night working on a mobile web app that allows users to find their friends in a crowd through sort of a hot-and-cold approach — if all goes well, a phone will vibrate when it’s pointing in the direction of a user’s friend, and will vibrate even stronger as the two people get closer to each other.
Peter Verrillo
Peter is the CEO of a company called EnHatch, and during the day he works on creating apps to help promote, demo, and sell medical devices for use in surgery.
He and his team specialize in creating those 3D apps for the iPad, but he’s looking to spend his time at the Hackathon bringing that 3D experience to the iPhone. The app he’s working on tonight deals with slightly less gruesome fare — instead, it aims to walk users through the process of putting together Ikea furniture.
“If Ikea had a good app, this would be it,” he told me.
Dasara Kushi
This is Dasara’s second Hackathon (her first was a photo-centric event), and this time around she and her partner Ronn have decided to spend their night building a web app that uses a computer’s built-in webcam to analyze a user’s face and suggest places for them to go in real time.
“If you look sad, it’ll tell you to go to a comedy club,” said told me.
Their project makes pretty extensive use of the faceAPI, but there’s still plenty of work to do — they’re both still looking at pulling in new data from different APIs, to make the service more robust, but thankfully the night is still young.
Jared Zoneraich
Jared is a 14-year old hacker who attends Bergen Academy, and he’s quite excited to stay up and have fun here at his very first Hackathon. His project of choice? Nothing less than an ad delivery service, of course.
“If I weren’t doing this, I’d be doing homework,” he said.
His hacker idols include Mark Zuckerberg as well as seasoned iPhone cracker George “geohot” Hotz, who just so happened to attend Bergen back in the day as well.
Pavan Krishnamurthy
Pavan and his teammates are cranking away on an iOS app that will tell you what sort of music people in different cities are listening to – a noble and clever goal. Cities that tend to listen to faster-paced music on Rdio are labelled ‘hot,’ while more laid-back cities (Chicago in their mockup) are tagged with the “chill” label.
His team’s mockups look pretty darned solid, but we’ll soon see if the finished product lives up to their ambitions. When he’s not hacking, Pavan works at Bloomberg and (like Jared) looks up to Mark Zuckerberg as his own hero hacker.
Jon Gottfried
Jon works for Twilio (during the day) and dons his hacker cape when night falls. He and his buddies are working on a system for A/B testing Amazon products tonight — not the sexiest idea the in the world sure, but that system is only part of his team’s plan.
They hope that their testing system can be used to determine consumer desires, and use that information to whip up a subscription service — Thingscription — that’s focused on delivering those goods to people on a regular basis.
Octavian Costache
The royally-named Octavian (or Vivi, as he’s also known) and his teammates are working on a second-screen app that provides users with additional context as they watch Game of Thrones, which is probably one of the geekier endeavors we’ve spotted today. Need to figure out why that guy just got stabbed? Or some lesser-known facet of some clan’s convoluted family tree? Keep your eyes peeled on this guy.
Incidentally, he is totally in love with the Khalisi (because of the dragons, not the other thing) and his Twitter is Okvivi.
Karina Ruzinov
Karina goes to Rutgers (there’s a pretty large contingent of Rutgers kids, it would seem) and is spending her summer interning for Refinery 29. She studies Computer Science and Math and she says the student parties are real ragers.
She and her team are working on a app that helps people come up with names for their Hackathon projects. It’s not quite ready for primetime yet, but when it is, it aims to inspire people by providing synonyms and rhymes for words that embody their particular project’s spirit.
Victoria Mo
Victoria is a Master’s Student in Computer Science at Columbia University and her tech role model is none other than Google’s Marissa Mayer.
She and her team are working feverishly on an app that helps users find the hottest clubs in town (and not the hottest clubs in Ontario, as it sounded when we first heard the pitch). They aim to accomplish that by posting images and videos of the clubs’ exteriors so people will be able to quickly determine how popular a particular venue is.
What a week. After eight years, Mark Zuckerberg takes Facebook public at a $104 billion valuation. His longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan gets her medical degree from the UC San Francisco. He has his 28th birthday.
And to top it all off, they get married today! Mazel tov.
Apparently, the wedding had been in the works for four to five months, according to a source authorized to speak on behalf of the couple. It wasn’t tied to the IPO, but rather Chan’s graduation from medical school on Monday.
About 100 of their closest friends and family showed up at the backyard of their Palo Alto home, thinking they were going to celebrate Chan’s graduation. When they arrived, they were told it was a wedding. “It was a surprise,” the source tells us.
Zuckerberg gave her a ruby ring he designed himself, which Chan had never seen until today. The food came from their two favorite restaurants, Palo Alto Sol and Fuki Sushi, and they shared it family style. For dessert, they served Burdick chocolate mice (which is what the pair ate on their very first date!)
Chan and Zuckerberg met more than nine years ago while at Harvard. In this cute story from the Harvard Crimson seven years ago, Zuckerberg asked her, “Hey Priscilla, do you want a job at the Facebook?”
“I’d love a job at Facebook,” she responded, offering him a Twizzler.
How things have changed. What an amazing ride for the pair and for the company, and hopefully a lot longer to go too.
There’s a strong murmur in the room with random spurts of excitement. Hackers and coders have teamed up and mostly (hopefully) decided on a project. There are only 15 hours left. But night is approaching. That’s when things tend to get loopy thanks to the sudden influx of food and beer.
So far the event has been fantastic. There’s a 3:2 ratio of Macs vs PCs. Epic t-shirts are everywhere. Caffeine is flowing thanks to Red Bull and Outburst Energy Bites.
The event runs until tomorrow morning. Coding a fantastic app is just part of the fun. Starting at 11:00 am tomorrow morning, teams will have one minute to present their project, hopefully winning over the judges for a shot to present at TechCrunch Disrupt. But first the participants need to make it through the night.
Click to view slideshow.
Hackers aren’t necessarily known for their fashion sense. Most of the time, a t-shirt and jeans is as far as it goes. But there are certain circumstances in which it’s clear that hackers pay a little extra attention after rolling out of bed in the morning. The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon is one of those instances, but that doesn’t mean that the go-to jeans and T have been abandoned.
Even better, our hackers are choosing to express themselves through the t-shirts, and I have to say that they’re some of the coolest I’ve seen. Last year in San Francisco, most of our hackers had something on their heads, whether it was a baseball cap, headphones, an Ushanka, or even a shower cap.
This year, it’s all about the classic T, but with a coder’s spin.
Without further ado, these are the most badass t-shirts of the TC Disrupt NYC Hackathon:
Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer, Sarah Tavel, Fred Wilson, and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge.
If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here. Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. You can find the full agenda here.
Hackers aren’t necessarily known for their fashion sense. Most of the time, a t-shirt and jeans is as far as it goes. But there are certain circumstances in which it’s clear that hackers pay a little extra attention after rolling out of bed in the morning. The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon is one of those instances, but that doesn’t mean that the go-to jeans and T have been abandoned.
Even better, our hackers are choosing to express themselves through the t-shirts, and I have to say that they’re some of the coolest I’ve seen. Last year in San Francisco, most of our hackers had something on their heads, whether it was a baseball cap, headphones, an Ushanka, or even a shower cap.
This year, it’s all about the classic T, but with a coder’s spin.
Without further ado, these are the most badass t-shirts of the TC Disrupt NYC Hackathon:
Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer, Sarah Tavel, Fred Wilson, and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge.
If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here. Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. You can find the full agenda here.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Toeman is a founder of Dijit Media, a startup whose vision is to create the ultimate “hyperpersonalised social TV guide” mobile experience. Jeremy has over 11 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, social TV and consumer technology working with companies like Sling Media, Mediabolic, Boxee, Clicker, VUDU, and more. Follow him on Twitter@jtoeman.
Last time I took a look at the most over-hyped topics of the Future of TV, and I thought a great follow-up would be to look at the reverse case. After all, it’s easy to sit there and critique, but what about the positive side, where’s the action happening but not being talked about as much as it could be? Here are four things going on in the TV industry that definitely don’t get enough respect…
Open Platforms
Did you know that many cable/satellite/telephone providers have created APIs to communicate and/or control their set top boxes over either home networks and/or the Internet? That’s right, the dinosaurs who are sitting on old technology have opened access to their (formerly) closed systems. If that’s not sinking in clearly enough and I’m not saying this to pitch the company or anything, but by way of example, at Dijit we have the ability to interact with set top boxes that exist in approximately 30 million households today. Just think about it – a _insert cable company name here_ cable box is just as mashup-able as Craigslist.
AirPlay for the rest of us
First, let’s knock another topic off right here: the Apple TV isn’t about being a standalone product, it’s about being an awesome accessory to iPads (which is why it’s effectively the top selling ‘Internet streamer’ over the past 3 years). Works much better when you think of it that way, eh? The flagship feature of Apple TV? AirPlay. If you are “in” the iOS ecosystem, you know how well AirPlay works. If you don’t, you are truly missing out – and I don’t mean you need to rush out to buy one, I mean you need to see how this works: user picks up iPhone/iPad, user finds content, user hits Play, user hits AirPlay to AppleTV, user sees content playing on TV, user enjoys cool refreshing beverage while watching Internet content on TV. Win.
Compare that to any TV-based “10 foot user interface” experience, and you’ll understand the difference. But here’s where it gets interesting: there are a good half-dozen or so startups working on this, not to mention consumer electronics companies like Samsung and others who have already deployed solutions. Granted not one of them is as slick as Airplay, but the era of “fumble around terribly designed menus on your TV” is coming to end, and I for one couldn’t be happier about it. I guarantee a couple of years worth of fragmentation ahead, but either way, the future of interfaces is a bright one.
Death of the content genre
The other day I was trying to reclassify some of my music, and I realized terms like Pop, Alternative, and even Rock are poorly suited to today’s immense breadth of music offerings (and WTF is Adult Alternative anyway???). We are in the age of the micro-niche, driven much due to the growth of Indie music dating back to the 90s. I believe the same fragmentation of big, generic genres like Comedy and Drama will occur in fairly short order.
Considering the rise to 500 channels with the infusion of short and long form Internet videos, the cross-over between content formats is pretty much already here. When I look at the results of most TV recommendations engines, and by that I mean Netflix, I see an increasingly disparate view on content. Am I more interested in Witty TV Comedies (which blends King of the Hill, the Dick Van Dyke Show, Black Adder, 30 Rock, Cheers, and Archer) or Dysfunctional-Family TV Dramas (featuring Rescue Me, Weeds, and My-So-Called Life)? And while I’m at it, why is Portlandia similar to Twin Peaks? Protip: it’s not.
Bottom line here is expect more and more filters, views, and correspondingly value placed on matching people with the micro-niche hipsteresque genres that describes them, uniquely. Second protip: stop trying to recommend shows because I like Arrested Development, it stand alone.
Who’s Going to Disrupt the TV Industry? The TV Industry
The Internet has disrupted a great many things, and we’ve seen startups emerge to tear down many sectors. Craigslist, started by one dude, disrupted newspapers. eBay owns Christie’s. Music was killed by, well, it seems like the Internet and poor business models, as opposed to startups per se. But when it comes to TV, it’s just not as simple as all that. I can name almost two dozen startups who thought they could just run on down to Hollywood, buy up some content, and start a business – all are now dead. I’ve seen almost as many think they could do the same thing by just trying to use some “trick” through the system to accomplish the same. Most are already dead. Even Google has now twice failed in their attempt to court the content industry.
But we can see the signs that disruption could and should occur. I’d argue, however, that the real interesting thing happening is the intra-industry battles. At last year’s Cable Show, for example, multiple cable companies showed their services running as “apps” inside Smart TV ecosystems. Comcast, as another example, has OnDemand (broadcast video on demand), StreamPix (Internet video on demand), DVR, TVEverywhere, and other ways to deliver you content. What happens if they decide to bring their services outside their existing geographical boundaries? What happens when cable co’s actually leverage devices like Xboxes to deliver fully authenticated content offerings? What happens when NBC decides Hulu is a bad investment, and creates an openly accessible content feed using third party authentication? What happens when local affiliates continue to get squeezed out of the business?
We can and should expect to see cracks in the system. But I don’t think it’s about cord cutting and little startups. This is the Barzinis teaming up with the Tattaglias to take out Vito, and I hate to say it, but Silicon Valley’s no more than a Clemenza, at best. But there is war a-coming, and there will be great opportunities for startups to rise to great heights if they understand how the system works today, and what’s coming down the pipe. Pun intended, don’t forget to tip your waiter.
It’s been just over nine months since Google announced their intentions to acquire hardware manufacturer Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, and now it seems that the final pieces of the deal have fallen into place.
According to a new report from the Associated Press, Chinese officials have finally given the Google-Motorola deal their blessing.
China’s official approval of the deal has been a long time coming — Google managed to score regulatory approvals from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission back in February (on the same day no less), but China’s anti-monopoly bureau leapt into action just a few days later. That period of intense regulatory scrutiny is a routine part of the purchasing process, as every company that makes more than 400 million yuan ($63 million) in China and 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) globally is subject to the process.
Google and Motorola originally expected to close the deal in “early 2012″, and it turns out they weren’t too far from the market. With this final approval in place, Google has confirmed that they expect purchase to be completed some time next week.
With the long process of purchasing Motorola Mobility finally drawing to a close, Google seems to be shifting their attention to the process of selling hardware on their own. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Google was looking at fleshing out the Devices section of the Google Play Store with unlocked smartphones and tablets — all of them “lead” devices — from up to five major hardware manufacturers. Now that Google will have their own in-house hardware team, it stands to reason that they might soon offer their own devices alongside those from hardware partners like Samsung and HTC.
The anticipation is palpable.
Hundreds of hackers have congregated outside Manhattan’s Pier 94, planning, strategizing, and praying to baby Jesus that their fates will be similar to those of Group.me and Docracy. We’ve seen plenty of Hackathon winners go on to do incredible things, make millions of dollars, and rise to startup stardom levels, but the journey isn’t a simple one.
Click to view slideshow.
Let me paint a little word picture for you:
The hackers will be in a massive warehouse for the next 24 hours and beyond. They’ll have API sponsors and helpful workshops, sure, but the challenge of creating a product, or even a prototype, all comes down to them. Red Bull will be an unavoidable temptation, especially after a couple hours staring at white code on a black background.
They know they might crash, but they don’t care. They need the energy. Snacks will abound, and snacks are all they have time for anyway. A huge meal is sure to weigh down the belly and slow their pace.
After a few hours, fights are destined to break out. Maybe it’s a disagreement over which API to use, or which color the UI should be, or really anything. They’re under an insane amount of pressure, and even the slightest frustration or hindrance can cause a major break. Teams will turn against each other, and joyously reunite after a few moments of pensive reflection.
When the clock strikes midnight, that’s when things get loopy. The empty cans of Red Bull will be joined by full cans of beer, heads and shoulders will begin to slump, and the fights that have since been resolved will resurface.
Certain members of various teams will begin practicing their presentations, most certainly distracting other teams from their work, but this is, after all, a competition. The coffee pot will be refilled twice as often for the rest of the Hackathon, and bean bags, tables and even cold, hard floors will be converted into napping pads.
And alas, the sun will rise. Obstacles will be overcome. Prototypes will be completed. Presentations will be perfected.
And perhaps, just maybe, the beginning of a beautiful story will be written.
Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler, along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer, Sarah Tavel, Fred Wilson, and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge.
If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here. Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley. You can find the full agenda here.
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