TODAY'S COCKTAIL OF TECH STARTUP STORIES:
The latest cocktail of emerging technology news, people, startups, products, and innovations for the true tech enthusiast.
| Who is Tech Cocktail Week's Hottest Showcasing Startup? [POLL] |
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You know the drill. The second week of every month, Tech Cocktail puts on an awesome conference called Tech Cocktail Week held in the emerging utopia that is Downtown Las Vegas. That week is right around the corner, and as part of August’s Tech Cocktail Week, we're thrilled to put on another Tech Cocktail Week Startup Showcase and Mixer. We’ll have a gaggle of startups on hand showcasing their goods, but before the event kicks off, we want to know what you think - who is Tech Cocktail Week’s Hottest Showcasing Startup? Let us know your thoughts by answering the poll at the end of this post (ends at 6:00pm local time on the day of the event - get the official rules here). The winner will be announced live at the event and will receive invitation to Tech Cocktail Celebrate, additional time on stage to share what’s new with their startup, as well as the honor of being recognized as Tech Cocktail Week’s Hottest Showcasing Startup. Don't miss out. The Startups(Startups, apply here) - 3D Film Connection - The NEO3DO 3D Android Tablet allows users to see engaging 3D images without the glasses, and convert all 2D video to 3D, and we have 3D video games, all converted real time and streaming.
- crackpot.cube - The crackpot.cube is a three dimensional, spinning and interactive tool for supreme self-expression. Our product allows its users to upload audio, images, videos, text, e-Magazines, social media pages and e-Commerce (among other things) to the different sides of their cube.
- Klinq - The Klinq app (pronounced 'Clink') is a "Social Beverage Network" that allows users to browse, send and redeem exclusive deals at surrounding venues via their mobile device. The Klinq app can be downloaded for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
- MicroBiz - MicroBiz is cloud-based point of sale/inventory management software for multi-channel retailers seeking to manage their store inventory, ecommerce sites and mobile point of sale terminals from a single platform.
- My Trade Cart - My Trade Cart offers a unique service and item trading platform with deep social media integrations. Being able to communicate with friends, family and colleagues is essential today. My Trade Cart’s platform is built with the trading principle in mind. Users will have the ability to trade items and/or services with people in their network of friends without any cost to them.
- Rich Kids - Rich kids app for iPhone will give this exclusivity to people who can afford it. Yearly fee is $1000 which clearly define rich people and keep the network without any kind of spam content. So both subscribers and fans will profit from interesting photos.
The post Who is Tech Cocktail Week’s Hottest Showcasing Startup? [POLL] appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Timbre: An App for Localized Live Music Discovery |
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Going to live concerts is a treasured pastime, pursued by One Direction-teens and Billy Joel-Gen X-ers alike; indeed, going to live music events is the raison d’être for some. But there’s a lot of music out there, and it’s easy to get into this habit of only attending shows for bands or musicians with which we’re familiar. Where’s the curiosity? The discovery of new sounds? That open spirit often associated with music? Timbre is a localized live music discovery app designed to help you find live shows, with a specific focus on a user’s defined location. “[We're] really focused on discovery rather than scanning your currently library [of music],” says Andrea Squitieri, Director of Marketing for Timbre.
Responding to demands of convenience and functionality, several apps have been created with this function of live music discovery; the most popular among them being Thrillcall, Songkick, and Bandsintown. But whereas these other apps find shows based on a user’s pre-selected preferences, social media activity, or current music libraries – finding shows for bands and musicians that are already have a user’s cognizance – Timbre encourages users to discover new bands and acts in their local area. “[Timbre] has a minimal interface that’s really more about getting you to discover what’s playing around the corner on a Friday night…rather than alerting you on your favorite bands.”
The app’s lack of a filter emphasizes Timbre’s goal for new music discovery; users are only given the option to search by a specific city or near their current location. No details are provided per band or musician listed other than their names and the date of their performance(s). Selecting a show prompts a sample song of the band or musician to begin playing, helping the user to determine their interest in attendance, as well as giving them the opportunity to purchase that band’s or musician’s music directly from iTunes. The app doesn’t promote or highlight any bands, allowing for both globally-acclaimed bands and local musicians to share the same space. Timbre is a product of Intrepid Pursuits, a Cambridge-based, mobile development company that does a lot of work with and for other startups. The idea behind Timbre, and its focus on local band discovery, originated from the company’s CTO, Matt Bridges. Last May, Bridges attended a local hackathon focused on connecting and disconnecting communities. Timbre was inspired by an independent musician at the event, who shared his frustration with the inefficiencies and inabilities associated with distributing awareness of upcoming performances in other parts of the country. Hence, Timbre became a music discovery app that focuses primarily on user-defined geographical area. Timbre will be at this week’s Tech Cocktail Boston Mixer & Startup Showcase. It recently released an update of its app wherein users can save upcoming shows and further ease the user experience, allowing for one-press calendar integration and quick-access map/directions. The post Timbre: An App for Localized Live Music Discovery appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Health Wildcatters Announces Inaugural Accelerator Class |
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The new healthcare seed accelerator Health Wildcatters, co-founded by technology accelerator Tech Wildcatters, today released the 12 companies chosen for their inaugural program. This is the first healthcare accelerator Southwestern America has ever seen, and six of the startups are relocating to Dallas for the opportunity to be involved. "These businesses will have a meaningful impact on healthcare in the very near future," says Dr. Hubert Zajicek, co-founder of Health Wildcatters.
The program centers on startups in the healthcare field that innovate, improve quality of care, and save lives. During the program, which is scheduled to last three months, the startups will learn from and work with over 70 mentors to ready themselves for investment opportunities. The inaugural Health Wildcatters class is: - 20over8: A vision testing system that goes beyond the standard eye chart to reflect realistic, real-world testing conditions.
- Care Starter: An app that gives patients access to information and resources to better manage life with a chronic medical condition.
- Cariloop: They host a digital platform which provides access to real-time information about geriatric care and service providers.
- Fraud ID Standard Technology: A system for the prevention of healthcare fraud through a real-time database system.
- KinesioKinect: They enable the use of mobile technologies and motion sensors to lower healthcare costs while improving patient outcomes.
- MakeMyPlate: An engine that guides the decisions for daily food intake by making the process visual, fun, and easy.
- MyCounsel: A platform that delivers mental healthcare providers and consumers greater access to data-based care.
- NeuroTek: They develop non-invasive, electronic neuromodulation devices for the treatment of migraines and other diseases.
- PT PAL: A personalized digital physical therapy tool to help people do their physical therapy at home and track compliance.
- Remind Technologies: They develop patient-centric medication adherence technologies that allow patients to take charge of their own health.
- Socrates Health Solutions: They invented a non-invasive blood glucose monitoring system.
- SPAtaneity: A professional nail salon experience for those living with diabetes, cancer, and other immune-suppressed conditions.
In the wake of this news, join us in further celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit at Tech Cocktail's Dallas Mixer & Startup Showcase this Thursday, August 29th. The post Health Wildcatters Announces Inaugural Accelerator Class appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| 3 Surprising Reasons Distributed Teams Work Better |
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I’ve been shocked by something I’ve observed recently – most of the highest-performing teams that I know are distributed teams. Companies like 37signals, WooThemes, and Buffer are multimillion-dollar companies built by teams distributed around the world. As I studied those companies more closely, I learned why their distributed teams are so successful, and the counterintuitive ways they turned their distributed nature from a disadvantage born of necessity into a competitive advantage. 1. You’re more productive because you’re forced to work asynchronouslyWith a distributed team, you’re rarely working at the same time as your colleagues, given that you’re spread across multiple timezones. It’s tough to communicate and solve problems in real-time, and that’s a major reason people find distributed teams to be less efficient. Zach Holman, a developer at GitHub, takes the opposite position. He implores other companies to “be asynchronous.” To Holman, the restriction of not being able to communicate in real-time as easily is actually a strength, because your work won’t be interrupted as often and you can get into the zone. Here at iDoneThis, we’ve seen the power of working asynchronously, as our product makes it easy for distributed teams (including ourselves) to sync – it’s like having a daily standup but without having to schedule a Skype call across multiple timezones. An asynchronous sync-up allows the team to communicate while focusing on what’s important, instead of fretting about performing in front of their peers or forgetting to relay information while in the moment, like you so often see in standups. 2. You have a tighter company culture because you’re able to hire for culture fit regardless of locationHistorically, company culture has been defined by the ping pong tables and yoga balls in your office. It’s cultivated by those small, daily interactions you have with coworkers in the office, and you don’t get much of that with a distributed team. However, with a co-located team, you have one major restriction when it comes to company culture: you can only hire people who are either in your city or willing to move. That cuts out a huge portion of the population. At WooThemes, a distributed company that began outside of a major tech hub in South Africa, they’ve made hiring for their remote team into an advantage: they can “hire top talent from anywhere in the world.” That means they’re able to hire for culture fit regardless of location, rather than being restricted to hiring for both culture fit and location. 3. You communicate better remotely than in person because you’re more deliberate about using technologyIt’s obvious that it’s easier to communicate in a shared office. The downside of that obviousness is that co-located teams often take communication for granted. They just assume they’re communicating well without putting deliberate effort into it. Strong distributed teams know that communication is a potential hazard, and so they put in extra, deliberate effort to ensure that they’re communicating well – which flips the communication weakness into a real strength. At Zapier, a distributed team that’s one of the web’s hottest startups, they don’t just use email and that’s it, like many teams in a shared office. They use 10+ tech tools to help them communicate including Sqwiggle for always-on video chat, Campfire for text chat, and and their own tool, Zapier, for connecting these services together. The challenges of working in a distributed company usually come to light far more quickly. The upside is that it gives distributed teams a chance to build a resilient working dynamic and solid processes into their foundation. It may take more effort and thought, but the result can be a high level of focus and function, fashioned with great consciousness around aspects of time, culture, and communication. Guest author Walter Chen is cofounder of iDoneThis, an easy way to celebrate your accomplishments with your team at work, every day. He writes about management and productivity at the iDoneThis blog and he tweets at @smalter. The post 3 Surprising Reasons Distributed Teams Work Better appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Undroppable: Watch These Powerful Videos from Would-Be Dropouts |
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When Cynthia Gallardo was seven, the police banged on her door and arrested her dad in the middle of the night. She's moved from home to home, watching in fear as her mother gets beaten by her boyfriend. Gallardo got pregnant at 16, but she stayed in school. "I want better for myself," she says. "I wanted better for my daughter, so I pushed myself."
Gallardo's story is featured in a video by Undroppable, a social media campaign to help prevent high schoolers from dropping out. Students share stories of their hardships, from poverty to pregnancy, and end each video by saying, "I am undroppable." These videos will be featured in a 2014 documentary called Undroppable. After Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun signed on as an Undroppable producer, Bieber himself tweeted Gallardo's video and drove a whopping 75,000 views to it. Anchorman director Adam McKay has also joined the project. Undroppable has been featured in Time magazine, and creator Jason Pollock was invited by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on his Back-to-School Bus Tour last year. In the beginning, Pollock partnered with Get Schooled and brought his video camera to six schools last April. Many of these schools were in troubled communities, marred by crime and poverty and the bad reputation of high dropout rates. Pollock sat down with each student for 30 minutes, recording their story on video. Once a stranger to social media, Pollock taught himself the ropes to promote his first film, The Youngest Candidate. Soon, he found himself with tens of thousands of followers and working for Rock the Vote, the Oprah Show, and Ashton Kutcher. He likens Undroppable to the "It Gets Better" campaign that gives hope to LGBT youth. Three words – "I am undroppable" – say so much. They help students cultivate a confidence they probably don't have – the certainty that they'll persevere, the sheer impossibility that they will drop out. They sound like "I am unstoppable." And hearing those words in the kids' voices is worth so much more than any marketing campaign that any corporation could dream up. "We rarely give these kids the mic. They're amazing. And they never get any respect," says Pollock. "A kid that might be thinking about dropping out doesn't want to listen to their parents and doesn't want to listen to their teachers or their principal, but they might want to listen to their friend and their peer."
In the past year and a half, Undroppable has spread to 18 schools around the country. Pollock doesn't do all the videotaping anymore; instead, he sends them curriculum on how to make videos and spread them on social media. And the initial results are promising: in Schenectady, where Pollock gave a Drake-inspired graduation speech, the dropout rate went down 26 percent this year. At Joplin High School, it went down by around 16 percent. Fewer dropouts – and all the trickle-down effects that follow – are something that almost everyone can get behind. "Education is the silver bullet," says Pollock. "If we fix our education system, if we fix our dropout rate, we're going to fix all these other issues. . . . We'll see a better environment if we're making smarter people; we'll see less wars if we're making smarter people; we'll see healthier food if we're making smarter people. But at the end of the day, if we're failing students and our youth, we're never going to really get ahead." The post Undroppable: Watch These Powerful Videos from Would-Be Dropouts appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| 5 Reasons to Choose Outlook over Everything Else |
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If you run a small business, one of the biggest decisions you can make is which web tools and email program to use. Microsoft Outlook is the choice du jour for many companies right now, and it has been for years. Anyone who’s worked in an office is probably familiar with Outlook because by and large it’s the most popular tool in administration. What makes Outlook so great? Take a look at the many pros and a few cons of this widely used program. From startups to mega-corporations, companies find many reasons to put Outlook on top…but there are also some impressive up-and-comers. 1. Pro: good filtersUnlike other programs, Outlook has very strong filters for keeping spam at bay. This helps to keep employees’ time clear because they’re not having to sift through junk throughout the day and scramble to keep their email box clean. It can also keep the company safe because employees won’t be tempted to download or click on a potentially dangerous email. 2. Pro: user friendlyAlmost anyone can easily pick up how to organize email in Outlook – even the new hire who’s not tech-savvy at all. Mail grouping, simple search tools, and features like Snappy get everyone easily on board. Few people need to call in tech support to help with Outlook, and that’s a good thing. Again, little time and money are wasted. 3. Pro: simple integrationWhen a system has been around for this long, nearly all the bugs have been worked out and integration is pretty much a done deal. Outlook plays nice with almost every other system and program out there, and it’s designed to connect with a variety of social media platforms. Unlike newer programs, it’s “been there, done that” and rarely will anyone encounter problems working in various programs. 4. Pro: you get numerous accountsWith Outlook, managing numerous accounts is a breeze, whether a person is using Hotmail or some other linked account as well. This is especially important for busy administrative staff who have a lot on their plate. 5. Pro: safe downloadsYou’ll have no concerns when downloading updates for Outlook since it’s one of the most secure programs available. Plain text is the default and images are never downloaded automatically. This helps keep work computers secure from hackers and also keeps them running quickly so that workers can get more done. Con: too many optionsOutlook might be easy to use, but there are so many options that it can be overwhelming for newbies. To set up customized Outlook is a lot of work. For someone who’s used to an older version of the software, newer versions have moved some items to different folders, which can have employees stuck on a wild goose chase for a while. Con: rigid templatesSome users have complained that the email templates leave something to be desired. This may improve in future versions, but unfortunately, a lot of admin workers depend on templates today. To get a better look, managers might need to encourage people to put in a little more work customizing templates…or provide a company-wide option for branding purposes. How can a business decide whether Outlook is its best choice, or it should go with another reputable option? Most people have used Outlook at least once, and if it worked well, it’s definitely the safe alternative. Managers can also rest assured that most people have at least some experience with the program. It’s tried and tested, and a safe bet is typically a good idea for a business. Guest author Drew Hendricks is a tech, social media and environmental addict. He’s written for many major publishers such as National Geographic and Technorati. The post 5 Reasons to Choose Outlook over Everything Else appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| WIN Free Accommodations + 2 Tickets to Tech Cocktail Celebrate |
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- Startup enthusiasts, rejoice! - In case you’ve been living under a rock (or The Rock) for the last couple of months, Tech Cocktail is putting on the startup celebration of the year, (aptly named) Tech Cocktail Celebrate. Throughout the year we’ve toured the country uncovering the hottest startups in more than 25 cities. On October 23 – 25, we’re going to pin the hottest of the hot against one another for the chance to win the first Tech Cocktail Chalice and to earn the title of The Nation’s Hottest Startup. The event will feature a slew of big name speakers and judges as well, including Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, WordPress Cofounder, Matt Mullenweg, and Digg Cofounder, Jay Adelson, amongst many others. As if that weren’t enough, we’ll be unveiling a few more surprises over the coming weeks. In summation, this is going to be a big deal. You want to be here. The SweepstakesOne lucky winner will win: - Two (2) tickets to Tech Cocktail Celebrate, and
- A free two-nights stay at The Golden Nugget (October 23th & 24th)
That bears repeating… This is your opportunity to win two tickets to Celebrate and free lodging in Downtown Vegas. All we want to know is: How do you Celebrate your startup’s success??? The contests ends at 12:00AM EST, this Saturday, August 31st. Enter by answering the question in the Rafflecopter form below. You can earn additional entries – just follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter form. To earn credit for Tweeting about the giveaway, simply include a link back to this post. The below tweet will do: “.@TechCocktail asks, “How do you Celebrate your Startup’s Success?” + how to WIN tickets to Tech Cocktail Celebrate: http://techco.tl/136U9xo“ Cheers! a Rafflecopter giveaway
The post WIN Free Accommodations + 2 Tickets to Tech Cocktail Celebrate appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
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