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75 startups pitched their hearts out today at Y Combinator’s 15th Demo Day. We saw surefire small businesses to risky big bets but after collecting opinions from their YCS12 classmates and top VCs, these are TechCrunch’s top 10 picks. Read the full story at TechCrunch. Continue Reading →

Some members of our latest list of young innovators from around the world have developed consumer Web services you might have used, such as Spotify or Dropbox. Others are making more fundamental breakthroughs that have yet to be commercialized, such as more efficient engines or improvements in optical communications. And a few are blazing trails Continue Reading →

You can’t win ’em all. Such is the case with the Curiosity rover, anyway, as diagnostics have revealed that its wind sensors have sustained damage. NASA engineers aren’t fully sure what caused this minor setback to the otherwise successful landing, but hypothesize that stones might’ve been kicked up during the rocket-powered landing, which then struck Continue Reading →

I’ve always been a fan of Stickies, the note application that comes with OS X, but the Dashboard is too far out of mind and notes floating around on my desktop behind windows just isn’t practical. That’s why I love Sticky Notifications, an app from Matt Gemmell that repurposes either Mountain Lion’s Notification Center or Continue Reading →

Google announced Wednesday that any choices you make in your profile’s search settings will now be saved to your account, traveling with you to any logged-in web browser. This means that choices like SafeSearch, Google Instant and languages don’t have to be made on every computer you use, even if they’re public. The settings that Continue Reading →

Microsoft should brace for a user backlash against Windows 8 that will make the company pine for the days of Clippy, according to usability expert Raluca Budiu of the Nielsen Norman Group. During an interview with Laptop Magazine, Budiu said that the billion-plus users around the world who have become accustomed to Windows will experience Continue Reading →

Google on Tuesday introduced a new way to assess the speed of one’s Web browser, a JavaScript benchmark test suite called Octane. Google has long been concerned about the speed of Web applications because slow online interactions drive users away. The company talks about speed constantly and regularly introduces software such as its Page Speed Continue Reading →

People often visit Web sites on their mobile phones as much or more than they do on computers. But that leaves Web companies with a challenge: how to make money on phones, where there is less space for advertisements and people have less patience for them? YouTube thinks it has an answer. On Wednesday, it Continue Reading →

Nikon on Monday announced a new Android-powered compact camera with built-in Wi-Fi, the Nikon Coolpix S800c. While connected cameras with built-in Wi-Fi are nothing new, what is different is the S800c’s operating system, which uses Android 2.3 to run the camera. Android 2.3 is also known as the “Gingerbread” version of Google’s mobile operating system. Continue Reading →

Unlimited wireless data is back. After sliding off the menu of cellphone plans, data plans with no caps are making a comeback at smaller cellphone companies trying to compete with AT&T and Verizon. On Wednesday T-Mobile USA said it will start selling an unlimited-data plan on Sept. 5. It stopped sales of its previous unlimited-data Continue Reading →