Genetically Modify Your Own Frankenbugs, No Lab Necessary

IMG_0004 We often think of bacteria as something bad, but switch a few genes here and there and they have the possibility to detect cancer, prevent mosquitos from transmitting Malaria or produce diesel fuel. But It takes a specialized lab with the proper equipment and a team of programmers running code on machines to genetically modify microorganisms. While academics have these sorts of resources… Read More

Witness Wins The Disrupt NY 2015 Hackathon Grand Prize, Picorico And MoolahMe Are Runners Up

hackathon-winner-better It’s been a long night at the Manhattan Center. Yesterday, we welcomed hundreds of hackers for my favorite Spring tradition — the Disrupt NY Hackathon. Some of them were participating in our event for the first time, while others were regular hackers. Their challenge was to come up with a neat, funny and smart hack in just 24 hours. We could all feel the excitement in the air when… Read More

Pager Turns Your Facebook Pages Into Full-Fledged Websites

Screen Shot 2015-05-03 at 13.04.47 Meet Pager, a neat little hack developed during our 24-hour Disrupt NY Hackathon by a team of three engineers. It’s the perfect idea for small business owners who want to turn their Facebook page into a more traditional website. The team has already worked for restaurant owners, doing freelancer work and teaching them how to update their WordPress websites — in many ways,… Read More

Piper Pied Imitates HBO’s Silicon Valley And Creates Lossless Compression For Online Images

piper-pied Brother and sister team Peter Ma and Nancy Ghaly presented Piper Pied, a lossless compression algorithm for online images, at theDisrtupt NY 2015 Hackathon today. The startup is a “creative spin” on Pied Piper, the startup with a similar lossless compression algorithm for everything that appears in HBO’s Silicon Valley, according to Ghaley. The idea came from a conversation… Read More

My Citi Bike Is A Neat Little Hack That Displays All Your Citi Bike Rides On A Map

citibike There are two things that Andrew Furman loves — riding a Citi Bike, and playing with maps. So when he participated in TechCrunch’s Disrupt NY Hackathon, he mixed these two things together and built a neat little tool. While it is still mostly a work in progress, My Citi Bike is a promising stat page for Citi Bike addicts. “I created a script that logs into the website for… Read More

Google Works To Improve Spam Detection Systems On Google Maps After Obscene Edits

Screen Shot 2015-04-24 at 1.13.46 PM Google says it’s working to improve its spam-detection systems in its Google Maps platform after yet another prank allowed a user to upload an inappropriate image to Google Maps. This most recent image, which showed the Google Android mascot urinating on the Apple logo in the style of those unfortunate Calvin and Hobbes bootleg decals, was apparently uploaded by a Map Maker user… Read More

Why Your Favorite Snapchat Apps No Longer Work

Snapchat Outside of a mobile application’s official product, there tends to exist a broader ecosystem catering the wants and unmet desires of its user community. For Instagram, there are apps to boost your followers; Tinder users could once peer into who likes them and undo their accidental swipes; and dozens Snapchat apps bloomed, allowing users to automatically save incoming photos or… Read More

Why Your Favorite Snapchat Apps No Longer Work

Snapchat Outside of a mobile application’s official product, there tends to exist a broader ecosystem catering the wants and unmet desires of its user community. For Instagram, there are apps to boost your followers; Tinder users could once peer into who likes them and undo their accidental swipes; and dozens Snapchat apps bloomed, allowing users to automatically save incoming photos or… Read More

Tinder Hack Matches Unaware Straight Men, Odd Conversations Ensue

Screenshot 2015-03-25 15.11.24 Flirting can be hard, especially through a screen. But these guys never had a chance, considering they were chatting with other heterosexual male users as part of a clever technological ruse. A hack on Tinder isn’t anything new. More tech-savvy folks have actually dug into the app to automatically swipe right on every potential match, and then there are all the marketers that are… Read More