The hottest new startups from around the world show what they’ve got and compete in front of tech’s most influential judges.
t Every year, over 50,000 people stream into Austin, Texas for SXSW‘s Music, Film and Interactive festivals.
t SXSW’s Interactive component is a celebration of technical innovation and is famous for being the place where Twitter, FourSquare, and countless other tech companies first launched.
t To mark this, each year they hold a high-profile competition where the hottest new startups from around the world show what they’ve got and compete in front of tech’s most influential judges for prizes and recognition.
t Want to know what’s hot right now? Check out this year’s winners.
Skully Helmets: augmented reality for your motorcycle
t Imagine a heads-up display in your motorcycle helmet that directs you to your destination, gives you the weather, alerts you to calls, and lets you control your tunes. That’s just what Skully Helmets (San Francisco) is providing with Skully AR-1: the world’s first fully integrated augmented reality motorcycle helmet.
Samba: video messaging with reactions
t With Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, mobile messaging is hot, hot, hot. Samba (Tel Aviv) puts a new spin on mobile messaging with their app that lets you send your friends videos, captures their reactions as they’re watching them, and then shares those reactions back with you. See them laugh, cry, smile, scratch their heads in confusion. With Samba, the company seeks to recreate the warmth of face-to-face interaction even from the technical isolation of our devices.
ThriveOn: strengthening your mental health
t How does your mental health stack up across the dimensions of mood, stress, anxiety, body image and sleep? Take their assessment and ThriveOn (San Francisco) will provide you a full report and build you personalized programs, in collaboration with professionals, to strengthen your mental health and help you build new, healthier habits.
Synbiota: the changing face of scientific research
t Biotechnology is an incredibly exciting field that uses biology to develop products that improve our health and lives. But much of today’s research is locked away in academia and big companies. Synbiota (Montreal) wants to change this by bringing the collaborative principles that made the Internet great to scientific research. They want to make it as easy to engineer DNA as it is to engineer a software application. To do this, they’re providing an open science platform that reduces barriers, encourages collaboration and provides a marketplace for scientists everywhere.
Trustev: eliminating fraud
t If you’ve got an online retail store, you know that fraud can be a huge concern, robbing you of both time and revenue. Trustev (Ireland) addresses this with identify verification software that enables them to detect suspicious activity and identify known fraudsters. Let them worry about the fraudsters so that you can focus on your real customers.
Waygo: instant translation
t Traveling to a foreign country and wondering how you’ll cope with the basics like ordering meals at restaurants? Waygo (Providence, RI) wants to help with their smartphone app that provides instant translation into your own language. Simply point your phone’s camera at foreign text and the app will display its translation for you.
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