hackathon

The 404 1,266: Where our boss fights are anticlimactic (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Wolfenstein: The New Order set for current, next-gen consoles.

- How a 17-year-old girl hacked her way to a spoiler-free "Game of Thrones."

- Downloadify lets Chrome users copy MP3s of Spotify songs for 24 hours.

- Nintendo's big problem, according to CNN.… Read more

Facebook and Gates Foundation join forces to promote education

Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have joined forces again to help develop more tech tools for education and learning. It's time for HackEd 2.0.

The tech giants will be hosting two all-day hackathons this month, a Facebook spokesperson told CNET. More than 20 teams of tech education enthusiasts, education experts, and top-notch developers will spend April 9 at Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters brainstorming, coding, and building apps. A similar event will take place on April 24 in Facebook's London office.

Those apps then will be judged by a panel of experts -- including … Read more

Google Glass hackathons coming up in SF and NY

Google announced today that it is throwing two hackathons for developers to get to know and work on its Google Glass project. The people allowed to participate in the events are those who agreed to fork over $1,500 for the developer edition of the wearable device.

"It's the first opportunity for a group of developers to get together and develop for Glass," Google told CNET.

The hackathons are slated to be two days long and take place in San Francisco on January 28 and 29 and in New York on February 1 and 2. Those developers … Read more

Superstorm Sandy 'hurricane hackers' gather to help

A new kind of digital activist has emerged from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy this week -- the hurricane hacker.

This weekend, an in-person "Sandy CrisisCamp" will take place in Boston, cities on the West Coast, and even New Zealand. The events are basically set up as cross between a hack-a-thon and a workshop where geeks come together to design and code projects that can help local communities prepare for and cope with crisis.

Among some of the projects CrisisCampers will be working on are crowdsourcing tools to categorize images for building damage, allowing FEMA to prioritize its efforts, and a simple Google doc that attempts to keep track of all the sources of Sandy recovery data in a single place.… Read more

Facebook hackathon yields apps for your likes and connections

Facebook developers from Taipei, Taiwan; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Moscow have won Facebook's worldwide hackathon, with apps that let users bookmark "Likes," tell stories, and analyze connections.

The social network announced its winners today after holding the competition in 12 cities, including Moscow, where Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance. Facebook works hard to keep up its hacker culture even as it continues to grow and to face pressure to make money.

As part of that culture, the social network holds hackathons -- all-night programming competitions -- to surface the outside talents and encourage the development … Read more

Facebook hackathon shows off the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow

There's a "Battle of the Bay" going on tonight at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, and it's happening in a haze of Chinese food, juggling, music, and coding. And maybe some unicycling, if you're lucky.

The social network holds its second Stanford versus Cal (University of California at Berkeley) hackathon for budding coders to try their hands at creating new products. Nearly 200 students from both campuses sat in front of their laptops at around 5 p.m. with no intention of stopping until 3 p.m. tomorrow. That's what Facebook hackathons are … Read more

Facebook and Gates Foundation host education hackathon

Facebook partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today to host an education-centered hackathon called "HackEd."

The goal of "HackEd" is to kick-off the Gates Foundation's new $2.5 million investment fund called the College Knowledge Challenge. The fund is dedicated to getting developers to build apps for students that would assist them in navigating the college process -- this means helping young folks get into school and stay there.

"At Facebook, we believe that a more open and connected world can have a big impact in addressing some of society's biggest … Read more

Facebook revamps Events with Calendar and List views

What started out as a Facebook hackathon project has led to the social network's new-fangled Events page design.

Starting today, Facebook is rolling out its redesigned Events page, which comes with Calendar and List views. Now users can see birthdays, parties, RSVPs, and all other events up to several months in advance of the current date.

Spearheaded by Facebook software engineer Bob Baldwin, who created the homepage Events permalink at an earlier hackathon, the new Events design was fashioned to make it easier for users to organize their events, make plans, and see their friends' birthdays.

"Before a … Read more

At AngelList hackathon, demand is for talent-poaching tools

SAN FRANCISCO--If there's one thing that technology investors would like to have an easier time doing, it's poaching highly skilled engineering talent.

That much was clear at the AngelList Hackathon, an event held here today at the offices of AngelList, a company built around connecting early-stage startups with investors. But unlike many hackathons, during which entrepreneurs build new products meant for the world at large, these hackers were showing off new tools aimed solely at the large AngelList community of startups seeking funding.

In about 90 minutes, AngelList team members showed off 10 tools all meant to add … Read more