For years now, hotel chains have been toying with alternative ways to letting patrons check-in, access their room and run up their bill with all-too-convenient in-room services. Marriott began testing smartphone check-ins way back in 2006, and select boutique locations (like The Plaza Hotel in New York and Boston’s Nine Zero) have relied on RFID, [...]

Analysis: Facebook runs headlong into the privacy saw every 18 months, but that’s the plan. And it’s a good thing for the net.

International iPad users don't have the luxury of AT&T's flexible, pay-as-you-go data plan offered in the United States — but they can roll their own data plans, with a little hacking.

We all have them: those brief, spontaneous little melodies that pop into the back of our heads, undoubtedly destined for greatness if only we had an ounce of musical talent or a five piece band at our disposal. Well, now you wannabe-maestros have your chance. UJAM is a new startup making its debut today at [...]

Photo by tyfihi Instead of manufacturing medications separately, what if drug companies could “print” pharmaceutical ingredients directly onto pills, much like ink is printed on paper? Researchers at the University of Leeds, Durham University and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have developed an ultra-efficient technique for printing medicine onto pills — and they think it could work for [...]

Ever dreamt of staying in a world-class, five-star hotel at rates that would be more appropriate for your local inn? Off & Away, a new site that’s launching at TechCrunch Disrupt, may be exactly what you’re looking for — assuming you’re not afraid of a little risk. If you’ve ever tried ‘entertainment shopping’ sites like Swoopo, then Off [...]

Guerrilla gardeners in San Francisco have some new ammunition with the recent installation of the city’s first seedbomb vending machine! Designed by L.A.’s Common Studio, the re-purposed gum-ball machine is set up in front of Bi-Rite Market in the Mission District, where it vends “bombs” containing seeds and compost encased in clay. All they need [...]

A few years ago, Terry Jones sold his Barcelona apartment so that he could single-mindedly pursue a rather radical idea. What if a database worked like Wikipedia—it was not only readable by everybody, but also writeable by everybody? The problem with databases today is that they are silos of data. Even the databases on the [...]

They say a car loses half its value the minute you drive it off the lot. The same can often seem true of a brand new computer — after that lightning-quick first boot or two, PCs have the nasty habit of gradually bogging down until that new quad core processor doesn’t seem much faster than the [...]

Betterment, a new startup that is launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt, is looking to become the “replacement for your savings account” — it earns you more money than a standard savings account while offering more flexibility than you’d get from higher yield accounts. And, unlike most financial services, Betterment is designed so that anyone can [...]