Ringful, a personal healthcare startup is pleased to announce its selection to participate in DEMO conference’s first ever AlphaPitch, which according to DEMO co-producer Matt Marshall, features the “coolest, earliest-stage companies.” At DEMO, Ringful will launch a mobile healthcare application suite, available at http://PreventiveCare.mobi/, which turns any mobile phone, from the iPhone to low-end voice-only phones, into a connected personal healthcare dashboard, resulting in reduced healthcare cost and insurance premiums. PreventiveCare.mobi applications all feature connectivity [...]

It’s the time of the season to launch companies. Between the TechCrunch50 and DEMOfall, over 100 companies are launching themselves, or products this month. Here’s a rundown of companies of interest, and we’ll have more details as they launch. 80legs – Some friends from Houston are doing some interesting things with grids. EthicsEd – MicroAssist is launching a great e-learning product. Piryx – Some key execs have moved to the valley, but we’ll still claim [...]

GDC Austin is in town this week over at the Convention Center. It draws 3k developers, designers, writers, and other creatives from all over. The focus this year is on connected gaming space, encompassing MMOs, virtual worlds and social networking games. This year’s event has more than 130 lectures, panels, keynotes, and round table discussions, presented by 230 speakers and a bustling expo floor with more than 80 exhibitors and sponsors. Thus far, we have [...]

The AppStore continues to experience impressive download numbers and explosive growth, and if it hasn’t already been said, has changed the face of software distribution forever. While not without its faults, the AppStore is a great platform to launch new ideas, extend existing product functionality, and cost-effectively promote brands and engage consumers.

Austin entrepreneur Thomas Marriott was trying to find a multi-function iPhone carrying case, and just didn’t see anything on the market. So what did the former GameWager co-founder do? He decided to explore the market opportunity. The result is the Pocketpack, which can be purchase at www.killthewallet.com. Thomas and his team did some good old fashioned market research by hanging out at the Apple story for hours on end, and asking people what they would [...]

Our guest blogger today is Greg Garrison, the president of vrecruting – Recruiting solutions from vcfo. He has over 17 years experience in the recruiting and staffing industry, and is regularly quoted nationally as a thought-leader in employment trends. He can be reached at ggarrison@vcfo.com or 512-450-6569. The Labor Market and the Economic Recovery Last week The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the August employment report. Many believe the findings were positive for the recovering [...]

Fall is always the time of year for the Clean Energy Venture Summit, October 14-15 at the incredible AT&T Conference Center on the campus of UT. This summit provides clean energy technology companies and entrepreneurs a venue for presenting their innovations to venture capitalists, angel investors and strategic investors that currently invest in clean energy, along with experts from Austin Energy, corporate partners, utility executives and government leaders. This year’s theme “Bringing the Smart Grid [...]

Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Tab Schadt, the founder and CEO of DoubleHorn Communications (www.doublehorncommunications.com/). Q:   What commitments or beliefs drive DoubleHorn Communications on a daily basis? 1)      We remind ourselves daily that we are Texas Owned, Texas Operated, Texas Focused.  In other words, we avoid casting a wide net and not delivering on fundamental expectations of small business customers. 2)      We maintain an excellent and unwavering approach to customer service.  Period. 3)      We own [...]

We’re reporting here live from the TC50 show floor, where Austin-based Spawn Labs just presented their demo. Spawn Labs makes it possible to play your Xbox 360, Xbox, PS2, PS3 and Gamecube from anywhere in the world with a broadband internet connection. It is essentially a “Slingbox for games”. The unit is priced at $199, and as of today’s launch Spawn Labs is taking pre-orders.

It’s a story that has been 10 years in the making. Husband and wife team Joel Trammel and Dr. Cathy Fulton could foresee that internet traffic would continue to grow substantially, data centers would consolidate, and there would be network congestion. As that happened, enterprises would be keenly interested in performance management. Thus, NetQoS was born. Recently, NetQoS was named to the Inc. 5000, ranking #2081 with $56.5M in trailing revenue. Being acquired for $200M [...]