To help patients and caregivers access easy-to-understand, cutting-edge medical research, HealthTap is adding the full library of peer-reviewed medical research from the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed. The goal is further educate patients as well as help disseminate new information through the physician community. Read more »
Sumall, a New York data analytics startup targeting small and medium sized online stores, mined its data to determine how time on site translates into revenue, which it says can be a helpful indicator in e-commerce. Read more »
At the Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator Demo Day in New York, 10 startups debuted, pitching services ranging from marketplaces for custom goods, catering and yoga gear to companies looking to optimize online video. Here are a few that stood out. Read more »
Despite the boom in connected health devices and the ‘quantified self’ movement, Qualcomm exec Clint McCellan says people won’t get a fuller picture of the health until interoperable systems make it possible to correlate siloed streams of biometric data. Read more »
Social shopping startup Fancy is getting into subscription commerce with a new monthly box of items curated by its community of two million members. Despite the glut of subscription commerce companies, Fancy says members requested the new box. Read more »
A month after making its first foray into e-commerce, Beautylish is expanding to Android. The startup, which offers an online platform for learning about and buying cosmetics, says daily visits to its iPhone app already double visits on the web. Read more »
Smarterer, a Boston-based startup, is shifting away from being a site for showing others what you know to being a platform for benchmarking personal progress toward educational goals. In time, it could partner with online learning platforms measure effectiveness and student performance. Read more »
According to a new report from research firm eMarketer, Google is expected to lead the US display ad market in 2012, after losing the top spot to Facebook last year. The search giant also dominates in mobile and search advertising. Read more »
Brooklyn-based Makerbot Industries, which makes 3D home printers, on Wednesday announced that it is opening its first retail location in Manhattan and launching a new version of its printer. Read more »
New York-based Startup Health Academy is announcing its newest class of companies, which cover a broad spectrum of issues, from telehealth and physician engagement to social health information and managing health expenses. Read more »
Online education startup Coursera has added 17 more university partners — including schools in Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and Israel — bringing its total number of academic partners to 33. Read more »
Wealthfront, a San Francisco startup that is an SEC-registered online financial advisor, has launched an interactive tool for the tech community that lets people research cash compensation and equity packages across a range of jobs. Read more »
BenchPrep, a Chicago-based startup that offers interactive online courses for test preparation, is moving to a subscription-based business model, which could help it better access institutional customers, such as universities, community colleges and public libraries. Read more »
A New York startup, launched by an OpenSky co-founder and former About.com executive, helps patients and caregivers navigate the often confusing healthcare landscape by pairing them with trained patient “careplanners” with a range of expertise. Read more »
Duolingo, a language learning and crowdsourced translation platform from Recaptcha founder Luis von Ahn, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from New Enterprise Associates and Union Square Ventures. Read more »
New York-based social commerce platform Fancy is rolling out a new option that lets users organize group gifts. The startup also announced a new partnership with American Express that it says could mark the beginning of an extended relationship. Read more »
In an interview with The Seattle Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicates a “sweet spot” for the price of the company’s upcoming Surface tablet, which is expected next month. He also discusses the company’s path over the next five to ten years. Read more »
Ed tech may be booming in the U.S., but a survey from Dell suggests that Chinese students use technology more comprehensively than Americans. It also found that Chinese parents, teachers and students were more receptive to social media in the classroom. Read more »
Social news site Buzzfeed has acquired Kingfish Labs, a New York startup that processes natural language on Facebook to determine user interests. Buzzfeed said it plans to apply Kingfish’s technology to optimize ad targeting for its brand clients on social networks. Read more »
In its first acquisition, New York-based beauty discovery startup Birchbox has acquired JolieBox, a Paris-based subscription beauty company. With the purchase, Birchbox expands its footprint to France, the United Kingdom and Spain. Read more »
On Thursday, Facebook is announcing that its new real-time bidding platform, the Facebook Exchange, is coming out of beta. While it’s still early days, the social network’s advertising partners give the new platform high marks. Read more »
New York-based social product design startup Quirky is launching its first product vertical around Apple and is partnering with design shopping site Fab to bring a line of community-created iPhone 5 accessories to market. Read more »
After offering its own online course, Power Searching with Google, the search giant is releasing the technology it used to support the class as an open source online learning project. The Course Builder software lets anyone with basic technical expertise to create an online class. Read more »
To help advertisers figure out when consumers actually intend to purchase a product and when they’re just making a wish list of fantasy items, mobile ad network Jumptap’s new ad targeting approach links mobile behavior, web behavior and offline data. Read more »
LearnVest, a New York-based personal finance startup, is on Tuesday rolling out a suite of significant upgrades to its platform, including its first mobile app, as well as announcing that it has become an SEC-Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). Read more »
According to a regulatory filing, Dauphin Health has raised $1.33 million, of what could be a $3 million round, for its free app pingmd, which connects parents with their children’s pediatricians. The company, which is based in New York, was founded in 2010. Read more »
Gamified classroom management platform ClassDojo is rolling out its first mobile app. Through the iOS app teachers will be able to give students feedback in real-time from their smartphones and tablets. The company said an Android app will follow shortly. Read more »
Six months after being acquired by photobook creation company Mixbook, the former Yobongo team is announcing a mobile-first photobook creation app. Called Mosaic, the app will let users select images from their smartphones to create printed photobooks. Read more »
New York-based Quirky, a startup that enables a worldwide community of inventors to collaboratively create products, has raised $68 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Norwest Venture Partners and RRE Ventures. Read more »
Online shopping giant eBay today announced that it has acquired New York startup Svpply, which curates products from across the Web. eBay said the acquisition will build on its recent purchase of recommendation engine Hunch to further personalize online shopping experiences. Read more »
Over the past few months, as the future of Yahoo itself has been unclear, some have speculated that the company might sell its ad exchange Right Media. In a mini media blitz on Thursday, the company said it is sticking with Right Media. Read more »
BigCommerce, an e-commerce platform that powers the online stores for 30,000 small- to medium-sized businesses worldwide, is on Wednesday announcing that it has raised $20 million Series B funding from General Catalyst and Floodgate. Read more »
With the launch of its new Storefronts feature, peer-to-peer marketplace Zaarly is defining itself as a marketplace of people, not just a marketplace of goods and services. Zaarly is launching Storefronts in San Francisco but said it will quickly roll out to other U.S. cities. Read more »
With nearly 10 million members, Edmodo is on Wednesday rolling out an updated version, with an improved user interface and richer functionality. The changes reflect feedback from teachers, which is critical for the site given educators’ role in driving adoption — and, ultimately, revenue. Read more »
After more than a decade of going it alone, Canadian online learning company Desire2Learn is accepting its first round of venture funding – $80 million from New Enterprise Associates and the venture arm of OMERS, one of Canada’s biggest pension funds. Read more »
Earlier this year, social learning company Grockit launched Learnist as a Pinterest-like platform for education. The company is on Thursday rolling out iPhone and iPad apps for the new platform. Through the apps, users can both create and consume content. Read more »
Through a browser extension, Montreal-based Wajam lets users see relevant activity from friends on Facebook, Twitter and other social channels as they conduct searches through the major search engines. This week, the startup is bringing similar functionality to the iPhone. Read more »
Across all kinds of verticals, it’s never been easier to use apps and services to instantly find things that might match my interests. But what do we lose if we don’t put in the time to actually develop taste? Read more »
Since launching five months ago, Mover, a startup based in Edmonton, Alberta, has picked up thousands of users with data migration service, but the company’s ultimate goal is broader. This week, the startup graduated from Vancouvers’ GrowLab accelerator. Read more »
Social commerce startup Wikets, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Battery Ventures, is rolling out a new version of its app that builds out its shopping functionality. To date, it has focused on building a network of shoppers who ask for and make recommendations. Read more »
