A recent study from the University of California in Santa Cruz found that the Silicon Valley tech startup ecosystem is rife with economic disparities. It stated that janitors, shuttle drivers, security guards, landscapers, cafeteria workers and other labor-intensive service occupations were making significantly less than industry standards when working at tech startups. This is mostly due to the common practice of employing “potential” contract laborers as opposed to direct hires....

Speakers and fireside chatters include Tracy Aiken, General Manager at Galvanize; Craig Husa, CEO of SuperCritical Technologies; and both Carly Zakin & Danielle Weisberg, co-founders of email newsletter startup The Skimm. Sign up for the full week of Seattle startups, for free, at the event’s website. While you’re gearing up to enjoy the five-day event to the fullest, you can check out the full schedule while researching the speakers, sponsors and attendees....

The VR game has been one of waiting. People have been watching the progress of devices like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, as well as developments such as virtual porn and virtual theaters for streaming movies and hoping for fun and affordable products. But there are other energies that tech savvy dreamers can throw into the concept of VR. You can think of it as a business opportunity, a boom to get in on....

Rep’nUp is a completely free tool that uses an algorithm to determine which posts, tweets, pins, comments, and even likes will be viewed as a red flag for potential employers. While the visual content requires a membership fee of $9.99, recommending the app to five friends will get you this necessary addition for free as well. The need for this kind of service is more prevalent every day, as college students have become increasingly blind to the effects of posting questionable content online....

The complex formula is able to diffuse the oil from your finger onto the surface with which it’s making contact, allowing the light to pass through without being distorted by the fingerprint. This, to the naked eye, makes it seem like the fingerprint isn’t even there. This is another step forward in NBD’s project to provide “wettability” solutions to everyday products. Wettability encompasses solutions that make plastic, glass, metal, and paint products repellant to water, dirt, oil, and chemicals....

Bultaco didn’t hold back with its reintroduction of the brand in any way. The new Rapitan is a highly capable sport bike that was designed to compete head-to-head with the best currently on the market. Except it does so with electrons instead of gasoline. The Rapitan looks very similar to many other sport bikes. Squint just a little and it bears a striking resemblance to a Ducati Monster 1200 R....

The Neuroon Open Sleep Tracker is a wearable that, much like a virtual reality headset, unceremoniously straps to the front of your face. The sleep mask can do everything from track your sleep to guide meditation sessions, leading to improve mental health and better quality of life for users. Through the use of the connected app, you’ll also be able to detailed sleep analytics that can even help you A/B test your own sleep patterns....

Some smartphones – like Alcatel One Touch – will resist most hacking attempts and leave you frustrated with a phone you can hardly manage in terms of memory occupation and boost in performance. If you tried to root your phone to uninstall apps and remove unwanted files and functionalities, there are alternatives to hacking – not as efficient, but helpful. This short guide will help you save memory, improve apps and keep your system safe without admin privileges....

This year at Tech Cocktail’s Celebrate conference we heard from entrepreneurs, startups, automotive makers, and those making a difference in their community. One particular workshop led by Greg Tehven, cofounder of Emerging Prairie, really piqued my interest as I’ve spent much of my professional career focused on developing communities. Tehven’s workshop was really a meta approach to understanding the stories he shared, which focused on accepting those around you and investing in the community you want....

While most college graduates still vie for a spot at the company, which positions at Alphabet are actually the most financially beneficial? Business Insider recently looked at Google salary data from Glassdoor and put together the top 20 highest-paying jobs at the company. Unsurprisingly, many of these highest-paid positions are engineering roles at the tech giant; however, there are a few exceptions to that. For instance, a communications manager position at Alphabet can be poised to make an average salary of $190,846....

But which cities have the most diversified selection of startups? 1776 and the US Chamber of Commerce cultivated a list of the most popular 25 cities and their respective startup ecosystem layouts. The report evaluated the launches, exits, champions and acquisitions of startups in four industries: health, education, energy and smart city, and assigned each city a score out of 25 for each industry. The report showed that, yes, the Bay Area is still king when it comes to startup variety....

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes Electronic Arts (EA) has released Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, a turn-based battle game, which allows players to collect characters from across the Star Wars universe, including the original trilogy and prequels. You can collect characters from both the light and dark sides and create your ultimate team. What are you waiting for? Download Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes now from the App Store/Google Play for free....

FarmVille 2: Country Escape Zynga has released an update for its FarmVille 2: Country Escape game just in time for Halloween. The update brings the Halloween Pumpkin Pageant event and will challenge players Level 9 and up so they will need to complete six new quests and craft Halloween-themed items such as Chocolate Vanilla Chews and Vampire Capes to earn Portion Points. Download FarmVille 2: Country Escape for iOS or Android...

Wall Street is noticing this potential unicorn: CEO Sam Shank plans an IPO by 2017. And this week, the San Francisco-based startup teamed up with a fintech leader as a partner. On September 8, Capital One announced a partnership with HotelTonight that gives Venture and VentureOne cardholders an extra 10 percent discount on top of the app’s other deals. Cardholders can unlock the savings by entering the code “Venture” through January 2017....

The draft legislation, proposed by the Trump administration, has reportedly been circulating among congressional staff. The first, a confidential meeting on Wednesday, and the other between the Trump administration and congressional staff. Notably, the initial draft does not differentiate between commercial or hobbyist pilots, provide clear insight into potential causes of wrong-doings, and only vague protections for privacy. In regards to privacy, the draft states that the government must respect a person’s privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties, but no court would have jurisdiction to hear such a lawsuit, which in turns means there are even less protections to that of smartphones....

A report from Royal Society of Chemistry recently found that there are approximately 40 million unused devices within the UK alone. These smartphones, tablets, and laptops are sitting in junk drawers, attics, and basements collecting dust, occasionally designated as a “spare” device, but more regularly abandoned as high tech trash. And tragically, barely anyone is planning on recycling these devices. The Scale of Unused Tech 40 millions devices is pretty substantial, particularly for a smaller country like the UK, and that’s just the tip of the global iceberg....

One such crop is tea. I would have never thought of growing tea indoors, but I recently read about a Japanese farmer from Ibaraki Prefecture named Tokutaro Noda. Ibaraki is close to the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster. It is not one of Japan’s main tea growing areas, but it does produce some tea. I’m sure you can guess that exports of this tea took a sharp hit after the disaster....

However, spokespeople for TikTok have categorically denied that the platform was breached at all, noting that all the information posted on hacker forums is publicly available. Still, given the hegemonic rivalry between the US and TikTok’s home base of China, experts are hesitant to say whether or not data was stolen from the social media platform, so the question remains: Was TikTok hacked? The alleged hack was originally discovered by Bleeping Computer, who relayed that the hackers had reportedly stolen two billion user records and 790GB worth of user data, along with “platform statistics, software code, cookies, auth tokens, and server info....

RocketLab, a New Zealand-based company, has just launched an affordable 3D-printed, battery-powered rocket from a launch pad in their home country. As the first of three trial ideally successful launches, RocketLab is off to a great start when it comes to their schedule to launch commercial flights later this year. The first successful test is a big deal for any company trying to reach the stars. As many know, SpaceX experienced a number of failures before they could get it right....

In a recent infographic produced by the company, the company compiled research that suggests that we’re maybe (definitely) multitasking too much during meetings. According to a survey conducted by Fuze, 92 percent of information workers admitted to multitasking during meetings – with 41 percent going so far as claiming that do it often or all the time. That shouldn’t be surprising considering that, nowadays, it seems we’re sitting in meetings that seem to last forever and don’t even necessarily need our presence (I mean do we really need to have a one-hour meeting on topics that can simply be hashed out in email?...