Would you trust this startup to plan a mystery date for you?

We did — and here’s what it was like

It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Friday and I have plans. At least, that’s what I’m told. I have no idea what those plans might be — and neither does my date.

We’re out of the loop because we’ve hired a new startup called Mystery to keep us out. The company uses technology to plan your evening without asking you to lift a finger.

Mystery was started by Shane Kovalsky and Vince Coppola, who met while working at Convoy, a billion-dollar Seattle startup that operates a marketplace for the trucking industry.

“At Convoy, we learned that very difficult operations problems can be automated, and we’re doing the same thing here,” said Coppola, Mystery’s chief technology officer. Initially, the pair wanted to plan entire weekends, but they soon scaled back those ambitions to planning evenings on the town, such as dates or small group outings.

After working under the radar for several months, Mystery just launched an app. The startup, which has six employees, also raised a seed round of $1.2 million led by Founders’ Co-op along with a cadre of other investors including Liquid 2 Ventures, Frontier Venture Capital, Gramercy Ventures, Ride Ventures, Pixvana CEO Forest Key, former LinkedIn and 23andMe COO Sarah Imbach, and Crowd Cow CEO Joe Heitzeberg.

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Misty starts shipping its programmable robot to backers

When we met with Misty back at CES, the Sphero spinoff had an April timeframe for its programmable robot, Misty II. But the best laid plans, et al. The startup announced this morning that it’s started shipping the robot to its around 500 or so crowdfunding backers over the coming weeks. It’s a few months late, but that’s just kind of the life of the robotics startup. 

And as we’ve mentioned in previous posts, the company’s got a pretty long runway for its ambitious plans. They started last year with the modular, handmade Misty I. The Misty II is still more platform than product, with the intention of giving developers a place to create various robotics tasks.

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Blockchain Technology Comes to the 'Trek' Universe

Blockchain technology is well known for introducing Bitcoin, the popular digital cryptocurrency, but some of its lesser-known use cases will change the way we perceive digital ownership in the future.

Star Trek and Blockchain

The Star Trek universe is known for its advanced technologies, some of which are already coming to fruition. One such technology, while never directly mentioned in the fiction - well, it might have been, but we will get to that later - is likely the technological foundation behind Federation Credits and the more popularly known Ferengi Gold-pressed Latinum banking systems. This technology is known today as blockchain and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s beloved but “shady” Ferengi businessman, Quark, would no doubt have been a user of this technology to transact and ensure the contract integrity in his business ventures. The current Star Trek series have yet to mention blockchain tech, but that hasn’t stopped the adoption of blockchain technology into the Trek universe. Similar to the first releases of Trek toys in the 60’s and 70’s, in 2019 CBS Interactive and Lucid Sight will release the first generation of Star Trek True Digital Crypto Collectibles. Six iconic ships from the Trek universe will be digitally minted, cryptographically secured, and provided in a limited supply enforced by the Ethereumblockchain as ERC-721 items. 

Beyond their value as collectibles, these Trek ships can be played within Lucid Sight’s game Crypto Space Commander, a space MMO sandbox that utilizes blockchain to power its Play To Own user economy. CBS Interactive and Lucid Sight will create the first ever Cross Universe Event temporally bridging the Star Trek and CSC Universes.

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Students getting to code to program robots

Elmira, NY (WENY) -- A different style of learning is going on in the town of Lansing. With local malls losing businesses and some completely dying a new technical program for students is being housed inside the Shops at Ithaca Mall. Student's are learning to think outside the box, thanks to the program being taught inside the center.

The new attraction is UCode. It can be seen in bright lights right near the food court. The center teaches Python, a coding program designed to teach students computational skills. It's a program, that started out in the tech capital in California and has now made it's way to upstate New York. There are several UCode stores on the west coast, and the company is looking at around 16 in the New York region.

UCode is preparing students for the future. A future that could be dominated by automation. As student plug in gears and gadgets into their robot, the program teaches students to speak the language of bots.

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Inc. Magazine Unveils Its Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies—the Inc. 5000

Inc. magazine today revealed that TicketSauce, a complete private label event management software company, is No. 514 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

“We are extremely proud of our growth at TicketSauce and thankful to our employees, customers and partners for helping us reach the top 10 percent of the Inc. 5000 recognition,” said Travis Fisher, CEO, TicketSauce. “Our commitment to our business remains the same and we will continue to provide media companies, brands associations and direct event organizers with the ability to drive revenue and first-party data to their organizations.”

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