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Innovation. According to one Mads Thimmer, it's a word that held a great deal of mystery some 10-plus years ago, but today, "it's thrown around as a cliché." When you really get down to it, though, the art of innovating is a hugely delicate an...

Boosted Board isn't the first powered skateboard to grace these pages, but it is the lightest. In its current prototype form, it weighs just 12 pounds, thanks to a high-end Loaded Vanguard longboard, 2,000W brushless electric motor, 100W/h Lithium po...

It's that time again. We are super excited to give away not only a free ticket to Disrupt SF, but we are also giving away a free Nexus 7 tablet to one lucky winner. I know, read on. Disrupt SF is shaping up to be one of the biggest technology events of the year. It's still more than a month away and we have already announced some undeniably incredible speakers that so far include: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, The Honest Company's Jessica Alba and Brian Lee, Ron Conway, Vinod Khosla, Kevin Rose, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and many, many more. We still have a ton more announcements to make until September, so be on the lookout for those.

Disrupt has long been the birthplace of software startups - but that's changing. With the launch of Hardware Alley at Disrupt NY, we've inaugurated a very cool opportunity for hardware startups to grab a little Disrupt floor space and we're doing it again in San Francisco. Hardware Alley happens on the last day of Disrupt and lets you get into the event at a discounted rate for one or all three days. Smaller startups should contact me directly at john@techcrunch.com but if you're funded, ready to rock, and interested in holding court with some of SF's preeminent VCs and thinkers, head over here to buy tickets.

Ladies & gentlemen! The third annual TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon is officially open for business. It's 24 hours of heads-down, caffeine-fueled digital duct taping with the Bay Area's brightest, culminating in a no-holds-barred Hackathon presentation on Sunday afternoon. We'll bring the API workshops, food & drink and industry veteran judges. You bring the MacGyver-style wicked smahts.

During a December 2010 fireside chat, TechCrunch founder (and then-editor) Michael Arrington asked Marissa Mayer what she would do if she hypothetically ran Yahoo. As you all know, Mayer was VP at Google at the time, but left on Monday to become the CEO of Yahoo. The oddly prophetic interview is even more interesting to watch now that Mayer has taken the Yahoo position.

Disrupt has long been the birthplace of software startups - but that's changing. With the launch of Hardware Alley at Disrupt NY, we've inaugurated a very cool opportunity for hardware startups to grab a little Disrupt floor space and we're doing it again in San Francisco. Hardware Alley happens on the last day of Disrupt and lets you get into the event at a discounted rate for one or all three days. Smaller startups should contact me directly at john@techcrunch.com but if you're funded, ready to rock, and interested in holding court with some of SF's preeminent VCs and thinkers, head over here to buy tickets.

Our hair-brained idea to pilot a Brazilian Pavilion at the upcoming TechCrunch Disrupt has taken a life of its own! We expected 10 startups to show interest. Boy did we underestimate... There are now — wait for it — 76 Brazilian startups that have signed-up to take part in the Pavilion! This is on top of the 23 Israeli startups that have lined-up for their own Pavilion. But the surprises didn't stop there. Argentinian startups emailed us, asking if they can have their own dedicated Pavilion as well. The answer was, 'por supuesto amigos!' Let's wind this back a bit... Last week we announced that Disrupt SF will feature both the staple Israeli Pavilion and a new Brazilian one. Flying half a world to attend Disrupt isn't cheap, especially for early stage startups. That's where the Pavilion packages come in.

We hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July and an awesome weekend. You may have noticed that we didn't have a Disrupt SF ticket giveaway last Friday. That is because we wanted to wait since we have something extra special to give away this week. We noticed last Friday that we had a brand new iPad in the office (yes, the new one, the "new iPad") and we were feeling celebratory, so we decided to give it away. This week's giveaway winner will not only receive a ticket to one of our biggest technology conferences of the year, Disrupt SF, but also will receive this brand new iPad.

TechCrunch Disrupt SF is back and everything is shaping up nicely behind the scenes. Actually, I was in a Disrupt meeting all day and that's why this post is going out so late. So, you will have an extra day to enter. Congratulations to last week's winner, Samer Karam. We asked everyone who entered to tell us who they would like to see at Disrupt, and Samer's choice was Instagram's Kevin Systrom. We've reached out and will let you know. Also, remember to keep your eyes out for announcement posts; we have some exciting news about Disrupt SF coming up.