Startups battle for $50,000 and killer buzz

At this week's TechCrunch Disrupt, dozens of startups fought, tournament-style, to impress judges and investors. Here's our pick of the 5 coolest new technologies on display.

1 of 5
BACKNEXT
It takes a village to fix a buggy PC
It takes a village to fix a buggy PC
Roee Adler, Soluto's chief product officer

Soluto
Founders:
Tomer Dvir, Ishay Green
Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel
Launched: 2007
Winner of $50,000 Tech Crunch Disrupt Award

In a field filled with Web-based and mobile apps, Soluto stood out starkly. It's old-fashioned, runs-on-a-computer software. But the startup trounced all others by tackling a universal problem: PC troubleshooting.

Soluto's software monitors the PC it's installed on for common annoyances -- printing problems, crashy apps, resource hogs, and odd application hang-ups -- and then offers a solution for fixing it. The cool twist is that Soluto's solutions are community-generated. If one user, anywhere in the world, fixes a problem, Soluto can share that solution with others who have the same problem

To pull that off Soluto created PCGenome, a global knowledge base of "PC frustration data." That database can help users track down tricky hardware/software conflicts, a feature judges loved. "When we launched Google Desktop, we had a conflict with photo software on HP PCs. Took 2.5 months to track it down," Google's Marissa Mayer commented.

But the judges were very concerned about privacy, asking Soluto's inventors for details about what kind of data they're collecting from as their software hums away on PCs.

"We don't want to know who our users are," Roee Adler, Soluto's chief product officer, insisted. The software requires no registration and keeps the technical details it collects anonymous.

Soluto, now in beta, plans to use a "freemium" business model: When Soluto pops up with a troubleshooting fix, users will be able to make the fixes themselves for free, or they can pay for a service that will automatically fix problems.

By Fahmida Y. Rashid, contributing writer

NEXT: Free your inner songwriter
Email | Print | Share
 
google my aol my msn my yahoo! netvibes
Paste this link into your favorite RSS desktop reader
See all CNNMoney.com RSS FEEDS (close)
LAST UPDATE: May 28 2010 | 2:31 PM ET
More Galleries
5 startups that are reimagining the world Bricks that grow from microorganisms, household garbage turned into art, three-wheeled bike-cars -- these startups are redefining urban living. More
Blue collar entrepreneurs These five entrepreneurs took their blue collar experience and used it to launch innovative businesses. More
7 lifehacks to eliminate your holiday hassle Whether curating the perfect gift or finding a pet-sitter, these startups offer time-saving services that might just seem like holiday magic. More
Sponsors

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.