When most of us think of AT&T (or most telecommunications companies), we immediately go into tirades about things like how our phone calls always drop at that one spot on the freeway, or how our cable went out a few times last month, or how much we’ll be rebelling against the price of roaming charges for using our tablet in another country. Unfortunately most of us don’t realize, or perhaps appreciate, what it takes to keep millions upon millions of people – literally all over the planet – connected to the people, places and things we love… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Savings search engine Chippmunk, that helps consumers to instantly find great deals online has raised $750,000 seed round as the peak holiday shopping season intensifies.

I love LA and I love the startup ecosystem. I actually think Los Angeles, and arguably New York, is far and away the best place to launch a product than San Francisco and the rest of the bay area. The reason is up in Northern California, it’s a huge community of early adopters and it’s fairly homogenous. In Los Angeles, if you launch a product or a services company and its tech in nature, you are getting a better litmus test. There are more diverse communities here. People give you a better feel if your product has legs.

It’s a bit pricier ($30) compared to what I’d think is the next best competitor, the Camelback Groove, which is cheaper yes, but uses a filter that looks like a more traditional Brita (worth testing in a side-by-side I’m sure), but I’ll be completely candid when I say… I love products with a story. And you get stories when you have conversations.

Some big news for local startup Plug.DJ and their user-curated music sharing platform. By partnering with Javelin Venture Partners for their $1.25M seed round, they’ll be looking to support future product developments to grow and provide support for international growth.

After a summer that saw the 2012 Mucker Lab graduate and 2013 TechZulu Tech Crawl participant secure $7 million in Series B funding and a National Aviation Administration permit to fly, it appears that Surf Air is continuing to raise the bar. Surf Air’s goal is to make luxury flights relatively affordable for people who aren’t accustomed to flying private. The startup airline currently flies in California only as it strives to expand nationwide.

Prior to joining Science, Monahan was co-founder and CEO AlphaBoost, a Facebook advertising reporting software builder. He also co-founded The Comotion Group, which was acquired by Sharethrough and was previously advisor to Wildfire, which Google acquired for $350M.

Through the magic of modern technology, and a lot of hard work by the Elves at the North Pole, children from around the world can have a real, live video call with Santa.

Digital Family Reunion is exactly what its name implies – a reunion of digital executives young and old who have helped shape Southern California into a leading hub for entrepreneurs. This year’s event returns to its original home at the Skirball Cultural Center on Wednesday, December 11 from 6-10pm. Register with TechZulu promo code DFR54 for a discount here.

A new partnership between Wearable World Labs, the world’s first accelerator solely focused on Wearable Technologies and the Internet of Wearable Things and Technicolor, a media and entertainment technology leader. This partnership will bring one of the most influential media companies together with today’s most promising emerging startups in the Wearable Technology and Internet of Things (IOT) space.