NASA has a new rover in town, but this one won’t be leaving our atmosphere. Instead it’s going to Greenland to study the effects of this atmosphere on a giant piece of ice.

It’s called GROVER, and no, it isn’t blue or fuzzy (though, wouldn’t that be awesome?). Grover stands for Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Researcher and for now, it’s a prototype that will be treated like any rover intended for space. It was built by a team of students starting in 2010 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Grover is now at Boise State being “fine-tuned” before deployment.

It’s not a small guy either. Referenced as “tank-like,” Grover weighs 800 pounds and stands six feet tall. It is powered by two solar panels that sit on top of the rover in an upside-down V-shape. This is meant to capture both light from the sun and its reflection off the ice. Scientists hope to control Grover remotely from their desks, but they will first start out over a Wi-Fi connection, which must be accessed within a three-mile range. In the future, that will move to satellite, which will expand Grover’s range of travel and improve the timeliness of incoming data.

You’ll find GROVER in Greenland soon, checking whether a new layer of ice has built up since unusually high temperatures melted 97 percent of its surface in 2012.

But don’t worry, Grover won’t get lonely. A new rover built by students at Dartmouth College named Cool Robot will join the mission in June.

“GROVER is just like a spacecraft, but it has to operate on the ground,” Goddard Engineering Bootcamp manager Michael Comberiate said in NASA’s video on the rover. “It has to survive unattended for months in a hostile environment, with just a few commands to interrogate it and find out its status and give it some directions for how to accommodate situations it finds itself in.”

Grover image via NASA

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Microsoft will offer a discounted version of Windows 8 Pro for students after the price of the OS goes up on Feb. 1, but anyone who wants to get in on Windows 8 can do so at an even lower price during the next two days.

While Windows 8 has been controversial, there are several reasons to buy the upgrade now, including faster PC performance and the fact that you don’t have to install it now. If you are a student, there’s no exception here — it’d be cheaper to upgrade now.

After Feb. 1, students will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $70, which is much cheaper than the $200 price to upgrade to Pro. The base price of regular Windows 8 will cost $120 after Feb. 1.

Microsoft will also host a “Windows Campus Tour” that will kick off February 18th and visit over 150 university campuses across the U.S. The deal on Windows 8 student pricing will extend to 49 additional countries by March 19.

Windows 8 has sold more than 60 million licences to date, but Microsoft has not revealed how many of these copies have been activated.

NASA is challenging students around the world to enter the 20th annual moonbuggy race. Registration opened today for the April 2013 event that will be held in Huntsville, Alabama to help inspire creative kids and, just maybe, show some old NASA dogs a few new tricks.

Last year, more than 70 teams competed in the three divisions: high school, college, and university. In total, over 5000 students have competed, with winning teams coming from as far as Canada and Germany.

Participating teams must build a human powered buggy that can carry two students — one female and one male — over a “half-mile simulated lunar terrain course including ‘craters,’ rocks, ‘lava ridges,’ inclines and ‘lunar’ soil.”

In addition, the moonbuggies must be carried to the starting line by the participating students disassembled in a box with a maximum volume of 4 feet cubed, and be assembled at the start line. Each team gets two runs of the course, and the fastest time of the two runs will be their official time.

The real goal is to galvanize more interest in science, according to NASA spokesperson Tammy Rowan.

“That first spark of interest — whether it’s in basic chemistry or astronomy or the history of spaceflight — starts the wheels turning. The Great Moonbuggy Race helps sustain that momentum, turning interest into passion, and dreams into a lifelong pursuit of new answers and new horizons.”

But maybe, just maybe, if we ever get back to the moon, something from one of these designs might show up in a new moonbuggy.

Image credits: NASA

AfterCollege, which bills itself as the largest career network for college students and recent grads, helps hundreds of thousands of college students all over the country find the best career opportunities. As part of the career exploration process, students select companies they most want to apply to, and AfterCollege shared some of that data with VentureBeat.

“It’s a reflection of an employer’s brand with students,” AfterCollege’s chief executive Roberto Angulo told me. “The data comes from 200,000 students at 2,000 college campuses.”

AfterCollege segments its data by type of student. Google heads the list of who tech students in computer science disciplines most want to work for, followed by Microsoft and Intel. Apple shows up right behind IBM, in fifth spot.

1. Google
2. Microsoft
3. Intel
4. IBM
5. Apple
6. Amazon
7. National Security Agency
8. Facebook
9. NVIDIA
10. AT&T

For engineering students, the list looks a little different — kind of like a who’s-who of the military-industrial complex. IBM sinks to 9th, and Google and Apple disappear entirely. Intel, however, maintains its high ranking.

1. Boeing
2. Intel
3. Lockheed Martin
4. General Electric
5. Raytheon
6. NASA
7. Exxon Mobil
8. National Security Agency
9. IBM
10. The Aerospace Corporation

Business students, on the other hand, are much more interested in banks, consulting agencies, and telecommunications giants. But Google holds a fascination for business majors (who apparently haven’t been told yet that Google prefers CompSci majors), and Apple reappears at the bottom of the list. Intel, surprisingly, is high on yet another list, in fourth position.

1. Wells Fargo
2. Google
3. Target
4. Intel
5. JPMorgan Chase
6. AT&T
7. Bank of America
8. Deloitte
9. T. Rowe Price
10. Apple

I found it interesting that Facebook appears on only one of the lists, so I asked Angulo about the world’s largest social network, which famously started on college campuses.

“Facebook hovers from seven to eight” based on all the lists combined, Angulo said. “Even though 90% of our users are on Facebook, it doesn’t mean they want to work there.”

And as for Apple, which ranked fifth on the computer science students’ list, behind first-place Google, and tenth on another?

“Google has a very good on-campus recruiting program and is thought to have better work-life balance,” Angulo told me. “So while Apple may be a good company to invest in, it may not be the best company to work for.”

photo credit: Kris Kesiak Photography via photopin cc, fisserman via photopin cc

I have always thought it would be nice to have a ninja at my disposal to take care of tasks like protecting me from attacks, stealthily breaking into ice cream shops once they are closed, and infiltrating covert tech companies to gather top secret information.

This dream may never come true, but I at least I’ll be able to hire a Flinja.

Flinja is a startup that uses the talent, energy, and financial need of college students to create a freelance workforce. On the marketplace, students post services they want to provide, which alumni and staff can directly book. The site provides an opportunity for students to build their professional networks, find jobs and internships, and make a little extra cash.

“As freelancers ourselves, we wish there had been a platform like Flinja around when we were in college that allowed us to make money off our skills and hobbies as well as network with the right people,” said CMO Rebecca Bahr. “With the economy the way it is, Flinja helps students earn money doing what they love and gives alumni and staff within their college network the capability to give back to their alma mater by hiring students for the services they need at an affordable rate.”

So far, the most popular tasks are tutoring, babysitting, driving, and language translation.

For security and networking purposes, the marketplace is only available to people with a .edu email address. The team shared that alumni have even asked for their old college email addresses back so they can sign up. The site securely processes all transactions with a third-party payment system and escrow facilities.

The exclusivity ensures safety, but also provides alumni the opportunity to stay connected to their alma maters.

“We are all proud of the universities we went to,” Bahr said this morning at DEMO. “Flinja allows us to give back to that college without having to write a check, connecting students to alumni one job at a time.”

The company is launching on a school by school basis. It is already available to the University of Southern California community. So far, 12 percent of the current USC population are registered Flinjas, with significant adoption from members of the class of 2016. An official Flinja student association is also on campus.

On Sept. 24, the platform debuted at University of California, Los Angeles and is available at Stanford on Tuesday. Plans for expansion include the rest of the of UC schools, followed by a national campaign. Jason Mendelson of Foundry Group said that this network could be a game-changer.

“I really, really want this company to succeed,” he said. “I think there is a huge opportunity here to tie the campuses to the wealthy alumni, creating a network and being bale to drive that network for jobs and money. This is a trojan horse.”

The five person team has extensive experience in tech spanning PayPal, Google, eBay, and Cisco, as well as other startups. They are based in San Francisco.

Flinja is one of 75 companies and 6 student “alpha” startups chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

The early Facebook investor set up a program last year to give 20 teens and young adults the chance to play around with $100,000 while building a business. Now in its second year, The Thiel Fellowship is unveiling the newest fellows to join the program.

Thiel’s Fellowship is simple; select 20 promising students, no older than 20, with grand ideas to change the world or start a new business. Then, give them $100,000 over two years of the program and surround them with mentors to teach them. Instead of going straight to college, these kids learn how to start a business the “real-world” way.

Ambitions are high for the 2012 class. Taylor Wilson, 18, is the youngest person in history to create nuclear fusion and will spend time at the Fellowship producing medical isotopes for use in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Connor Zwick, 19, wants to reform the education system, starting with a mobile study tool.

It’d be most parent’s nightmare to hear their child was dropping out of college. Zwick’s parents were supportive, but hesitant.

“My parents obviously had mixed feelings [about me joining the Fellowship]. On one hand, they sort of wished I hadn’t made it and the decision to stay in school would be more obvious. On the other, they were happy because obviously being in a situation with more choices is always better,” said Zwick in an email statement to VentureBeat.

Thiel started this venture last year, pointing out that we were in an “education bubble.” Graduates leave college with thousands in debt and often few marketable skills that will get them a job, Thiel contends.

“Pundits and hand-wringers love to claim that universities are the only path to a successful life. In truth, an inquisitive mind, rigorously applied to a deep-rooted problem can change the world as readily as the plushest academic lab,” said Thiel in a statement.

The Fellowship has obviously sparked a lot of controversy. Public opinion still holds a degree in high regard and many employers require it to get a job. Few people who’ve gone through school would admit that it was a waste of time and left them with nothing but debt.

Fellows are banking on the knowledge they gain to propel their career. In a way, the risk is low for these students. They might end up with a business they can continue to grow after the Fellowship ends. And if they fail, college will still be waiting for them.

On July 11 and 12, CNBC will air a documentary about the selection process for the 2012 class. The full list of 2012 Fellows is below.

Clay Allsopp (20, Raleigh, NC) thinks people should be able to forget about technology and simply focus on being creative. His start-up, Apptory, helps individuals and businesses create and distribute content for touch-screen devices, using an intuitive, easy-to-understand interface.

Dylan Field (20, Penngrove, CA) envisions a world where people define themselves by what they create rather than what they consume. Currently stopped out of Brown University, Field is working with his former classmate Evan Wallace on making better creative tools.

Kettner Griswold (19, Bethesda, MD) and Paul Sebexen (19, Staten Island, NY) are stopping out of school to work on a benchtop genome synthesis device, which will allow individual laboratories and medical practices to synthesize large genetic constructs in-house for an unprecedented low recurring cost. This product would massively disrupt the fields of biotechnology and health care, fueling innovation and stimulating interest and research sector-wide.

Anand Gupta (20, Palo Alto, CA) and Tony Ho (19, San Jose, CA) are using their expertise in biology and computer science to transform the way doctors diagnose patients. Their service will enable doctors and researchers to receive quantitative analysis of biomedical images, allowing for faster, more accurate diagnoses of complex diseases – and more lives saved.

Spencer Hewett (20, Bryan Mawr, PA) has an insatiable passion for inventing that extends far beyond the confines of one particular industry. As a Thiel fellow, he will focus on No-Q, a fusion of radio-frequency identification (RFID) and mobile payment technology that will eliminate both checkout lines and shoplifting.

Yoonseo Kang (18, Mississauga, ON, Canada) recognizes that society’s potential for innovation and abundance can only be achieved if knowledge and the factors of production are accessible for everyone. With that in mind, Yoonseo sees open-source hardware as the key for enabling communities around the world to vastly increase their productive potential and together engage in strategic economic collaboration. To that end, he is working with Open Source Ecology to develop the Global Village Construction Set, the 50 industrial machines that it takes to build a civilization with modern comforts.

Jimmy Koppel (20, St. Louis, MO) has a passion for software engineering – and a plan to make it much more efficient. Modifying software today often involves hundreds of thousands of small, similar adjustments that require a great deal of time and money. James will fix that problem by developing new tools to automate the process.

Ryan Lelek (19, Schererville, IN) developed a passion for entrepreneurship at the age of 15, when he established his first “instant streaming” start-up. Now he’s dedicated to disrupting the computer industry, using new advances in hardware, software, and network technology. As a Thiel Fellow, he’ll continue to change the world by creating simple technology tools that empower people.

Ritik Malhotra (19, San Jose, CA) Ritik began programming at age 8; started a popular web forum at the age of 12 that grew to over 32,000 members; and ran a web hosting and software consultancy business at the age of 13, garnering over a 600x return on his initial investment. Now he wants to provide a streamlined way of discovering, sharing, and distributing content over Facebook, Twitter, and other social media services. As a Thiel Fellow, he’ll first work to build a service that allows users to share interesting media, scraped from all around the web, focusing primarily on user growth in order to build a thriving community.

Chris Olah (19, Toronto, ON, Canada) wants to use 3D printing to reduce the scope of scarcity. His goal: empower anyone with a 3D printer to make educational aids, basic scientific equipment, and tools that improve their quality of life. He is currently working on a project called ImplicitCAD, which is a math-based attempt to reinvent computer-aided design and make it more affordable.

Semon Rezchikov (18, Hillsborough, NJ) is eager to explore how synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and social network dynamics intersect. As a Thiel Fellow, he wants to develop more flexible bioautomation technologies to improve the design cycle speed, and then use those technologies to create a library of truly reliable parts – making synthetic biology more like engineering and less like science.

Omar Rizwan (18, East Hanover, NJ) wants to change the world through the control and analysis of information. Specifically, he plans to speed up progress in the field of artificial intelligence by working on the analysis of big data sets. He will aggregate large sets of data from many different Internet sources and use them to tease out trends and draw conclusions.

Tara Seshan (19, New Fairfield, CT) is dedicated to improving public health worldwide, using technology, simple solutions, and community-based change. To that end, she is developing a tool that influences analysis of data, monitoring and evaluation, and public health decision making. As a Thiel Fellow, Tara will explore developing tools that enhance public health programs that can be implemented in low-resource settings.

Noor Siddiqui (17, Clifton, VA) is inspired to galvanize people for the good of others. As a Thiel Fellow, she will work to give students across the globe access to upward mobility – and industries access to an untapped work force – with the goal of mobilizing one billion people in the next decade.

Charlie Stigler (19, Pacific Palisades, CA) has years of experience as an entrepreneur and engineer, having written the popular open-source study application, SelfControl, and founded two Web start-ups. Now he’s working on Zaption, an application that improves the usual workflow for educators and collaborators by allowing video to be integrated into interactive Web experiences and studies. He believes this technology can help solve fundamental problems, starting with that of the U.S. education system.

Ilya Vakhutinsky (20, Fair Lawn, NJ) wants to revolutionize the way the technology and health care communities work together. He is working to create a more open and transparent health care system, drastically lowering the cost of care and empowering patients to make better decisions.

Taylor Wilson (18, Texarkana, AR) became the youngest person in history to create nuclear fusion. Since then, he has produced the lowest-cost and lowest-dose active interrogation system for the detection of enriched uranium ever developed. As a Thiel Fellow, Taylor will focus on both counter-terrorism and the production of medical isotopes for use in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Connor Zwick (18, Waukesha, WI) is passionate about education – which is why he has set out to revolutionize our country’s antiquated system using technology. As a Thiel Fellow, he will focus on Flashcards+, a mobile educational platform with a base of over 1.5 million downloads that allows anyone to learn anything using crowd sourced generated content from a database of more than 400 million flashcards.

Image of 2011 Fellowship class via Thiel Foundation

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Microsoft’s anticipated social network So.cl has arrived, but don’t expect it to be the Google+ or Facebook challenger it was widely rumored to be — at least not yet.

So.cl, pronounced social, is being billed as a site for student collaboration and information gathering. For now, Microsoft is calling it just an “experimental research project” and only making it available to students studying information and design at the University of Washington, Syracuse University and New York University.

So.cl is “designed to give students the ability to network with peers, share useful information quickly, and build their own pages that collect information from both inside and outside the classroom — in a sense, transforming the web and social networks into the new classroom,” Microsoft said in a blog post on the launch of the site.

That’s all fine and dandy, but what’s it do? Well, simply put, it’s a social search site. The site features a search experience, powered by Bing, that displays search result data but also encourages students to share links as they search. Students can also build their own communities around subject matters or topics of interest.

So.cl’s most unique feature, however, is the rich post, which is like a meta-status update and can include multiple links and images that are assembled together in a visual montage. Rich posts (pictured below), just like status updates, can be commented on, but they can also be tagged and embedded elsewhere on the web.

And then there’s “video party” (pictured above), a group video-sharing feature that also ties in with the site’s search experience. The So.cl user can start a video party to search and collect a list of YouTube videos, and then view those videos together with friends. Video parties are saved as collections and users can view each others’ collections.

So what we have here is a slight twist on the social network that caters to students who are already social media-obsessed. Microsoft is certainly playing up the student angle, but that strikes me as a temporary and manufactured hook to get people to see So.cl as something other than a generic social network.

So.cl is a product of Microsoft Research’s FUSE Labs.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple today released details of its 2011 back to school promotion, which offers eligible buyers a $100 app store credit with the purchase of a Mac computer from Apple’s education store.

In years past, Apple offered an iPod as the promotional item of value, which is less practical for educational purposes than the plethora of iOS and OS X applications available for purchase with the $100 credit.

Apple probably chose the $100 credit because it not only helps promote the App Store but also saves the company money. Unlike with the iPod giveaway, the company will recuperate at least 30 percent of any purchase made using the credit — more if the purchase happens to be an Apple application like Pages or iWork.

However, this year Microsoft is running its own back-to-school promotion that is arguably a better deal for students (although maybe not such a plus for their study habits). As we reported in May, the company is offering an Xbox 360 with 4 gigabytes of storage (a $199 value) to any student who purchases a Windows 7 computer for $699 or more.

For $700, it’s not difficult to find a Windows machine that matches or beats the specs of Apple’s least expensive computer, which start at $899. And while Apple’s education store does knock off $100 from the regular price, it’s still the more expensive option.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft’s promotion digs into Apple’s back-to-school Mac sales through the beginning of September when both promos end.

This was StartX’s second demo day. Students and companies spend months preparing to present at the event. It’s a chance for them to get face time with some of Silicon Valley’s most well-known venture capital firms and angel investors — and a chance to pick up some funding for their companies.

“This is going to be one of the top three accelerators in the world,” said Charles River Ventures investor George Zachary, who was an investor in Twitter. “The most exciting things in the Bay Area are YC, StartX, AngelList and 500 startups — the list drops off after that.”

The program has received more than 1,000 applications and has accepted 24 total. Around one in every five people who have participated in StartX have been women. Two recipients of the Thiel Fellowship, a $100,000 award that encourages college students to drop out and start companies, have also participated in StartX.

The team of each company doesn’t have to be composed entirely of students, but the founders that are students have to hold a majority equity stake in the company. So it is geared more toward student entrepreneurs and gives them a chance to try building their own company from scratch with some help.

Here’s a list of the companies that presented today and a brief description of what they do:

6dot Innovations: This company has created a portable braille embosser that can quickly create braille labels. The device has a few buttons that let blind individuals type out messages, mathematics, music and other types of information in braille on a line of tape. The company plans to make money off labeling tape and third-party software add-ons. 6dot Innovations expects to launch the main product in the fourth quarter this year.

Clear Ear: This company is trying to solve “the earwax” problem. The company is creating a device that automatically cleans out an ear canal. It’s designed to be safer and quicker than typical earwax cleaning procedures, which can lead to complications. There are three products that project light into the ear to make it easier to see where the earwax is in a person’s ear.

GameClosure: GameClosure is an application that lets developers quickly build online social games like Zynga’s FarmVille. It is basically an HTML 5 game development kit. The games work across both mobile devices and web browsers on regular computers. The company has already built one game — called Pop Star Defense — that works across most devices.

Juntos Finanzas: Juntos Finanzas is a text-messaging based system that tracks spending practices. Whenever a user leaves the supermarket, they can text a number with how much money they spent. At the end of the month, the user receives an email message or a physical letter that includes a story of how much money was spent over the month and what kind of spending habits the user has. It’s like online financial advisory app Mint.com, but for low-tech users who don’t have ready access to the web and smartphones.

Kitchit: Kitchit gives consumers direct access to chefs and tools to help them plan private events. It also gives chefs a way to find cooking gigs so they can focus on cooking rather than the logistical details of running a restaurant. You can think of Kitchit as a social catering network — for graduation parties, weddings and other events.

Leglytics: Leglytics is a legal document search engine designed for lawyers and legal researchers. It’s designed to be a simple search engine — like Google search – for legal documents instead of more complicated search engines like LexisNexis. The search results are visualized with an array of dots, with larger dots representing more important documents or legal cases. The company doesn’t actually host its own data — it’s basically an application programming interface (API) that ties in with other sites that carry all the data.

Qwhispr: Qwhispr is an application that aggregates data from social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The app filters the information it gets from the social media sites — such as unimportant content like a happy birthday note. The app extracts important keywords and returns them to the person executing the search.

PredictiveEdge: PredictiveEdge has an app to help retailers determine an optimal price point for products. It determines price based on the price for other products that are somewhat similar or carry similar characteristics. The actual product will be a web application that’s sold as a subscription.

WiFiSLAM: WiFiSLAM is working on an indoor global positioning system that uses WiFi hotspots to figure out where an individual is within a building. Current GPS technology doesn’t typically work in buildings and can’t pinpoint an exact position. A phone scans for WiFi hotspots and checks the signal strength of all nearby routers. The application then determines a person’s position based on the signal strength of nearby WiFi routers. The app should be compatible with current smartphones. It uses as much battery power as a typical WiFi connection.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The developers behind the Kno, a student-focused tablet computer with a pen input, are in talks to sell off their hardware business and focus exclusively on software, according to tech blog BoomTown.

The Kno is designed to replace textbooks. The idea is to use pen input to recreate the same kind of tactile satisfaction that comes with smattering massive math textbooks with notes, something most finger-controlled tablets can’t offer.

So it does make sense that the developers behind the Kno might want to leave hardware concerns to another company and focus on delivering software that students will actually use. Pen-enabled tablet computers have actually been around for some time now, but haven’t quite caught on with students because they just aren’t a good enough replacement for textbooks. And there isn’t any kind of indication yet as to whether the Kno’s software will buck that trend and finally kill the textbook.

The Kno already has enough deals in the bank to shift its focus to software — the company is working with Cengage Learning, McGraw Hill, Pearson and Wiley, and will begin marketing the tablets at 10 college campuses across the country initially. The hardware market is also growing increasingly saturated, with Hewlett-Packard recently announcing a tablet running on Palm’s WebOS mobile operating system and the Motorola Xoom shipping soon – and that’s not to mention the iPad and other existing competitors.

Kno plans to release two versions of its tablet computer — a single-screen device for $600 and a double-screen clamshell device for $900. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has raised $55 million to date, including the $46 million it raised in its most recent round of fundraising last September. The company is backed by Marc Andreessen’s investing firm Andreessen-Horowitz and others.

The service allows students across the world to make and share lecture notes and flashcards around their courses. Students can even team up with classmates, share material, and have the service transcribe their handwritten class notes. A useful feature on the site helps students assess their readiness for exams by generating quizzes based on their notes.

The service operates on a “freemium” payment model. Most features are free to use, but members can elect to upgrade to StudyBlue+, its premium version, for a day ($4.99), month ($9.99), or year ($59.99), to access features such as comparing and combining notes with other users on the site.

Launched in 2008, StudyBlue has expanded from 25 campuses to more than 500 and has over hundreds of thousands students enlisted on its platform. With its newly raised capital, the company plans to expand to more campuses and extend its accessibility across mobile devices.

StudyBlue is based in Madison, Wisconsin, and has raised $2.85 million over the past two years, bringing its total funding to $6.5 million.

The startup has partnered with 20 universities for its launch, out of which it is launching pages for Harvard, Stanford, and Syracuse today, with the rest likely to follow in the coming weeks. Representatives or eager students from universities not currently in the program can apply to join.

Once equipped with a page, universities can have students “follow” their accounts, and use the page to broadcast messages and activities. Students and staff, meanwhile, can share and discover “Tips” when they check-in — information on buildings, landmarks, traditions, secrets, shortcuts around campus, etc. — and earn badges and discounts. For example, the campus bookstore may choose to run a special for people who hold the “Bookworm” badge, earned by checking in frequently to the library.

The geolocation service already has somewhat of a reputation for its young, urban “hipster” demographic, and this is a sensible move to reach out to a broader, yet similarly poised audience. College students may not be based in as urban a location as the service has targeted to date, but there are lots of them, and you can bet they want to keep up with the latest new thing in town as much as anyone else.

Universities have been a great traction point for startups looking to gain critical mass. Lest we forget, they were almost single-handedly responsible for Facebook’s emergence. So it’s not surprising to see Foursquare seek out that direction.

Foursquare is based in New York and was founded in 2008 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. The company raised $20 million back in July from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. We’ll cover the topic at DiscoveryBeat 2010. Startups and big companies alike should consider entering our Needle in the Haystack discovery business idea competition. Early bird discounts are available until September 22. Sponsors can contact us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To buy tickets, click on this link.