I’ve spent a little over three weeks with Google Glass, and I’ve noted that the utility aspect of the device is strong, but the fun isn’t there yet. It feels a lot like the original iPhone did, before it had the App Store.

In this video, we discuss some of the quick assumptions about Glass, warranted or otherwise, and give you a look through the eyes of the device in action. Stepping outside, pulling up an address, replying to an email and listening to the latest NYTimes headlines is a pretty seamless experience. Google calls the technology “calm,” since it doesn’t require you to pull a device out of your pocket, unlock a screen or tap any buttons.

The power of Glass will be unleashed once developers start building apps that consumers will love. Until then, have a look at some of the things I’ve been doing since I got the device. For those following along, I hope to have my recipe app available soon. It’s been a fun learning experience for me.

Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon has been a big part of the New York City scene for years — and finance has long been a dominant industry in the city. So when talking about the ascent of Bitcoin onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Dixon directly addressed corruption in Wall Street, we thought it’d be interesting to follow up and hear more.

So in our chat backstage, Dixon talked a bit more about how he sees the tech industry impacting the “company town” feeling of Wall Street dominating New York — and how tech is shifting the energy of the city back from a place that takes things, to a place that makes things. We also talked about Andreessen Horowitz is investing beyond software and into the hardware space, Dixon’s very popular personal blog, and more.

Check it all out in the video above.

Football is a sport that brings everyone together, even if you’re not a diehard fan or have never played the game yourself. The rush of energy that comes with rooting for your favorite team and arm-chair-quarterbacking an entire game is something people around the world do every Sunday.

For those who need to live, eat and breathe football throughout the week, fantasy football is an essential part of the pageantry leading up to every week’s packed NFL schedule. It’s a packed space, with Yahoo!, ESPN and the NFL itself having online leagues you can join with your friends and strangers. The model hasn’t changed though, with the premise being selecting the players that you think will perform the best throughout the season, collecting points as they play games week after week.

A familiar name and face, four-time Super Bowl champion quarterback, Joe Montana, has his own spin on fantasy football, and will be releasing an app called iMFL prior to the start of this year’s NFL season. The app is part fantasy football, part predictive social “game,” with the ability to place bets with friends as games play out in real-time. For example, you could guess that the next play will be an interception. If you’re right, the points are yours. The hope is that you’ll be playing around with iMFL on your iPhone or iPad while you watch the game with friends, no matter where they are.

Montana and his co-founder Damon Grow, CEO of Crowdmob, came into the office to give us an exclusive preview:

The app isn’t available yet, but it will be out on Apple’s App Store, so get ready. It’s a crowded space, but I think with the in-app purchases and constant real-time engagement, iMFL could do well. This isn’t a one-time thing for Montana, as he tells me that there are a few other projects that he’s working on which he’ll share with us soon.

Bonus: This isn’t Montana’s first “game,” as fans will remember Joe Montana’s Sports Talk Football for Sega Genesis. It was impressive back in 1991, but the Madden series won out and become a blockbuster success:

The “personal assistant” craze is in full effect on mobile devices, with Apple’s SIRI kicking off the fun. The dream of being able to speak out loud and have information come back to you is something that technologists have been discussing for years. The smarter that our devices are, and the more we use them, the more we expect in return. Google is in the game with its own assistant, Google Now, which comes pre-installed on Android devices.

A service called Sherpa has been popular in Spanish-speaking countries after being founded by natural language expert, Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria. The service does what you’d expect from SIRI or Google Now, but has a few other wrinkles, like allowing you to pay someone via PayPal, with a simple voice command. The company recently raised $1.6M to assist in bringing it to the U.S.

We spoked to Uribe-Etxebarria about some of the things that make Sherpa different, and why this might be an app worth grabbing for your Android device.

The example that really stood out to me was asking Sherpa to find flights for you, even picking up on the fact that you’d like to fly with more than one person. This type of technology, empowered by pulling in data from all different sources, is a good base to start. The more you use Sherpa, the more it learns. If you want to use it for simple things like seeing your Twitter mentions, that’s possible too. Sherpa hooks into all of your social accounts, making each service’s functionality available via voice command.

The future is here.

The Exploratorium, San Francisco’s hands-on science and technology learning museum, is set to open up next week in its brand new location at Pier 15 right on the Bay, and we got the chance to head inside a few days early and take a look at the new digs.

Many cities have science museums, but this one has an extra dose of tech cred — its board of directors is headed up by chairman George Cogan, who by day leads Bain & Company’s global technology practice, and also includes other industry luminaries such as Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Google’s third employee and current Khan Academy exec Craig Silverstein, Google’s Jeff Huber, and others. A number of tech companies contributed millions of dollars to help build the Exploratorium’s new $300 million home.

In the video embedded above, you can watch our walk through the new Exploratorium and see new exhibits such as the Maker-inspired “Tinkering Studio.” And in the video below, we talk to George Cogan about the brand new space and how the Exploratorium could inspire the next generation of tech visionaries.

So what’s the future of e-commerce? According to Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani, the multi-billionaire founder and CEO of the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, it lies in making online stores more hospitable. In his new book, Marketplace 3.0; Rewriting the Rules of Borderless Business, Mikitani lays out his vision for the future of online retailing. As he told me, buying products online will be marked by a shift away from what he calls “standardization” toward a more customized experience.

This new “hospitality” model, Mikitani explains, is essential if e-commerce is to remain a disruptive force in the digital economy. In a sense, I suspect, Mikitani might be suggesting that e-commerce should become more Japanese, in its focus on politeness. Perhaps. But neither Mikitani nor Rakuten should be underestimated. With its $15 billion market cap, its acquisitions of Buy.com and the e-book creator Kobo, not to mention its $100 million investment in Pinterest, Rakuten has emerged as a genuine global player in the digital economy. Mickey Mikitani and his 10,000 employees at Rakuten really are rewriting the rules of borderless business. They might even be the real future of e-commerce.

Amidst all this coverage of snazzy new products from big established companies, it’s always a huge breath of fresh air to talk to the little guys — budding independent entrepreneurs passionately making clever new apps and services. In many ways, these are the people that actually keep the tech industry interesting.

That’s why it was great to meet Brittany Hawkins of Swirl It, a new app for the iPhone for helping you keep track of the wines you try and discover potential new favorites.

Swirl It is a bit of a passion project, as both Hawkins and her co-founder Nic Werner have very busy full-time jobs at other tech companies (Sharethrough and Slashdot, respectively.) After meeting on a “co-founder date” two years back and bonding over their wish to bring an accessible wine-focused app to market, the pair have worked nights and weekends to make Swirl It a reality. At the moment, the company is totally bootstrapped.

One of the big differentiators for Swirl It is how it has a huge focus on location — the idea is that while a label might help us pick out a wine to begin with, often what we end up really associate a wine with is the where and when — that great Chardonnay you tried out at that one restaurant, or that affordable Rose your friend brought to a picnic. Swirl It’s database has 15,000 wines and 5,000 locations, with more being added daily.

We brought Hawkins by TechCrunch TV to give us a hands-on look at Swirl It and talk about what sets it apart from other apps for the oenophile set. My first impression is that Swirl is a well-designed app that fulfills a definite need simply and effectively — it’ll be fun to see how it takes off in the days ahead now that it’s out in the wild.

Check it all out in the video embedded above.

Here are some screenshots of Swirl It:

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A few weeks ago, we quietly relaunched our redesigned iTunes site. After some tweaking, we’re now ready to get the word out.

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