Well, slightly.

You'll still hear how many cities (420) and countries (66) and continents (6) are represented by the 1,700 companies that applied, along with the acceptance rate (0.6 percent), but the emphasis is on the “large market opportunities they are tackling."

That makes sense considering all those predictions that the accelerator bubble is about to burst (and advisements against joining one). The hot trend to emerge from Y Combinator's recent Demo Day, for instance, was trying to make money. 

In a blog post, Managing director Eugene Chung, who was named David Tisch's replacement in January, calls out categories beyond consumer Internet, including "the religion space." What Would Founder Jesus Do?:

"For the first time ever, we have a company tackling the religion space, an underserved yet massive market with incredible opportunities for disruption. Two of the things that Americans care most about are what they drive and what they eat, and we have companies revolutionizing both. The areas our founders are tackling are as varied as optimizing ecommerce to the world of pets. Our companies dream big, tackling the exciting new trends in cutting edge 3D to new ways of experiencing live shows to the quantifying of innovation for every company in the world."

We spotted at least a couple familiar names among the 11 companies selected. There's Plated, a sort of concierge Fresh Direct that lets users select a chef's recipe and then delivers all the ingredients so that all you have to do is cook. We've seen the startup get a shoutout in many a humblebragging Instagram. We also spotted Validation Board, a tool to help companies vet their ideas, which we covered last October.

Here are the rest:

AdYapper: Transparency and analytics to cut wasted ad spend.

Dash Labs: Connected car platform.

FaithStreet: Social outreach platform for faith communities.

Jukely: 2-tap concert concierge.

Klooff: Uniting pet lovers around the world.

Placemeter: Smart in-store sensors capturing customer data.

Sketchfab: Publish, share and embed interactive 3D models.

TriggerMail: Intelligent ecommerce emails.

weeSpring: Community for new parents built around the people they trust most.

(Photo: Flickr.com/jeffgun)

Just a day after naming Eugene Chung the successor to David Tisch as New York managing director, TechStars has announced it will buddy up with Excelerate Labs to establish a Chicago foothold. [TechStars]

How safe is Kim Dotcom's new Internet lockbox, Mega? Good question. [The Verge]

Apple TV will reportedly get HBO Go later this year. [Bloomberg]

In addition to attacks on the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal was also infiltrated by Chinese hackers, and they tried to get into Bloomberg News. At this point, we're starting to feel left out. [Wall Street Journal]

Hacking attacks by the Chinese have, in fact, become such an issue that President Obama is reportedly considering "a range of actions" to deal with the problem. [AP]

Mr. Chung (Photo: TechStars)

In December, after reports about an impending downturn in the accelerator boom, some local investors expressed concerns about the future of TechStars New York. Would the next Demo Day be the same parade of oversubscribed startups when much-hyped graduates were still stuck in beta? Were the lessons learned in TechStars enough to prepare companies for life outside the bubble?

David Tisch's departure as managing director added to that uncertainty. But TechStars CEO and founder David Cohen dismissed those worries, pointing to "heavy inbound interest" in the role. Today, he announced his new hire from the 35 candidates interviewed: Eugene Chung, a former venture capitalist with New Enterprise Associates. 

NEA has been making a number of high-profile investments in New York startups, including leading Buzzfeed's recent $19.3 million Series D. Mr. Chung was "instrumental in managing" investments in BuzzFeed and Bedrocket. The Harvard MBA also has experience as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and an energy investor at Warburg Pincus. In a prior stint at Pixar, he programmed an app that automated analysis of a film's story development.

Mr. Chung has already been mentoring TechStars companies, including Poptip, Moveline, Bondsy, Condition One, Classtivity, Wander, and Pickie and wrote about how accelerators were disrupting venture capital for the Harvard Business Review. Not too shabby as far as cover letters go.

Interim managing director Nicole Glaros, who was shipped in from Boulder to take the helm, will co-manage the spring class and be based here for the duration.

Mr. Cohen told Betabeat he expects to announce the companies selected by the end of March, before the program starts on April 2. Interest was at an all-time high, with 1,700 startups applying.

You can read posts about today's announcement from Mr. Cohen, TechStars cofounder Brad Feld, and Mr. Chung himself.