What about a V-day date at the MakerBot store? Nerd love at its finest.

Your heart-shaped Birchbox. Tired of cellophane-wrapped boxes full of chocolate-flavored fat? On February 7, Birchbox is launching a limited edition V-day box—the "We Heart" Collection. For $36 you can have goodies like nail polish, bobby pins and some mascara product advertised as “triple action,” in case you’re not getting any this year.

Newsreels Tonight at 6 p.m. marks the premier of "MAKERS: Women Who Make America," at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. This video and broadcast initiative is a collaborative effort between AOL and PBS that aims to communicate stories of revolutionary women who help shape today’s world.

How do you hail? Former Starbucks exec Tom Barr is now on board for the expansion of Hailo, a mobile app that obviates the need to stick your bare leg into the street by hailing a cab for you, into New York City. He'll be serving as President and COO USA. “We now have the senior team, resources, and the investment and corporate partners to deliver our vision of bringing Hailo to New York City, Tokyo, and every street corner in every major city in the world. We have shifted into overdrive,” said Hailo CEO Jay Bregman.

Take your friends/kids/wives to MakerBot MakerBot is launching a series of workshops, classes and lectures for anyone eager to learn the nuances of 3D printing. The company's retail location at 298 Mulberry Street will feature lessons like “Setting Up and Maintaining Your New MakerBot” on Friday nights from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., when your OKCupid inbox looks like this. At $35 per class (this varies depending on which one you attend) space is limited, so register in advance.

America’s Got Hackers As if computer science majors weren’t already the only grads grabbing real jobs with real salaries and real benefits, Readyforce is making it even easier for them. The career network for college students has acquired Umeqo, a platform created and run by MIT students that connects said students with prospective employers. Student groups nationwide can now use Umeqo (for free) to organize career fairs, create events, track RSVPs and share resumes with companies that would generally prefer to only hire from a pool of top-tier tech school graduates.

Your couch as front row at Fashion Week. For everyone still mourning the absence of presidential debate drinking games, there is now a classier cause for belligerence. From February 7 to 14, IMG Fashion and Rightster will be delivering live streams of all Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week shows at Lincoln Center at this site and via Facebook. Title sponsor Mercedes-Benz is joined in sponsorship by companies like Maybelline New York, TRESemmé, Style Network New York Times, Women's Wear Daily and Getty Images, but the real winners here are the alcohol distributors. The official schedule can be found here.

Tapiture adds tastemakers Tapiture is growing big and strong as it leads male-oriented social discovery by helping people buy and share content from all over the web. And by strong, we mean the company is freshly flush with $825,000 in cash. New social media plans, including a mobile app, are currently in the works as part of the site’s expansion. Leo Resig, CEO of Resignation Media and Tapiture Board member said he stands “committed to supporting their effort in becoming the web’s leading male-centric social discovery and sharing site.”

(Photo: The Yard)

No Sleep 'Til Back in July, Betabeat revealed that Williamsburg-dwelling coworking space The Yard would be launching a General Assembly-like roster of classes--and at "Brooklyn prices," no less. Well, the curriculum site is now live, with a full list of offerings. Examples include iOS app development for beginnings and Intro to Makerbot. A course on Kickstarter makes the joke about would-be creators of mason jar cocktail shakers almost too easy.

Your Digital Newsstand Now live: DuJour, an ultra-luxe magazine targeted to the rich and fabulous. Glossy photo shoots are all well and good, but DuJour hopes to distinguish itself by thoroughly integrating print and digital--meaning readers can finally click through to featured items that strike their fancy. Giving the pub a long leg up: A partnership with Gilt Group, which'll allow the magazine to launch with a subscriber base of three million.

Learning with Friends Ed tech platform Lore is now open to students, taking yet another stride toward being a social network, rather than simply a platform for classes. Rather than awaiting an invite from an instructor, anyone can now create a profile and start poking around. “We created Lore to make education better by connecting people.” said CEO Joseph Cohen in a statement, adding, “This is the next step. And we’re excited to see the new relationships and communities students form on Lore.”

Don't Miss the Bus Earlier this month we introduced you to Readyforce's Hacker Tour 2012 and its mission to recruit talent for startups, rather than Google or Goldman. Since then, the campaign has racked up even more sponsors, doubling the amount of support from VC-backed companies. Organizers are also offering two "pro-bono" spots for non-profit tech companies, plus three for early-stage companies. The tour kicks off September 12 at Cornell.

Summon the Stylistas Mark your calendars, people of fashion tech: On October 11, StyleCaster and the 92nd Street Y are holding their second State of Style event, on the heels of a sold-out February event. The idea is to "unlock the potential of new media in the style space." Speakers include designer Rebecca Minkoff and Buzzfeed president Jon Steinberg.

New Hires Jewelry startup BaubleBar has secured itself a VP of digital marketing, poaching from the tastefully appointed halls of the established fashion world. Previously, Shilpa Shenoy headed up digital marketing at Barneys New York, where she oversaw a site redesign and the launch of barneyswarehouse.com. Prior to that, she did stints at Helmut Lang and Theory.

Acquisitions Private equity firm Catterton Partners has acquired thirteen-year-old online promotions company ePrize. Terms weren't disclosed, but the company did rake in $53 million in revenue in 2011 and it has almost 500 employees. Because ePrize is profitable, CEO Matt Wise told Betabeat, the acquisition wasn't about operating capital, but rather having deeper pockets for strategic acquisitions.

3-D Printing We hear that Makerbot, New York's one-company manufacturing revival, recently signed a lease on its very own storefront. The Wall Street Journal reports the company will set up shop at 298 Mulberry, between Houston and Bleecker. Go ahead and update your Christmas shopping to-do list; we'll wait.

(Photo: Hackertour2012.com)

Talk to a startup recruiter about hiring young developers, and he'll eventually admit it's hard to compete in the campus cattle call, with Goldman and Google sucking up all the air.

But rather than rely on incendiary exit letters or Aaron Sorkin scripts to convince engineering talent to come over to to the startup side, a number of smaller companies are banding together to flex their collective recruiting power.

This fall, startups like Square, Box, 10Gen and Codecademy are sponsoring a nationwide effort called Hacker Tour 2012 that kicks off September 12th. The tour targets computer science and engineering students at 25 top campuses, including Cornell, Princeton, Penn State, MIT and Harvard on the East Coast—which they claim will reach 20,000 students. The bulk of the positions the tour hopes to fill are in software engineering, with user-experience designers coming in second.

The tour is being organized by Readyforce, a San Francisco job search company that matches college students with the right employers. (Sponsorship for the tour costs $5,000, and Readyforce gets no commission for job placement.) Hacker Tour will be using customized tech talks, career fairs and yes, an Airstream bus. The company was lucky to score mobile payment company Square, founded by Twitter luminary Jack Dorsey, as its first sponsor.

"Square got it immediately," Anna Binder, Readyforce's VP of client relations, told Betabeat by phone. "The demand for engineering talent is by far the biggest story in Silicon Valley right now. Many people say the challenge you face is not raising money, it's finding engineers to hop on the bandwagon with you to help realize your dream."

One of the goals of the tour, said Ms. Binder, is to "tell the students the story about their options outside of Goldman and McKinsey and the Ford Motor Company. Just because those companies are the ones that are prevalent and super-organized on campus doesn't mean," that they're the only choice.

The time seems right to test out the world-changing waters. Last winter, Occupy Wall Street turned investment bank recruiting events at schools like Yale into a "crucible of controversy." Meanwhile, student newspapers at Harvard, Cornell and Dartmouth urged students to consider a career outside finance. And that was before the "Why I Left," Goldman Sachs resignation bomb exploded across the New York Times op-ed section.

Working at a startup gives students a chance to work in an environment, Ms. Binder said, where you can have access to the CEO and, "Raise your hand and say, 'You know what? I don't think that's a good idea.'"

Partly to reflect the startup work experience, and partly, we imagine, because it's cheaper, Ms. Binder said, "I want to take an approach that's a little bit different than Goldman Sachs's wine-and-dine."

But how does that pitch play amid rising unemployment rates to an audience that will soon have to start paying off their student loans? "Part of the startup dream is this opportunity to really make it big," Ms. Binder acknowledged. "This is your opportunity—if you choose well and you focus and commit yourself, you do have the opportunity to build a billion dollar business. It's more about free time and dogs and beer and Ping-Pong and, you know, collaboration, versus suits and wine."

Maybe leave out the part about what happens to that billion dollar valuation when the public markets get their hands on your stock.