Two Australian programmers caught in the middle of a social media backlash for a sexist presentation have issued an apology on Facebook.

David Boulton and Jethro Batts angered audience members yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt, a popular technology conference in San Francisco, after they unveiled 'Titstare', a 'joke' application involving photos of men looking at women's cleavage.



So critical was the social media response that Tech Crunch co-editors Alexia Tsotsis and Eric Eldon issued an apology to readers and promised to overhaul the event's screening process.

Mr Boulton and Mr Batts used Facebook to issue an apology, adding that the content was intended to be "entirely comedic".