New Tech City

MAP: 25 Solar-Powered Charging Stations for Mobile Devices Coming to NYC

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:40:00 -0400

Twenty-five solar charging stations for mobile devices are coming to city parks, beaches, golf courses and other outdoor spaces this summer, courtesy of AT&T.

The "Street Charge" kiosks are already available in Riverside Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park and Fort Greene Park and will be installed elsewhere across the five boroughs in the coming months.

The charging stations were designed by Pensa, a design firm based in DUMBO. The solar technology comes from Goal Zero.

Parks commissioner Veronica White said the initiative was inspired by Sandy and the crowds of New Yorkers without power who flocked to places where they could charge their mobile devices.

The stations can provide power for several days, even without sunshine, and charge devices at about the same rate as your typical indoor outlet.

View Solar Charging Stations in NYC in a larger map

NSA Surveillance as a Teachable Moment?

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

What can we learn from the NSA's surveillance program? A lot, according to Chris Lawrence, senior director of the Mozilla Mentor Community. He calls the scandal's aftermath "a teachable moment."

In a recent blog post, he argues that the revelation that the federal government is collecting information on U.S. citizens from their online activity is an opening for educators, mentors and others to teach digital literacy in topics from censorship to commercial data tracking.

"There's large chunks of things people don't know about the web, how it works, what happens to their data, privacy," he told New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi.

In response to PRISM, Mozilla has started an online campaign called Stop Watching Us, which is calling on Congress to reveal the full extent of the government's surveillance program.

Click play to hear New Tech City's full interview with Mozilla's Chris Lawrence.

Graphic Designer Gives NSA PowerPoint a Makeover

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Imagine this: You flash your top-level security badge, settle into a government conference room as the lights dim and begin to watch a slideshow explaining the latest NSA surveillance plan, code-named PRISM.

Well, if you're anything like presentation designer Emiland de Cubber, you'd be laughing from the start.

"When I first saw them, I thought it was some kind of a joke because they were summarizing all of the PowerPoint clichés," De Cubber told me when we reached him in Paris via Skype.

On this week's New Tech City, De Cubber tells us what's wrong with the NSA slides: "All the corporate mistakes of presentations...enormous logos, illegible fonts, cheesy charts and stuff like that."

Content aside, De Cubber's ruthless design sense resulted in some beautifully crafted slides:

"I start by removing stuff. I really think that each items on the slides must struggle for its life and struggle for its presence on the slide. And if it's useless, let’s get rid of it."

Since his upgraded slides went viral, the freelancer has been featured in FastCo Design and The Huffington Post and received over 150 offers to complete freelance projects.

De Cubber's slides are also a perfect example of "native advertising," the trendy term for "an ad whose form and delivery is identical to the content environment in which it is served," as ReadWrite puts it.

No Facebook banner ad could have given De Cubber this amount of exposure or demonstrated his professional skills so well. This is "personal branding" done right.

Backlash to NSA's PRISM Program Spawns a Movement

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the wake of news that the National Security Agency is collecting vast amounts of digital data about the online activity of U.S. citizens, the federal government has said the program — known as PRISM — is crucial for homeland security. Of course, not everyone agrees.

This week on WNYC's New Tech City, a new movement called Stop Watching Us is pressing Congress to help reveal the full extent of NSA surveillance.

"We've mobilized over a hundred different organizations," said Alex Fowler, chief privacy officer at Mozilla, one of the organizations heading up the effort. "We're very close to 200,000 signatures from people who are very concerned about this issue."

Plus, a graphic designer revises the NSA's clunky slideshow about PRISM to better explain the program.

Want to Disappear? Don't Fake Your Own Death

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

To disappear in the real world, you need an overseas bank account, some pre-paid cell phones and an uncanny awareness of where potential surveillance cameras might be hiding.

According to former detective Frank Ahearn, the worst thing you can do is try to fake your own death.

"The problem with faking your own death: If you don't leave a limb behind...Nobody really believes it," Ahearn told Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC's New Tech City.

Click on the play button above to hear more about the challenges of disappearing and taking on a new identity. It's fascinating stuff.

How to Disappear from the Internet

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The specifics of a secret government surveillance program called Prism are still being uncovered, but last week it was revealed that for the past six years, the National Security Agency has been collecting people’s emails, photos and videos from companies like Google, Apple and Facebook.

For anyone who doesn't like the idea of a digital-age Big Brother tracking clicks and pageviews, don't despair. There are ways to throw someone off your trail.

This week on New Tech City, meet Frank Ahearn, a former detective who now helps his clients disappear from the internet. He explains the tricks of the trade to Manoush Zomorodi.

Where do you stand on the issue of privacy versus national security? Tell us.

Plus, collecting personal information is key to many tech businesses, and many want to use that data to help their customers.

New Tech City editor Charlie Herman reports on some of the cutting-edge concepts AT&T Labs is cooking up here in New York, like using sensors and monitors to track people and their homes remotely.

NYC Tech Reacts to Government Surveillance

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:15:43 -0400

The news this week that the U.S. government obtained personal data from several major American communications and technology companies has unleashed fresh debates over privacy and national security. It's also raising uncomfortable questions for the city’s many tech start-ups.

At DreamIt Ventures, an incubator space in midtown Manhattan, some weren't surprised to learn the government is spying on its citizens. Others wondered what they would do if their company became large enough that it caught the eye of the government's national security agencies.

"If we did get big enough that they came after us and asked, it’s impossible to say no," said Mike Tringe, co-founder of CreatorUp!, a web video production company.

Government Surveillance: How Worried Are You?

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:11:01 -0400

So the government's tapping vast amounts of internet data and tracking phone calls. How concerned are you?

It's forever a balancing act: maintaining our privacy and civil liberties versus ensuring the nation's security.

Where do you come down?

Verizon Call Logs Controversy: No Such Thing As Too Much Information

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:38:19 -0400

The news that Verizon is providing the government with data about its customers on a daily basis has reignited the debate between balancing individual privacy and national security.

Barry Steinhardt of the group Friends of Privacy USA said the surveillance itself is not so surprising, but the volume of material gathered is.

“The government seems to think the way to find the needle in the haystack is to pour more hay on the stack,” Steinhardt said.

That idea might seem counter-intuitive. But too much information is increasingly a thing of the past, as powerful computer programs tease patterns out of bigger and bigger pools of data.

6 Best of the Best Google Glass Parodies

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:00:00 -0400

We thought about doing a round up of all the awesome Google Glass memes that are out there. Turns out, it’s been done. A lot. So we decided to go meta with a round up of the round ups. That’s right, it’s New Tech City’s Best of the Best Google Glass Parodies.

Gizmodo: The Five Funniest Google Glasses Parodies

Gizmodo came up with this list back in April 2012, and gets kudos for being early to the party. Check out Jimmy Kimmel’s version and admit that’s how you first pictured Google glasses.

Dashburst: 16 Funny Google Glass Comics and Parody Videos

Dashburst gets credit for the sheer breadth of its roundup – 16 parodies – and for going straight to the source: Google’s original launch video. Strand! Food Trucks! Ukuleles! Google glass shows us what New York looks like through the eyes of the Silicon Valley set.

Huffington Post: 9 Best Google Glass Parodies

HuffPo asks Apple CEO Tim Cook whether Google Glass will take off. His response: People don’t wear glasses for fashion. Hmm.

Gadget Review: 7 of the Funniest Google Glass Parody Videos to Geek Out To

How Google Glass Ruins Relationships seems pretty plausible.

HonorableMention: This one of a toddler wearing Google Glass didn’t make any of our lists, but it’s too adorable to miss. Apple juice never looked so good.

Airbnb Appeals Judgment Against NYC Host

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:33:15 -0400

For the first time, room-sharing service Airbnb will represent a user in court.

The company took the step after an administrative law judge fined Nigel Warren $2,400 for hosting a traveler from Russia for three nights. Warren, a Manhattan software designer, has become a poster-child for the dangers of person-to-person room rental sites in New York City.

Airbnb acknowledges there are risks to engaging city lawyers in the courts.

“We know that by stepping up and fighting for Nigel and our community, we have made ourselves a target and will now face attacks in the press and from people who do not understand who our community really is,” wrote David Hantman, the company’s head of global public policy, in a blog post. “But the amazing activity that is happening in New York and other cities around the world is worth fighting for.”

The firm representing Airbnb, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, is litigating one other notable case involving “collaborative consumption,” but on the other side of the issue. The firm represents the livery car industry in its bid to block the taxi-hail app Uber.

Special Needs Students Teach Others About Assistive Technologies

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

For many special education students in New York City, this school year was the first time they were integrated into general education classrooms. The move is part of city reform efforts in special education that call for more mixed classes of disabled and nondisabled students in public schools.

To make that inclusion work, students like senior Abraham Axler are calling for a greater understanding of assistive technologies for students with disabilities.

"The idea is that they’re tools, not cures," said Axler, who used reading and writing technologies throughout school to help with his dyslexia and dysgraphia.

In collaboration with ARISE Coalition, Axler and six other students recently held a conference at Pace University School of Education to showcase communication tools that altered dramatically their class participation. They shared their success stories to a small group of parents, advocates and educators.

For eighth-grader Thomas Ellenson, keeping up with his peers at NYC Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies is nearly impossible without his iPad. It’s attached to his motorized wheelchair and allows him to conduct classwork through apps like Math Paper and Panther Writer.

"When you can’t use a pencil, math is very difficult," said Ellenson, who has limited hand mobility and communicates through a speech app on his iPad.

Like the other presenters, Ellenson uses technologies that have been around for years. But that was the focus of his message: Students with disabilities don't need cutting-edge or pricey technologies in the classroom to be able learn.

"There's plenty of money, there's plenty of technologies, there's just a lack of understanding of what it [technology] can do and who deserves it," said Mark Surabian, assistive technology practitioner and a conference organizer.

Nineteen-year-old student Melanie Sarmiento recently began using a device called MyTobii that completely changed her high school class experiences. Because she has limited mobility and can't speak, the technology tracks her eye movements on a keyboard and verbally communicates for her.

"Before MyTobii, I would feel upset when they [classmates, teachers] didn't understand me, and I would start to cry," expressed Sarmiento, who has cerebral palsy.

But, according to 20-year-old Justin Perez, it's not enough to just have the technology.

"You would think being verbal, but not having use of my hands, that it wouldn't be hard to teach me," said Perez, who has cerebral palsy. "Unfortunately from first to fourth grade, people thought that including me meant only that – including me in the classroom."

As a kid, Perez said he had the technology that would have allowed him to learn in general education classrooms. But his teachers and classmates didn't know how to effectively integrate it into the learning.

"That's why I ended up an illiterate fifth grader," said Perez, who now studies at Bronx Community College.

Perez said he felt more included in the classroom when he began using voice dictation software in middle school. He considers himself lucky – he eventually regained his love for learning.

"It's the other kids I worry about," he said. "The ones without the support or technology."

Five Great Apps for Kids with Autism

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

My name is Melissa Morganlander and my 5-year-old son, Quentin, has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS, a form of autism. Here are five great apps that have helped him greatly, which I have reviewed on my blog, the iQ Journals.

1. Kid in Story – Social stories are step-by-step picture books that help children with autism understand a social event that might otherwise be confusing, frustrating or simply upsetting. This app allows you to create your own social stories and include your child’s photo and record your own audio. I loved using it to prep my son for our trip to Disney World.

2. Model Me Going Places – This great little app does not get nearly enough praise as it should, in my opinion. It uses video modeling to depict some social situations that children with autism often struggle with. Quentin has watched all the videos, multiple times. The best part? It’s free!

3. VAST Autism 1 – Core – This app uses video modeling for speech. Like so many children with autism, Quentin learns best with visual imagery. This app is packed with extreme close-up videos of a mouth speaking basic words and phrases. It's a little odd to watch at first, but for children who struggle with expressive language, it could prove to be really helpful.

4. Toca Boca Hair Salon – While this app is not specifically for children with autism, I discovered it helped my son so much with something he struggled with: getting a haircut. Like most apps from Toca Boca, this is about open-ended play. Being able to be in control of an animated client in the salon chair can really put your haircut-fearing child at ease after several rounds.

5. Go Go Games – This app, designed by graduate students at Stanford University, is a set of games specifically designed for kids on the autism spectrum. The games focus specifically on the skill of matching objects, which can be difficult for some people with autism.

Melissa Morgenlander is an education consultant and holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Studies from Teachers College, Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Technology Helping Kids with Special Needs

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

For many students with special needs in New York City, this school year marks the fist time they joined others in a regular classroom setting. With this integration comes the need for assistive technologies to help level the playing field.

This week on New Tech City, Reema Khrais reports from a student-led conference about assistive tools they have used successfully in school. She talked to three students with cerebral palsy who use different technologies that allow them to participate more in class.

Eighth-grader Tom Ellenson uses an iPad with an app his dad designed just for him.

"When you can’t use a pencil, math is very difficult. Thanks to math applications on my iPad, I can complete class work and tests, just like my peers," Tom said, via his iPad.

Also this week, New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi talks with education consultant Melissa Morgenlander. Her son has autism and she's now using her doctorate in media, tech and education to explore ways to help him. She's also found not all technologies designed to aid in education are useful.

Autism, Media, and Technology: A Brooklyn Story

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Tomorrow’s New Tech City episode is about a woman I met nearly six years ago while walking my colicky newborn around Brooklyn.

Melissa Morgenlander had little ones too: weeks-old twins — a boy and a girl — and while she wasn’t pushing a double stroller, she was finishing up her Ph.D. at Columbia where she was studying how children learn from television.

Melissa and I moved to different neighborhoods but stayed in touch.

I recently went to visit her to discuss the interesting experiment happening in her house,

AN EXPERIMENT AT HOME

Melissa’s son Quentin has been diagnosed as autistic and since I last saw her, she's become an an education consultant and changed her focus from TV to interactive technology. She has a blog called The iQ Journals where she chronicles the special relationship her six year-old son has with technology, especially the iPad.

“He highlights the search box and comes up to me and says ‘McDonald's’ and I will give in to him because, quite frankly, when you have a child who is not speaking ask for something so clearly, you are obligated to [respond] — you want to reinforce him positively for that,” she told me.

Quentin isn’t just obsessed with his iPad, he’s obsessed with corporate logos. It’s all he wants to look at. He spends a lot of time spotting logos on YouTube and watching ads over and over again. I must have heard the CVS ExtraCare card commercial 50 times during my one-hour visit.

Melissa says Quentin engages with the gadget in a way he never does with people or toys. But she’s nervous about some of the iPad’s side effects — like an app that was supposed to encourage Quentin to talk more, but which has had the opposite result.

As a mother, I was also interested in Melissa’s journey. She went researching educational TV to parenting a child who is interacting with screens in ways we could not have imagined six years ago.

“I’m trying to figure out what is he doing so that we can put it into something new that he can learn from,” she told me. “I always felt really strongly that television, long before touch screens came along, should be used as a teaching tool.”

WHERE APP DEVELOPERS FAIL

But, while educational television took years to develop, Melissa believes app developers are rushing the process.

“App developers aren’t there yet — they don’t actually understand the need for research before throwing an app into the iTunes store. Tons of app developers who know nothing about child development say, ‘I have a great idea!’ They throw together an app, put it in the iTunes store under ‘education’ and parents are overwhelmed by choice,” she said.

Read Melissa’s blog for more on how specials needs are being met (or not met) by media and technology.

And listen to my interview with Melissa (and Quentin!) on WNYC on Tuesday at 93.9 FM at 5:50am and 7:50am or online and on iTunes (please rate us while you’re there).

New Columbia Institute to Tackle Big Data

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 28 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

As data sets grow larger and more complex in the digital age, Columbia University is forming an institute to train the next generation of technologists — a group you might call "big data crunchers."

Starting in fall 2013, the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering will offer a four-course certification program where professionals with quantitative backgrounds can study topics like algorithms in data, machine learning and data visualization.

A full-fledged master's program to be added in 2014 will revolve around the institute's six centers: smart cities, new media, financial analytics, health analytics, cybersecurity and foundations of data science.

"The use of data is really exploding in the real world, in industry, so there's a need for talent," said IDSE director Kathy McKeown.

Data analysis is now crucial for businesses in healthcare, finance, education, retail, yet according to a recent study by McKinsey and Company, the country will have a shortage of up to 190,000 data analysts by 2018.

To bridge this knowledge gap, IDSE is taking an interdisciplinary approach, tapping into the breadth of the university's existing scholarship and research from across the hard sciences, social sciences and even the humanities.

"We want people to have technical training, but we also want people to have an understanding of asking the right questions," said Chris Wiggins, a Columbia professor of applied mathematics and a founding IDSE faculty member.

Wiggins has spent the last half-decade bringing Silicon Alley startups like Foursquare, OkCupid and Buzzfeed to campus to discuss the technical challenges they face.

Future IDSE master's students will be able to build on that relationship with the city's tech industry by working with startups on capstones and other projects.

"Bringing companies up to give talks and to meet students is nice, but far better is bringing companies up to Columbia and actually solving problems with students," Wiggins said.

The plan is similar to the Industry Co-op Projects that Cornell NYC Tech students worked on during the graduate program's first semester, which ended May 17. Students paired up with mentors from Bloomberg LP, Qualcomm and other companies to build new web services and apps.

Both schools, as well as New York University, received funding from Mayor Bloomberg's Applied Sciences initiative. Columbia will use its $15 million to retrofit space in the Mudd and Northwest Corner buildings and hire 75 new professors over 15 years.

At IDSE's inaugural symposium in April — "From Big Data to Big Ideas" — an administration representative spelled out how the new Columbia, Cornell and NYU tech schools could help drive New York's economy in the coming decades.

"The Applied Sciences initiative will spin out hundreds if not thousands of companies, create tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs, and create billions upon tens of billions of economic improvement," said Kyle Kimball, executive director of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Tech Studies at NYC Universities

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 28 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Three New York universities are launching new tech-based programs designed to study, analyze and find solutions to real-world problems.

Tucked away in Google’s huge office building in Chelsea, the inaugural class of applied science graduate students at Cornell NYC Tech tinkered away at new web services and apps beginning in the winter and finishing this May.

“At least for me, I think, people learn better by doing,” says student Andrew Li.

With only seven students - all men - in the first class, administrators called it their ‘beta’ semester. Cornell is continuing to develop and expand the curriculum and degrees it will offer, as well as find ways to attract a more diverse student body. By 2037, when the Roosevelt Island campus is expected to be completed, the school plans to have 2,000 students.

Meanwhile, NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress won’t be up to full capacity for several years, but the new applied science and engineering institute is already planning to start tackling the field of "urban informatics." CUSP leaders say it’s the key to making cities thrive: The goal is use "Big Data" to improve transportation, health care, air quality, and perhaps even deal with incessant jack hammering.

"One of the things we would like to do is go out and systematically measure the noise for the first time, in different places in the city at different times of day,” said Steven Koonin, the center's director. “Then we’d like to characterize that noise – is it traffic, is it wind, is it HVAC, is it construction – and then hopefully provide better information to the people who charged with enforcing those regulations.”

Columbia University is joining into the push to educate the next generation of engineers and scientists. It is opening the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering this fall and is plans to admit 25 students.

Airbnb Suffers Setback In NYC Court Decision

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

A New York City judge has issued a rebuke to Airbnb, the popular short-term home rental site.

Airbnb had intervened on behalf of a user, Nigel Warren, who faced stiff fines for renting his Manhattan apartment to a visitor from Russia for three nights. It was the first time Airbnb made a legal motion on behalf of a user. But the judge upheld a violation notice from the city, writing that the term lodger “does not apply to complete strangers who have no, and are not intended to have any, relationship with the permanent occupants.”

Administrative Law Judge Clive Morrick's decision in the case of Airbnb and Nigel Warren

Teens Share More Online, But Also Know the Risks

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 -0400

Teens are sharing more photos and personal information on social media, but they are also taking calculated steps to manage their online reputations, according to "Teens, Social Media, and Privacy," a study released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center and the Berkman Center at Harvard University.

The study's focus groups also indicated that teens are increasingly using Twitter and moving away from Facebook.

That fact also turned up in "Gen Z: The Limitless Generation," another study on how teens use the internet from Wikia and Ipsos MediaCT.

"A lot of them are reporting that they're bored with Facebook," said Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikia and founder of Wikipedia.

You can hear more from Wales below.

7 Things New Yorkers Need to Know About the Tumblr Deal

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:24:38 -0400

Forget about Yahoo and Silicon Valley for a minute. How do the people here in New York City — tech people and Tumblr users — feel about Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition of the social blogging platform?

Well, the technorati are elated: "Right on New York. Right on David Karp, and right on Tumblr," said Andrew Rasiej, chairman of the NY Tech Meetup.

But some of the young, creative users — gif-makers, meme-starters, cat-lovers — are worried, sad or even a little angry.

"I was kind of upset at first," said Laura Olin. She ran the official 2012 Obama campaign Tumblr.

Olin was a heavy user of both the photo-sharing site Flickr and the link-organizer Delicious before Yahoo bought and transformed them into things she no longer recognized.

"Both of those acquisitions didn't seem to go well," she said.

Click on the listen button above to hear more from both camps. Plus, if you're unclear what you should take away from the Yahoo-Tumblr deal, here's a breakdown.

Yahoo-Tumblr Deal in 7 Statements

1. Tumblr isn't going anywhere.

It will remain a separate platform and David Karp will stay on as CEO. "We promise not to screw it up," said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!.

2. There will still be plenty of gifs. Nothing is supposed to change.

"Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn't changing. And our mission — to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve — certainly isn't changing," said David Karp, founder and CEO of Tumblr

3. Then again, Yahoo doesn’t always have the best track record when it comes to buying other companies.

One word: Flickr.

4. And Tumblr users are a little worried.

"I was kind of upset at first just because, I was a Flickr user and also actually a Delicious user and both of those acquisitions didn’t seem to go well," said Olin.

5. Then again, it might be OK.

"They seem to understand that this is a huge deal for the Tumblr community and they seem to be reaching out in Tumblr’s own language." — Laura Olin

6. And New York City's "Silicon Alley" sure is excited.

"It really shows that New York can create a top-tier tech company," Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future

7. If you build it, they will come.

Instagram and now Tumblr have shown that once a social networking site attracts a fervent user base, deep-pocketed companies like Google, Facebook and Yahoo will come calling.

In Boost for Silicon Alley, Yahoo to Buy Tumblr for $1.1B

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:45:52 -0400

The board of the long-faltering tech giant Yahoo has reportedly agreed to pay $1.1 billion for Tumblr, a New York-based social blogging platform with more than a hundred million blogs and a young, engaged user base. The deal might just make Yahoo hip again.

So, what does it mean for Tumblr and the Silicon Alley startup scene?

New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi says there has not been a splashy IPO or big acquisition in New York's tech scene in recent years, so all eyes are trained on the deal to see how it shakes out for Tumblr and its 26-year-old founder David Karp.

Zomorodi speaks with Soterios Johnson on Morning Edition.

Attend Every NYC Tech Event? Not a Chance

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

It can feel like the events, conferences, meetups and hackathons in Silicon Alley never end.

Now that it's Internet Week in New York City, chances are you or someone you know is either planning, watching, sitting on, moderating, streaming or avoiding a panel AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

So, why are we so obsessed with conferences in an age when everything can be done online? Maybe you're desperate to get out because your butt hurts from sitting at your desk all day (or your back hurts from being subjected to a poorly hacked standing desk).

But it's also likely that you fall into one or more of these four categories.

The Personal Brander

Every meetup, dinner or panel is a chance to spread the word about your startup. You pride yourself in having actually met most of the people you follow on Twitter. You stopped calling yourself a freelancer and started referring to yourself as an entrepreneur way back in 2009. There’s lots of Seth Godin on your Kindle. You understand the new paradigm of the workplace.

The Constant Content Maker

Conferences are your goldmines. You run around tweeting, blogging, interviewing and shooting video on your phone. You come armed with an extra battery pack, know where all the outlets are at every city venue and attack panelists the minute they walk offstage. You are a Social Media beast. Roar!

The Reality Checker

Going to events confirms that you do indeed know your things. You mostly sit in the audience, feeling annoyed, thinking, "I could be sitting up there. This is nothing new." You vow to stop attending so many conferences but then check Gary's Guide and feel a wave of FOMO wash over you.

The Mind Melder

Between managing "workflows" and sorting out the intern’s security clearance, you hardly have time to live up to your impressive title. Then you discovered that conferences are a chance for you to turn off your phone, sit quietly and actually use your brain. So once a week, you sneak out of the office, listen to some "thought leaders" and remind yourself why you got into tech/media, et cetera in the first place. It sure wasn’t to fill out timesheets for a living.

MY INTERNET WEEK EVENTS

Feel free to be one or more of these "types" at the events I'll be hosting, speaking, and moderating this week:

5/20 — Brand Camp

5/21 — WNYC Presents: STEM is the New Space Race

5/21 — Social Advertising: Sharing and Powering Relevant Conversations

5/22 — Multiscreen: Getting It Right

A Tumblr Boost for Silicon Alley?

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:44:56 -0400

New York City's tech scene is on fire, but it has yet to produce a Facebook, a Google or an Amazon, and there have been no splashy IPOs or recent mergers and acquisitions.

But now Yahoo is in talks to acquire Tumblr, the micro-blogging service that's a Silicon Alley darling, according to the Wall Street Journal tech blog All Things D.

What does that mean for tech investors, Tumblr users and the startup community in New York?

New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi explains on All Things Considered.

Dean at Cornell NYC Tech Dishes on First Semester

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

As the inaugural class at Cornell NYC Tech wraps up its first semester, we checked in with the school's founding dean Dan Huttenlocher on the real-world skills stressed in the curriculum, the school's mission and what's being done to attract more women to the one-year program.

All seven of the graduate students in the so-called "beta class" are guys.

"The applicant pool is overwhelmingly male. Overwhelmingly white and Asian male," Huttenlocher told WNYC's Dan Tucker at a recent Open Studio where the students showed off entrepreneurial projects.

Cornell NYC Tech is reaching out to undergraduate institutions to drum up interest among young women, Huttenlocher said. It's also working with the startup Girls Who Code to train middle school girls in computer science.

The school expects about 20 students in next year's class.

Better WiFi Coming to Union Square

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:43:35 -0400

Union Square is getting a digital makeover.

Starting this June, 3,000 people will be able to access the free wireless connection in Union Square at the same time. That’s up from just 250 people today.

"With the growth of personal handheld devices, particularly phones and tablets, more and more people than ever before are trying to log on to free, complimentary WiFi," said Jennifer Falk, executive director of the Union Square Partnership. "So we knew that we needed to boost the system."

The partnership paid for the initial installation of three new antennae, and Beth Israel Medical Center will cover the costs of the new network in 2014 and 2015.

According to Falk, the location of the antennae means the WiFi will even extend to the sidewalk cafés at a few neighboring businesses, like The Coffee Shop, Republic, and Heartland Brewery.

Kids Need STEM Education in the Digital Age

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 14 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

"We're in the early days of the Internet. Every other industry will be eaten by tech," says Paul Buchheit in a recent New York Times magazine article about startups. Buchheit was Google's 23rd employee and helped develop Gmail and AdSense, Google's online advertising platform.

If Buchheit is right, every American worker is going to need to know something about the so-called STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math.

Had my 14-year-old self known this, I probably would have started crying. I liked novels back then, not computers.

Nowadays, teachers are starting to teach STEM subjects in creative ways, using Legos, games and real-world examples. And yet, it's still not enough. Check out these statistics from Change the Equation about how the U.S. is falling behind.

We’ll be talking about what makes teaching STEM so tough at WNYC's The Greene Space on Tuesday, May 21. I'm co-hosting the event with WNYC's Beth Fertig of Schoolbook. The focus will be on K-12 schools in New York City. We'll be asking: What techniques work? How can teachers and parents ensure kids succeed and enjoy learning STEM subjects?

Panelists include the Deputy Chief Academic Officer for the city's Department of Education, educators from NYU/Polytechnic University and teachers who will demonstrate some of their methods for getting students psyched to learn.

We'll also discuss how we can explain, to older kids especially, why STEM education is so important.

"Suppose you're sitting in a meeting with clients, and someone asks you how long a certain digital project is slated to take. Unless you understand the fundamentals of what engineers and programmers do…any answer you give is a guess and therefore probably wrong," writes Pubmatic President Kirk McDonald in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. "Even if your dream job is in marketing or sales or another department seemingly unrelated to programming, I'm not going to hire you unless you can at least understand the basic way my company works."

The title of that op-ed, by the way, is "Sorry, College Grads, I Probably Won't Hire You."

When I was in college, a warning like that might convinced me to transfer from Advanced Watercolor to Beginner Computer Science.

High School Students Train for Tech Jobs

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been pressing his idea of a "homegrown workforce" to feed New York City's tech industry, and it is one he is trying to foster in the city's public schools.

The Academy for Software Engineering, a high school in Manhattan devoted to computer science, opened in September, and the school received 1,400 applications for its next freshman class of 125.

Not a surprising showing to Gio Rascigno, 14, a current student.

"The world is pretty much dictated by computers and electronics, and you shouldn’t be ignorant about something that controls the world pretty much," he said.

Rascigno said he knew some code when he entered high school. But plenty of others did not. Any eighth grader can apply to the school, regardless of grades or computer science background, and students are chosen through a system similar to a lottery.

Students take a basic coding class in their first year, along with a data functions course that blends math and computer science. They are also paired with mentors from tech companies like Foursquare and Twitter.

Seung Yu, the school’s principal, said the computer science curriculum will expand over time. But he added that the success of the school will rely on establishing more industry partnerships for mentoring or after-school programs.

"We're going to need to rely on more people if we really want this school to be what we think it can be," he said.

This first year, he said, has been focused on establishing a school culture. He gives student-of-the-month awards, based on both academics and character. A student this year won an award for "Most Mature." Another received an "All Around Nice Guy" award.

The attendance rate, so far this year, has hovered above 94 percent.

Next year, the city will open a second computer science high school, the Bronx Academy for Software Engineering, and launch pilot programs on a smaller scale in 20 middle and high schools that will allow students to take computer science classes on topics including coding, web design or 3-D printing.

The number of software engineering positions is expected to increase by about 30 percent this decade, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics.

From Future Coders to Your Grandma, STEM Education for Everyone

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Whether you're 18 or 85, keeping up with new technology is increasingly important for success and even well-being.

This week on New Tech City, WNYC's Yasmeen Khan visits the Academy for Software Engineering near Union Square to meet the students at the city's first public high school to put computer science front and center in the curriculum.

The first freshman class is about to wrap up its first year. So, what did they learn?

"I built a data center in my bedroom," said student Gio Rascigno.

Also this week, New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi visits the Senior Planet Exploration Center on West 25th Street where seniors like 85-year-old Muriel Beach are learning how to use Microsoft Word, Gmail and other technologies.

Cutting and pasting hyperlinks might be second nature for the "digital natives" at AFSE, but it's a different story for someone born in the 1920s or 1930s.

"Although I've had a PC for years, I didn't know the full use of it," Beach said. Now she does.

Brooklyn Navy Yard's Future As Manufacturing Center

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:00:00 -0400

There was a time when ships launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Now, it launches companies.

At least that’s what a sign told visitors who made the trek to DUMBO Thursday for the official unveiling of New Lab. And while the tenants of the new space are mostly manufacturing companies, they don’t assemble ships.

New Lab plans to take up 84,000 square feet by 2015. For the time being, however, during its first phase, it occupies nearly 8,000 square feet on the 8^th floor of Navy Yards Building 280. The space is a well-lit, open office loft with tables and desks and no cubicles. In one section, a company makes baby spoons. Another creates robotic lamps and another makes cranial implants.

The manufacturing hub aims to bring together designers and engineers occupying the loft space with new technology like 3-D printers, said David Belt the founder of Macro Sea, which is developing the space.

On Thursday, three 3-D printers were humming, manufacturing prototypes for the companies at New Lab. One was printing a tiny robot figurine as a demonstration for visitors. There was little mess and hardly any noise.

For those working at New Lab, having 3-D printers on site makes it easier for them to create and tweak prototypes, thereby reducing the time it takes to move from design to manufacturing.

"You can design something today and have it in your hand tomorrow," said Siavash Mahdavi of Within Lab, a London-based designer but also a tenant at the Navy Yard.

Mahdavi designed software which tells a 3-D printer how to create the mold for a new kind of recyclable coffee cup. The mold, which he also designed, creates a fine, perforated surface that eliminates the need for the thin layer of laminate which typically keeps coffee cups from being easily recycled. It's a design Mahdavi said only a 3-D printer can manufacture.

The tenants of New Lab, however, said they are not there solely for the 3-D printers, but for access to other people who are part of this city's new manufacturing industry. It’s what entrepreneur Marcel Botha called "intellectual cross-pollination." Botha works with Spuni, which is manufacturing an ergonomical baby spoon.

Other designers are building customized hip implants and submarine antennae.

City Council speaker Christine Quinn, who attended the event, joked that some of the ideas coming out of New Lab were so good that she didn't understand them. "That’s what we want more of in Brooklyn. Big, smart ideas that I don't understand, that put people to work every day," said city council speaker Christine Quinn who attended the event.

The new manufacturing center is expected to cost $60 million, with $42 million financed by private sources and $18 million from public sources. That includes grants from the New York State Regional Council, the City Council and the Brooklyn borough president's office.

"Make no mistake, an idea is a nice thing, but it's not a particularly productive thing unless it puts people to work," Quinn said. "And that's what we're doing here, creating jobs that are going to be open to all New Yorkers, jobs that are creating actual things," Quinn said.

Airbnb Case Inches Forward

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:34:52 -0400

Remember Nigel Warren? He’s the East Village man who racked up a pile of violation notices after renting out his apartment on Airbnb for three nights, while he was out of town. The fines could cost him thousands of dollars. WNYC reported his story in February.

After some delay, Warren and a lawyer for the city each made their case before administrative law judge Clive Morrick on Thursday.

While the two sides agree on most of the facts, they interpret state law and local codes differently. Michael Burns, an attorney with the Department of Buildings, argued that paid occupancy of apartments for “transient use” of less than 30 days is clearly illegal (friends and relatives who do not pay may legally sleep on the couch for a few nights.)

Speaking without notes, Warren argued that the law makes an exception for short-term paid lodgers when a permanent occupant is present. And he provided an affidavit from a former roommate saying she was indeed in the apartment while Warren’s renter was there.

Burns countered that this interpretation was so broad as to render the law “meaningless.” He said the exception should apply only to renters who intend to stay for a longer time, like a long-term lodger who renews their lease weekly.

While the violations were issued to Warren’s landlord, Warren agreed to clear up the matter himself because he posted the listing to Airbnb. It's unclear how great the penalty could be. Warren has said he believes the fines could total as high as $30,000, but the judge on Thursday listed possible fines that would total $7,000.

Also present in Judge Morrick’s small, windowless office were three representatives of Airbnb, which successfully petitioned to be a “discretionary intervenor” in the case. This is believed to be the first time Airbnb has made a motion on behalf of a user.

Judge Morrick asked questions and scribbled notes on a white legal pad throughout the proceeding, which lasted over an hour. He promised to make his decision known by mail within 30 days.

Afterwards, Warren gave himself middling marks for representing himself.

"This was far more of an official court procedure than I imagined. And I'm not a lawyer. I don't know how to cross examine somebody," he said.

MakerBot CEO Dreams of Google Fiber in NYC

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Thu, 09 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

"Absurdly fast and wonderful." That's how MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis describes Google Fiber, a kind of futuristic internet 100 times quicker than broadband. You can get it in Kansas City, but not New York.

Listen to the 3D-printing guru lay out what he thinks New York needs to grow its tech economy: Better broadband, Wi-Fi in every subway car and station, more STEM education, less red tape.

"You either embrace the future or get left behind," Pettis said. "We need to get a few steps ahead so we can continue to be an innovation center."

Four Minutes with…Jack Dorsey

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

When he was 14, Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, worked as a barista at his mother’s café in St. Louis.

Dorsey recalls that to take a credit card payment, he had to consult a rate sheet, and then slide the customer’s card through a “knuckle-buster” imprinter. It all seemed like too much effort.

“And meanwhile this person’s cappuccino is getting cold…It did bug me,” Dorsey said.

Years later, Dorsey co-founded Square, a card-reader technology that challenges the dominant card-processing companies by taking payment through smartphones and tablets.

But Square isn’t stopping there. It is now challenging the makers of restaurant “point-of-sale” software with a new application, Square Register, that allows businesses to take and modify customer orders through the same Square interface.

“Internet companies and e-commerce has all this analytics about what people are doing on their sites,” Dorsey said, adding that restaurants should be able to see the same kind of real-time information.

“So they can make decisions about – I need to move the biscotti jar over here because if I do, I sell more biscotti. I can see it in the data,” Dorsey said.

#StartupCity: Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson's Advice for NYC's Next Mayor

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 07 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

"The Godfather of New York's tech scene!"

That's how Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer introduced venture capitalist Fred Wilson at his Start-up City: An Entrepreneurial Economy for Middle Class New York event, held recently at New York Law School as part of his Partnership NYC Jobs Blueprint proposal.

As anyone who attends tech conferences knows, Wilson isn't the kind of godfather who sits in a back room, plotting his next hit — he is out, front and center, explaining how he thinks the momentum of the city's tech economy can be sustained and grow.

Wilson, more clearly and succinctly than anyone that day, including mayoral candidates, laid out ways to build on NYC tech:

Three Ways To Build NYC Tech

Workforce Development

Wilson quoted Netscape founder Marc Andreessen: "In the future there will be two kinds of jobs — those for people to tell the computer what to do…and those where the computer tells people what to do."

We want to teach our children so they can be in the first camp, said Wilson.

The first Academy of Software Engineering opened in Manhattan last fall, with Wilson's support. The second will open in the Bronx in September and build on his "quest to put more computer science and software engineering in the NYC public school system."

Wilson also gave shout-outs to the coming Cornell NYC Tech campus and NYU's new Center for Urban Science + Progress.

But he called for more continuing education opportunities (like the Flatiron School and General Assembly) to help mid-career New Yorkers get the digital skills they need to reinvent themselves.

Connectivity

"I would love to see a Mayoral candidate say 'I'm going to bring Google Fiber to New York,'" Wilson said. Basically, broadband and Wi-Fi still are subpar in New York City.

Wilson called on the city to put free and open Wi-Fi on every subway car and in every tunnel as a "shot across the bow" at all cell-service providers. He admitted it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to do it.

Regulatory Reform

"We have a problem in the way that cities and the federal government regulate innovation — It’s all permission based," Wilson said. He went on to explain that the Internet has been such a hotbed of innovation because it is "permission-less."

Wilson cited Airbnb as an example of an innovative business (with a share-based business model) that will bring a billion dollars into the city's economy this year but is technically illegal.

"Corporate companies use money to stop competitors from coming in…sending cease and desist letters…this is the kind of nonsense we can't let happen," said Wilson.

Wilson's New Paradigm

City officials, he said, need to rethink how they operate.

They must move from "Regulation 1.0: Bureaucracy, friction, permission" to "Regulation 2.0: Transparency, accountability, innovation."

The Next Mayor

After apologizing for mixing metaphors, Wilson said, "Tech is like Pandora’s box: We can't put the genie back in bottle…and we can’t bring back those lost jobs." He said he's going to vote for a mayoral candidate who is "willing to speak up against the city's entrenched interests."

As Fred Wilson finished up his presentation, I leaned over to my neighbor, who happened to be Makerbot CEO Bre Pettis, and asked, "Has Fred ever talked about running for Mayor?" Bre shrugged and yelled "Fred Wilson for Mayor!" as Wilson walked offstage.

Sure enough, an hour latter a Twitter account called @DraftFredWilson appeared. Would you vote for Fred?

Visualizing Big Data in the "Reality Deck"

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The Reality Deck at Stony Brook University was created to help those working in STEM fields visualize big data — data sets so large and complex that a simple computer monitor cannot do them justice.

The facility's 416 Samsung LCD monitors pack an astounding 1.5 billion pixels into a space the size of a classroom. Standing in the middle of the room is a bit like being at the center of whatever is displayed on its four walls.

The Reality Deck can display the Milky Way and its trillions of stars in incredible detail or take you inside a molecule.

This week on New Tech City, WNYC's Dan Tucker goes on a tour of the Reality Deck and looks at how it could transform how scientists do research in fields as diverse as medicine and meteorology. It might even save lives.

Plus, New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi looks at a new 9/11 Memorial app that is changing the way we remember tragedy.

"A cell phone is a very personal thing," says the memorial’s chief technology officer Sean Anderson. "We do so much on it. It tells us where we need to go next, where we are, who is trying to contact us. And so in using it to memorialize someone or an individual, I don’t think that’s improper at all....I think for the individuals who choose to go that direction, it adds to their experience."

Three Barriers that Make it Hard to Pass on Digital Accounts After Death

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0400

When we die, we leave behind not just intangible memories and tangible physical possessions, but a whole host of digital accounts that are somewhere in between the two. Unlike the photos and documents you store in your desk, access after death to data stored with email providers and social networking websites is impeded by several major barriers.

1) Passwords. Unlike the lock on a safe, a relative is unlikely to be able to crack a Google password. Providers like AfterSteps let you store your passwords so they can be passed on to a designated “verifier” who would follow your instructions about disposing of your digital assets after death. “This is sort of the simplest way to do it,” AfterSteps founder and CEO Jessica Bloomgarden told us. But it’s not always in step with those companies’ policies.

2) Policies. As many who have lost loved ones have found, the policies of Google, Facebook and their ilk aren’t simply to hand over account access to the next of kin. The specifics of the policies, however, differ between companies in important ways. Facebook’s standard procedure, after being contacted and presented with evidence of a user’s death, is to “memorialize” the account. Far from handing the account over, this “restricts profile and search privacy to friends only, but leaves the profile up so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance.” Last week, Google announced a new “Inactive Account Manager” that allows you to designate trusted contacts who could inherit your data (though, again, not the account itself).

3) Laws. There are two flavors of laws that affect digital accounts after death, according to estate planning attorney Jim Lamm. One are the federal and state data privacy laws (like the Stored Communications Act), which treat your accounts as private and protected. The second are federal and state laws that criminalize “unauthorized access” to computers and data (like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act).

The challenge of these laws comes out in their interaction with the policies of companies like Google and Facebook. Facebook cited the Stored Communications Act in refusing to turn over the account of British model Sahar Daftary, saying, effectively, that this law required them to keep Daftary’s private information private, even after her death. Meanwhile, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has been interpreted to turn violations of a company’s Terms of Service into a felony. That means that, technically, you could be breaking the law if you pass on your Facebook password, since their Terms of Service state: “You will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else.”

There are efforts to update those federal laws. In New York, assemblyman Michael Kearns introduced a bill to update laws in the state to empower courts to order email providers and social networking sites to hand over access to accounts of the deceased. Until laws and policies change, individuals will continue to have to make their own way, sometimes violating the law in an effort to pass on their own digital legacies.

Tech Writer Anil Dash on The Web We Lost

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0400

Blogger Anil Dash says we tend to trumpet the tech revolution, with its vast social networks and slick smartphones, as a triumph of usability and empowerment. But Dash says a spirit of collaboration and emphasis on the user experience has been lost along the way.

He wrote about this shift on his blog in a post called The Web We Lost.

“There is an ignorance or a lack of history to the way that a lot of people that build the social networks, especially the young engineers, think about this because they weren’t around to see it any other way,” Dash told Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC’s New Tech City.

Dash cites as example Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram. “The first thing that happened as soon as Facebook bought Instragram was they shut off the ability for you to import your friends and find your friends through Twitter because Facebook and Twitter are enemies now.”

Dash says that may be good for Facebook’s shareholders, but it’s not good for users who want to Tweet photos to their friends. He adds that the walling off of content wouldn’t have happened in the earlier days of the Internet.

“There used to be a time when you put the goals and desires of the user ahead of the corporate infighting and battles,” he said.

Dash believes technology’s new vanguard should take a look at the philosophies that drove their forbearers.

“There are cycles to this stuff,” he said. “The pendulum swings back and forth.”

Planning For Your Digital Life After Death

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

When we die, we leave behind more than friends and family, homes and possessions. These days, we leave behind Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts and thousands of emails.

For Dr. Stephen Kelly, tapping into that digital footprint is a way to stay connected to his son John, who passed away two years ago. Once or twice a year, Kelly checks John’s Facebook account to read the messages and memories his friends have been posting.

“It’s a little bit, you know, unusual. I do leave a message. I post a message from us. Just thanking people for remembering him,” Kelly told reporter Stan Alcorn.

Kelly is able to stay in touch like this because he could guess John’s password. It was lucky, but it may also be illegal. Laws reaching back decades ban unauthorized access to computers and data. As a result, some tech entrepreneurs are stepping in to offer digital estate planning services.

Also on this week’s show, host Manoush Zomorodi talks to Anil Dash, who recently wrote the blog post “The Web We Lost” about the way the Internet used to be.

He said he’d like to see the new generation of tech leaders hearken back to some of the collaboration of the Internet’s early years – especially when it comes to putting the user experience first.

Mapped: Subway Stations With Wi-Fi

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:47:00 -0400

New York will have to wait until 2016 for Wi-Fi in all underground subway stations — putting it years behind other American cities like San Francisco, Boston and Chicago as well as international cities like Singapore and Hong Kong.

"If you look around the world at other mega-cities, New York is probably the farthest behind in terms of the technology infrastructure in the subways," said Anthony Townsend, a visiting scholar at NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management.

UPDATE: On April 25, 2013, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced 30 additional subway stations with Wi-Fi. Wireless and data services below ground will allow subway riders to use their phones, send and receive texts and e-mails. There are now 36 stations with online and cell services. AT&T, T-Mobile and Transit Wireless are paying for the project, which the governor's offices estimates will cost up to $200 million.

Wi-Fi services are through Transit Wireless which has an agreement with Boingo Wireless to manage and operate the system. For now, Wi-Fi is free thanks to sponsorship with HTC One. To access, chose SSID: FreWifibyHTCONE.

(The story originally appeared on September 19, 2012.)

Made in America Phonebook

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0400

For the manufacturing sector to bounce back in the U.S. after years of shrinking, one thing that will come in handy is a directory for domestic manufacturers and small businesses to find one another. A New York City startup is now hoping to bridge that gap.

When Matthew Burnett started a boutique watch company, he thought the only way to manufacturer the timepieces was to use foreign companies. But that proved complicated.

He could only order enormous quantities, and if there was a problem, he couldn’t just write-off thousands of defective parts. There was also the different in time zones between his company in Brooklyn and Asia. And of course, there was the language barrier.

For his next venture, a clothing company, he decided to make the products in the U.S.. He then discovered, however, that it was easier to find manufacturers overseas than here at home. So with his business partners, he created the website Maker’s Row, a sort of combination of the Yellow Pages and dating websites, but this time uniting American designers with factories.

The website has helped Nicole Levy’s company, Baikal, which builds fashionable handbags in New York City's Garment District. She's even had to hire someone to handle the increase in calls and requests.

But the experience hasn't been without some challenges for some manufacturers who have joined. Terry Schwartz of Sherry Accessories finds it a waste of time to field calls from inexperienced designers who find him through Maker's Row and don’t know how the fashion industry works.

The site continues to evolve, trying to find ways bring together domestic manufacturers with those who want to slap the sticker "Made In America" on their products.

The Age of Entrepreneurship and Self-Help. Barf?

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0400

Why is it that whenever I talk about the tech “scene,” the conversation often turns to doing what you love, being your best self, and finding your passion?

All this self-reflection and analysis makes me feel slightly nauseous. But I’m going with it.

As Business Insider noted last week, “People are voluntarily quitting their jobs at the highest rate since the pre-recession era.” That’s according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Many of us have technology and digital tools to thank for the flexibility we have to work anywhere and anytime. That easy connectedness has let the entrepreneurial spirit, formerly reserved for geniuses, trustafarians, and the fiercely competitive, trickle down to us regular white-collar folks.

Suddenly we are being given a chance to become “CEO of our own destinies,” as Maynard Webb, author of Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship put it.

Maynard was tech guy who saved eBay and now invests in tech companies. A former IBM security guard turned CTO, he says he wants everyone to wake up to the new reality of work.

“We are still using outdated models of work and people still have outdated expectations of what your company should do for you,” he told me.

Even if you have a regular job with regular hours, you need to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit, he said and think like an “intrapreneur.”

This is a different mentality than the one I had when I graduated from college (in the ‘90s) and bought my copy of What Color is Your Parachute. Mapping a career trajectory has taken on a new soul-searching quality. In a recent New York magazine article called The Power of Positive Publishing: How Self-Help Ate America, writer Boris Kachka noted, “We are in a new era of mass self-help, wherein the laboratory and the writer work together to teach us how to change ourselves, rather than our world.”

I think technology has a lot to do with that. It’s given us the ability to think outside of the corporate ladder and the 9-5 day. But I think it’s unfair to insinuate that we’ve become so self-involved that this new era of self-help is only about benefiting ourselves. I hear many people asking themselves, “How can I do work that I like AND have an impact on others for the better?”

Maybe I’ve gone soft (or Millenial?) but isn’t one of the tenants of self-help “You have to be able to help yourself before you can help others”?

Reboot Work, Find Success, and Become CEO of Your Destiny

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Maynard Webb is the chairman of the cloud-based customer service company LiveOps, the former COO of eBay and the founder of the Webb Investment Network.

His first book, Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship, was published in January, and he recently sat down with New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi.

Work — "Work isn't working for people anymore....People don't have jobs for life anymore. Most people don't have pensions....The world has evolved in a huge way, and I think we're still using outdated models of work."

Entrepreneurs vs. Freelancers — "Google was an entrepreneurial company. A lot of the companies I invest in are entrepreneurial companies. And they're not freelancers. I think entrepreneurship is a mindset about 'I'm not going to cede control of my career or my destiny to somebody else. I'm going to be in charge of it,' even if I decide to work for a company."

CEO of Your Own Destiny — "You can work for yourself or you can work for a company. It's about taking accountability for where you want to go, staying with a company as long as they're continuing to teach and to grow you. I think the best talent will have multiple options."

Happiness at Work — "Half of the country today is unhappy in what they do in the workforce. I think that's criminal....Just think of what the national productivity would be if all of us were engaged and happy and fulfilled."

Advice — "Assess exactly where you are and where you want to be and take a risk."

The New "Made In America"

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

A New York City-based website is using new technology to help sustain and even grow America’s industrial base.

This week on New Tech City, reporter Eric Molinsky meets the founders of Maker’s Row, a New York City-based tech firm that combines the Yellow Pages with dating services in order to bring together American designers, and inventors, with factories based in the U.S. that can make their visions a reality.

Plus, Manoush Zomorodi interviews Maynard Webb, formerly the President of Technology and Chief Operating Officer at eBay and author of Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship.

Webb, who is now chairman of the cloud-based customer service company LiveOps, says people must become CEOs of their own destinies.

“I think entrepreneurship is a mindset about ‘I’m not going to cede control of my career or my destiny to somebody else,’” he said. “‘I’m going to be in charge of it, even if I decide to work for a company.’”

Your Guide to Personal Finance Apps

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0400

Ismat Sarah Mangla is a staff writer at Money magazine and author of the "Best Apps to Manage Your Money," a guide to nearly two dozen smartphone applications and browser extensions for finding discounts, paying bills and monitoring your investments.

"When they say: 'There's an app for that,' they're not kidding," Mangla told New Tech City host Manoush Zomorodi. "There are so many new things that have come out that can kind of make your head spin."

Here are some of the apps and browser extensions Mangla found helpful for everything from shopping to travel to banking.

Hukkster — "When you are, say, looking at something on Amazon or on Macys.com and you see something you like but you don't want to pay full price for it, you want to know when it goes on sale, you just 'hukk' it as they say on the site, and that means you just sort of click it and pin it to your account and then you'll get an alert when the item goes on sale."

Mint — "The thing about Mint is that it does use bank-level security, and it's a read-only app, which means you input your accounts, like I would put in my credit card and my bank accounts, and it won't be able to actually make any transactions. It's just catching sort of a picture of what's going on and aggregating that information, but I feel pretty confident."

Decide — "If you subscribe to the premium service, which is $30 a year, it will tell you, 'OK, this is a really good time to buy this right now. There is a 95 percent chance that this price is going to rise in the next three weeks, or there's a new model coming out, or there's a really good chance that this is going to go on sale in the next couple weeks.'"

Personal Capital — "They really sort of track and analyze all your investments, your bank, and your credit card accounts, and analyze, like, 'What is my asset allocation?' Like, 'How are my investments broken down?' 'Am I paying extra in fees?'"

Manilla — "It sort of helps you cut all the clutter of all your documents out of your life. You know, a lot of people have gone paperless. They just get their statements online or via email. And what Manilla does is it pulls all your statements together in one place in PDFs and stores them for you."

Tingo — "Nobody wants to know that the person staying in the hotel room next to them paid half of what they did, right? So, with Tingo, what Tingo does is when you're booking hotel rooms, it basically automatically locks in the savings."

LearnVest CEO Alexa von Tobel on Modern-Day Money Management

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0400

Alexa von Tobel is founder and CEO of LearnVest, a startup that connects users with certified financial planners to help them manage their money.

Von Tobel likens her three-year-old company to programs that help people achieve goals, like shedding a few pounds.

"Think of Weight Watchers meets personal finance," Von Tobel told Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC's New Tech City. "You come to LearnVest online. You fill out a quick profile. We find out what's going to be best for your finances."

The mission of the project, von Tobel said, is to help bring money management and knowledge to the masses.

"Financial planning should not be a luxury. It should not be something that only wealthy people get access to," von Tobel said. "It literally is one of the most critical life skills and I would say that financial education is a civil right."

The New York-based startup has a mobile app for the iPhone and a web platform, and it offers plans that have startup fees ranging from $69 to $399. Once a member, there is a $19 a month charge for ongoing support with a certified financial planner, in addition to free tools and content to teach financial planning.

Listen above to the full interview and how LearnVest and Wall Street firms are working together, who is using the service and how LearnVest compares to other money management apps like Mint, Betterment and Personal Capital.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story capitalized the "v" in von Tobel. Also, this version said LearnVest charges yearly fees of $69, $299 or $399. Those are the initiation fees.

Will Personal Finance Apps Replace the Financial Planner?

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

With Tax Day come and gone again, New Tech City’s Manoush Zomorodi looks at the online services that might help you get on top of your finances for the this year.

MONEY Magazine staff writer Ismat Mangla has been testing some of the newest tools for managing purchases and scouting deals. She says the new apps may not be able to replace a real life financial advisor yet, but they’re getting close.

“There really is a lot out there," she said. "When they say 'There’s an app for that,' they’re not kidding.”

Also on this week’s show, Zomorodi tours LearnVest, an online money management service where customers pay a monthly fee to get matched with an adviser for unlimited financial advice. The adviser then coaches the customer “on demand” over the phone, email or Skype. LearnVest Alexa von Tobel says the goal is to make finding a financial adviser as easy and affordable as joining the gym.

“Financial planning should not be a luxury,” she explain. “It should not be something that only wealthy people get access to. It truly should be something that the whole country gets access to.”

Pay-By-Phone Parking Being Tested In The Bronx

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:57:29 -0400

An 18-block stretch in the Bronx will be the first in New York City to test pay-by-phone parking.

The pilot program will allow people to use phone, internet or smartphone app to pay for 264 metered parking spaces along or adjacent to Arthur Avenue — as well as spots in the city’s Belmont Municipal Parking Field. To participate, motorists must sign up in advance on the Pay-By-Phone website. Each Muni-Meter in the pilot program has a QR code and a seven-digit number; the motorist must use either to confirm payment.

For more on this story, go to Transportation Nation.

Climbing TheLadders: CEO Alex Douzet Explains the Online Job Search

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:51:14 -0400

TheLadders is a New York-based job site that charges subscribers, mostly professionals from the white-collar world, $25 dollars a month to search its database. CEO Alex Douzet says the goal is to pair people with appropriate jobs. It even tells job candidates who they’re competing against.

"The number one complaint we hear from people is 'I've see jobs online that I'm a good fit for. I apply and I don’t hear back. Why?'" he said.

To answer that question, TheLadders launched a new service called Scout that shows where other applicants work, went to college, even how much they make.

"We stripped out the confidential information. So we're not showing you their name or the company they work for," Douzet said. "What we've done is show you their title, what skill sets they have."

Even with all that competition, Douzet said job seekers should be optimistic especially if they're interested in tech.

"We're seeing all kinds of sectors hiring," he said. "New York has been known in the past for industries like insurance, financial service, real estate, media, but we are seeing new tech, and the new economy going really fast and creating jobs and hiring people....Every industry is being transformed by technology."

In fact, TheLadders itself is going through a transformation of its own as job seekers conduct searches on the go.

"Our traffic coming from mobile has doubled every year for the past couple of years," he said. "Today, one out of every three persons will access TheLadders from a tablet or a smart phone. We think that by the end of this year over half of our users will come from a mobile device."

Still, Douzet said taking that professional leap may take a little while. The average job search takes about six months and that jobs seekers should be prepared to apply and interview numerous times for multiple positions before actually getting an offer.

TheLadders has faced some of its own challenges. In March, it was sued for allegedly posting jobs that did not exist and that did not pay more than $100,000 as promised, and it was alleged those postings were scraped illegally from elsewhere on the internet. Read the complaint here.

In response to those allegations, Douzet told New Tech City's host Manoush Zomorodi: "This case has no merit, and we hope that it will be thrown out of the court quickly."

To Create Your Own Tech Job, a Little Irrational Exuberance?

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

When it comes to finding a job in the tech sector, sometimes an entrepreneur (aka Ideas Guy) and a developer (aka Coding Dude) strike up a conversation, develop some synergy and decide to create their own new product, thereby making work (jobs) for themselves in the process.

At the SXSWi festival last month in Austin, I met developer Pablo Quinteros and entrepreneur/journalist Seth Porges. Seth found Pablo when he hired him to create his fashion app Cloth.

It's hard not to be won over by their enthusiasm, sweet honesty and patient explanation about how the relationship between the Ideas guy and Coding Dude can play out. Take a listen above.

Their tale of teaming up — and their sheer enthusiasm for the project — got me thinking about what might be called "irrational exuberance" and the role it plays in Silicon Alley. Here are some questions the sprang to mind after I spoke with Pablo and Seth.

Are tech sector workers and the journalists who cover the industry prone to irrational exuberance?
Has the concept of failing changed, in part because of the tech sector?
Is it American to feel failure is not shameful but simply part of any learning process?
Is un-American pragmatism (I don’t mean that in a bad way) partly why some critics like Evgeny Morozov, author of To Save Everything, Click Here, are so disgusted with the tech sector?

Let us know what you think about any of these questions and about the excitement around tech in New York right now in the comments section below or at @NewTechCity on Twitter.

Job Opportunities in Your Pocket

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 04:00:00 -0400

Since the recession began, policymakers have been looking for new ways to connect the unemployed with work. The Bloomberg administration now believes it's found a powerful new tool to accomplish this goal: TXT-2-Work which sends text messages about job listings directly into the hands of unemployed New Yorkers.

One of those now receiving those text messages is Crystal Sampson.

"For the past, a little over two years, it's been kinda rough," Sampson said, explaining that she lost a job as a manager in a clothing store when the retailer downsized. "And I have 2 girls. Single parent."

On a dreary, wet morning, Sampson was waiting for her second round of interviews for a bank teller position at a branch in Tribeca.

"I have my resume, my cover letter, even a thank you letter, just in case I get the job," she said.

Sampson learned about the opening from a short text message which read:

Business Link is recruiting bank teller must have 6 month exp cash

handling with in retail/check cashing & HS/GED to apply 2/4 @ 9:30 to

348 W 34th St.

Business Link is a city-run employment bureau.

Katy Gaul, deputy commissioner for employment at the city's Human Resources Administration, said the texts are written as a call to action "meeting the client right where they are, getting the information right in your pocket." Gaul added, it's how people talk to one another these days. "That’s the way I communicate with my friends, the way I communicate with my family."

HRA used to send announcements about recruitment events by standard mail two weeks before an event. That long time horizon, however, meant that many employers looking to hire people faster weren’t interested in working with the agency.

Some of the businesses posting jobs openings through the TXT-2-Work program include the Barclays Center, Applebee's, the Soho Grand Hotel, and Citarella.

The feedback, Gaul said, has been good. "We did have a home healthcare agency that was really shocked and surprised we were able to send 30 people the next day when they had asked for home health aides."

TXT-2-Work was developed by Brooklyn-based Mobile Commons using a text message program that has also been used by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the 2012 Obama campaign (and WNYC).

It's available only to public benefits recipients, including 1.8 million food stamps users and three million people on Medicaid. So far, almost four thousand recipients have signed up for program. As the program is so new, HRA does not yet know how many people have found work. And because many of the jobs are short-term or part-time, the jobs may only do so much to improve people’s economic well-being.

Crystal Sampson felt positive about her second interview at the bank branch. But after several weeks passed and she hadn't received an offer, she accepted another job with the New York City Department of Sanitation. She found that position without the help of TXT-2-Work; finding a job was what mattered most.

"I'm very happy,” Sampson said. "Overwhelmed, but I’m happy"

High-Tech Tools for the 21st Century Job Search

WNYC, New York Public Radio — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In response to New York City's 9.1 percent unemployment rate, many New Yorkers are exploring new tech-based strategies to find jobs on their tablets, smartphones and even "dumb" phones.

This week on New Tech City, WNYC's Ilya Marritz reports on new service offered by New York City called TXT-2-Work. It sends text messages about job openings directly to the cell phones of New Yorkers who receive public benefits.

It's about "meeting the client right where they are, getting the info right in their pocket," said Katy Gaul, deputy commissioner for employment at the city’s Human Resources Administration. According to Gaul, the program also helps employers fill jobs fast.

Nearly 4,000 recipients have signed up for the text messages, but as the program is new, the city has yet to release numbers on how many people have found jobs as a result.

Also on this week's show, host Manoush Zomorodi tours the New York-based startup TheLadders, which recently launched a service called Scout that matches a job applicant with open positions and provides information, like current and requested salary, about the other people vying for the same job.

"We're not showing you their name or the company they work for," said TheLadders CEO Alex Douzet. "What we’ve done is show you their title, what skill sets they have."

In fact, TheLadders itself is going through a technological transformation of its own as job seekers conduct searches on the go instead of at their desks.

"Our traffic coming from mobile has doubled every year for the past couple of years," Douzet said. "Today, one out of every three persons will access TheLadders from a tablet or a smart phone. We think that by the end of this year over half of our users will come from a mobile device."